Your Happy Hour - Falling into it...

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

In this episode, we chat to producer and comedian Safia Benyahia who shared her unexpected journey into comedy, the challenges of navigating the arts industry, the importance of being honest with oneself and others in allowing authentic art to surface and to navigate the barriers women face in comedy and reminded us of the dire need for more diverse voices in the arts space, the necessity of creative expression as humans and that trusting one's instincts is the way to a more truthful and aligned life.The Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday feels and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine and it's amazing to have you here. Joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well, whatever it is, this moment is just for you. welcome back to another episode of the feels podcast your happy hour and a really big welcome to Safia is joining me today in the space it's the end of the theme that we're talking about in

February called How to Honest It Up and I thought it would be perfect to have you on here and I'm wonderful that we could make it work so a really really big welcome to the podcast and to the feel space Thank you. Thank you for having me. I didn't even know about the theme. Honest it up, you said? How to honest it up. So, yeah, I think it's a great theme for you because being a comedian, you know, you speak quite directly and truthfully. So it's, yeah. But so how to honest it up? We've been talking about this theme for this whole month. And it's been really cool to dig into how we are sometimes truthful. or how difficult it is to be truthful with ourselves. And, yeah, also with others in our lives, you know. So it's been a really great and really, like, important theme to unpack, I think.

We all struggle with that a lot. I know I do. So, yeah, but maybe you want to just first give our audience a little bit of a background of who you are, why are you living in Paris. It's been so delightful to meet you here and get to know you. And also, for the audience out there, Safia, was. our host at a premier party very recently, which we'll share more about in the future, a different venture. But it's just been so wonderful to get to know you. So I'd love for the audience too as well.

Sure. I mean, my name is Safia. While I'm in Paris, I don't really know. I mean, I was born here. So I feel at home here, but neither of my parents are from here. So I wasn't really raised in French culture at home. I lived here as a kid. And then I went to, I was a, in French school, so I was definitely raised in French culture at school. And then I think long story short is, because my American side's from California, my dad's back in Algeria, so my family's not even here. I think long story short is that it was too expensive to live in San Francisco when I was 25. I was like, I'd rather get a half a shoebox to myself in Paris. And today, I think I'd be better off in San Francisco, not politically, but like economically,

but I prefer to just, you know, count how much I'm going to eat at the end of everyone. I don't know. Sorry, not that said. No, it's a little hard once you've been here a long time. I have friends. I have friends. I have my circle, my activity, my job, a boyfriend. It's not like you can just pick up and go.

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And how did you get to be a comedian? And how did this like journey? Oh my God. A total accident in my case. I have a very unusual story. I think everybody has a unique story, I guess.

But I don't know anybody else at least who can say that the first time they did stand-up comedy was at work in front of their boss. Yeah, that was my story. I was working in student life at a university. And I had a student who I was working with him because he was part of like the student governing body and he was doing stand-up comedy and I worked with the theater kids. And he, one day he said to me, he said, well, I have an idea for an event that we can do during this week. It was like a fundraising week. He said, I want to call it stand-up against cancer. He was a cancer survivor. I think I can share all this because I'm not sharing his name.

And so he decided to do this stand-up event and was like, I'm going to perform for max 40 minutes because that's all he could, you know, that's already a long time in comedy. And then to make it complete, I'm going to invite other people to come in and then they can roast me. Like, I'll make fun of the school and then you guys can make fun of me. And I was like, wait a minute. It's a very formal setting. I'm in my office. And I'm like, I'm like, wait, so you're saying that we can like pay to go make fun of you? And I'm saying, like, you don't have a degree in theater, right? Like, I'm not afraid to get up on stage. I've been working with you for two years. I think I can come up with some material. And, uh, and I did. I did about eight minutes.

Back in the day, I think it was put on like the social media live. And then the next day I had students walking up to me like, yo, I saw your video. That was hilarious. And my boss took the liberty of giving me my feedback on my comedy the next day. I didn't know I could do it. I had no idea. I never thought of myself as a particularly funny person. I did not know I could make a room laugh with in that format.

I had always heard about stand-up, but I always had very, very few examples of stand-up. I could probably name one woman in comedy. Only one. I'd never been to a live show. So, yeah, it was a complete accident for me. I love that story. That's amazing. And it feels like, you know, I really believe the universe, like, nudges you where you need to go in life.

It feels a bit like that. But you do have a background in theater, like you mentioned. I do, yeah. That kind of what you always wanted to do, or what did you expect your life to be? look like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny because sometimes I'm having these moments of like life is hard.

And then I'm like, well, in a way, it's more or less what I imagined. Because, yes, I do have a theater degree. I always wanted to be in this creative world. I was, I never sought fame. I never sought a career as an actress. My goal was always more to, I think in an ideal situation, I would just direct. So I like to direct. I like to write.

I like to create behind this. I like to produce, create behind the scenes. So I always imagined myself running a theater company or teaching, like running a school program where I would be putting on the shows. And I feel like I'm somewhat doing it. Like, I'm not really making a living, but I'm doing it. So I guess I can be proud of that. Yeah, and obviously I'm not foreign to the stage.

I mean, you don't end up wanting to be a theater director without having ever been on stage. But I certainly haven't been actively working my acting. muscles or I never even even when I went to theater school I never actively pursued an acting career yeah it's it's a tough gig I mean I think just the whole arts industry is really really difficult and yeah I mean that that's sort of being honest now about that is it's like it's a very really hard to be in media and art and I think Paris is a great spot for that I mean I'm also noticing that more and more but yeah I know you also have the cool productions

K-U-H-L for everyone wants to go check it out. And so you are putting yourself out there, but also other artists that you are kind of producing and the shows. So, yeah, what is that about? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I feel like I'm still doing a little bit of soul-searching, but I technically do have a theater company. My biggest problem with getting some theater stuff going is money.

So if anybody wants to donate, if there happens to be a millionaire, billionaire listening, we could use this. They don't even know who I am on my project, but it is cool K-U-H-L-Productions.org, wink. We are, that's the biggest barrier of entry, sadly, for theater. It's kind of like you really need money to make things. So because I've been feeling so limited by that barrier,

think I've been spending more and more time doing stand-up because even if you don't make money doing stand-up, you don't lose money because it doesn't really cost much. Like there's at least, there are ways to do it without taking financial risks. So I think it's also one of the reasons where we're seeing a bigger boom in stand-up comedy is that sadly, theater has become less and less accessible. And even though people are still doing theater, especially in Paris, you can find theater everywhere. If you go to a theater in Paris, you're going to, it starts to feel like a little bit of an echo chamber of the same types of people who have access to it. I see. And I find that, and there's some great stuff going on. So, you know, there's some great theater you can find in Paris.

There's some great. But I think in America, in England, in London, if I'm thinking New York, London, Paris, you know, some big Western European cities, you're going to find the same problem is that the barrier of entry is so high that the types of people who end up getting involved and building a careers are usually people who come from family or who have the means to take a risk to do that or who, you know, maybe sometimes the money comes from a spouse too, so that doesn't necessarily say much from their background. But in order to pursue it, the types of people who do that, they're usually white. They usually come from a more upper middle class. And I find that, and so then you kind of have similar perspectives. Like you start to go into like an echo chamber

that doesn't resonate with the public anymore. So I feel like we're in this. moment in time where theater's dying and stand-up is booming and oh my god i totally got off tangent no you're very much on point and i love that you're actually talking about this because i think this is a really honest conversation about something's really hard out there and one of the questions i wanted to ask you was kind of like when you were walking this journey i mean they obviously were times where it's been really challenging financially but also just looking at everything and going like how do i navigate this how has that been for you like having to be honest with yourself and being honest with the industry.

And, yeah, how do you navigate that on a daily basis? I don't know. I mean, sometimes I have my moments where I'm like, am I trying hard enough? Like, I think sometimes I see people around. I have examples of people around me who are doing it. And well, my boyfriend's a perfect example. He's an actor. He doesn't come from a wealthy background at all.

And he's making it happen. I have some of my friends from college who do not come from wealthy backgrounds either. And they just, they hustled. And so sometimes. I guess there are times when I question my own life decisions and my own priorities. But then I also think there's a big difference between needing to find money to put on a play and needing enough money to survive. And so it's just very, then I'm like, well, actually, I'm just comparing different things

because my friends who are hustling to, you know, to be actors and to, and, you know, who are like maybe assistants on projects or, you know, had, did all that work in order. to, you know, get the scholarship that then got them a directing gig to, they're not trying to do what I'm doing, which is producing. So going to find the money as a producer and finding the money for production, that's not finding, like, I'm not looking for money to feed myself. Yeah. I'm looking, well, that too, but like, I have, I can, I can, I have other skills and other ways of feeding myself other outside of theater. So it's more about, well, but that's also not going to be enough to fund a 20,000-year-old production.

production, right? So how do I put, you know, reconcile those? And then I think to some extent, I'm just like, okay, I guess I just have to own my choices. Like, I'm a little bit all or nothing about it. I'm like, if I'm going to spend six months or three months on a theater production, I want it to be done well, I want it to be a play I'm really passionate about. If I don't have the resources, some periods are like, well, go do a 500-year-old play. And I'm like, well, those plays don't necessarily interest me. Or for the amount of time. So I guess stand-up has just been like my, honestly, I just kind of fell into it. I've been using it as like my creative outlet whenever theater is closed to me.

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense a lot. And I mean, it's really difficult to produce stuff. It's really, really hard. And I think that's wonderful that you can embrace what you really want to do because I think a lot of people, like you say, will just do whatever is there and available or scenes like the easiest thing. So it's great that you being authentic about it and your journey.

Oh, I'm not there yet, though. Yeah. It seems like you're on your way there, so we're going to celebrate that today. And so when you're actually doing comedy, so this is another question I wanted to ask you, because comedy is so honest, and you talk about real life stuff that you see around you. Yeah, what does that feel like when you're on stage and you're kind of watching people's reactions and you might see like someone's like, oh, that was me in that situation. Yeah, I mean, you're talking really honestly about things. About myself, you mean the things that I'm sharing? Yeah, it just depends, I guess, on your set.

But what does your set mostly about? I mean, I talk about different topics. I try to, I think the one rule I have for myself or the one guideline is I make sure that I don't talk about. I limit myself on how much I want to talk about dating. I want to talk about dating. I think dating, it's a common topic and it will always be a common topic because romantic connection is one of the most intense experiences we go through in our lives. It's something that will always come up in literature, in theater, in movies, in stand-up, too. It's something we

will always talk about because it's so intense, and it's so unpredictable, and there's no rulebook for it. There's no solution. So it's one of the most human, and as arts, we explore complex human topics, right? So dating is really something that will natural, really come, especially when I also started stand-up right after a broken-off engagement. I had like, so it's very common. I see a lot of stand-up comedians who start right after, like a divorce, right after a big breakup, right? It's quite common that there's like this like inciting incident a little bit right before

we get into it. But I limit myself on how much I want to talk about dating because I, I just fundamentally think that, especially if I'm the only woman on a lineup, I don't want to be talking about men the whole time. And I don't think that. that because I'm a woman in comedy, I should only be talking about women's experiences. I want to talk about women's experiences because the stand-up comedians who've done that have done so much. It's been very brave and they've been trailblazers to help us, you know,

deconstruct taboos and normalize things that women go through. We need women and comedy to continue to do that. But I also think it's dangerous for women and for the industry, for women to fall into that mold. My goal is I want to be able to talk about any other political topic that men talk about and be just as funny about a topic that is not about being a woman. So that's the one guideline I kind of set on myself. So I tend to have, so I will allow myself to talk about dating. I will allow myself to talk about anything that just comes up about being a woman.

But I do like a hard stop on how I transition in my set. And the other stuff I talk about, I'm not super political or observational, but I do a lot on culture. You know, my dad's Algerian. There are a lot of Algerians in France. A lot of male comics in France are Algerian. I don't meet a lot of women, a lot of Arab women in general. I think a lot of, I think in any women, any male dominated field, I don't know if you've noticed this. This is really, but really you will notice the women who do stand up. They're all white. Mostly white. Like, there's a huge discrepancy. The men who do stand-up comedy, going to see a lot of color. And when you look at the women who do comedy, you're going to see a

majority of white women. And it's because in any, my theory, this is my theory, I think in any field where women are underrepresented, you, where it's more difficult to be a woman and where it's more difficult to go, white women, generally speaking, have more privilege and more risks to take. So they're in a better, they're more able to just jump in in the first place. So they're not funnier, obviously, than women of color. It's just so the woman of color, it's just that a woman of color is less likely to have the opportunity and social resources and support to take the risk of what it means to go up there and talk about sex and talk about anything like that. A white woman has much more privilege and freedom, generally speaking, and that's why they end up

kind of being trailblazers a little bit. I think people criticize that in feminist movements, but I think it will, unfortunately, for as long as white women have more privilege, they're going a kind of trailblazed because they have more to lose. Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. And I actually, I've mentioned in one of the previous episodes, but I went to Soho House to an event and it was all about, it was like a panel podcast, live podcast panel interview. And it was these black women talking about being in film as a black woman in France and how hard that is.

Because a lot of the funding goes to the things that most of the majority of the population will watch, which is not really actually the population. You know, it's just the way it's been, I guess, conditioned over time. And so I found it so fascinating and I found it so brave to kind of host that space. And yeah, I feel like we need more of these conversations because, you know, why? Why is this happening? And it's really, I mean, I don't really see color much, but, you know, you notice it in the things you see on Netflix or Amazon and whatever it is.

So, yeah. Well, we need to talk about it. We need to see it. And I think, I guess it's why I felt like I had to point that out. out in a way too because, and I'm weird, I'm Algerian, but I'm also white, so I kind of am this weird, like, I don't know what box to go in because it's like my skin is white, but I'm also ethnic, I guess, just like those, those nuances. So, but I feel like there's a responsibility, I think, if it's like, oh, like you said, the barrier of entry is higher for so many reasons for women of color. So just

pointing it out and starting the conversation and being conscious about it is a first step that we can take because otherwise it's like what I was saying about theater also being like people from a similar background everywhere because then that that perspective gets narrowed but how did I even I forgot how I even ended up doing that parentheses oh yeah I guess just because I was saying that the that we have a lot of Algerian men who talk about who make jokes about that and I want to be like well just because I'm a woman I want to be just as funny as them doing jokes about Algeria so that's usually more what I what I talk about yeah that makes sense that makes sense and I'm glad we went on the tangent.

And so what have you got lined up going forward? What can we kind of celebrate with you as the feels in the next year? Oof, I mean, I applied for a grant for play that if I get it would be probably around November. But there's really, I can't bank on it. It's really difficult to get the first grant because it's kind of like projects that get grants, get another one. and then I am interested in doing stuff in English. I think I'm just a little, I think I'm, first of all, I'm slightly more comfortable in English,

and I think it's a bit, I find it just quite surprising, actually, how you can be in Paris. It's such an international city, and you can engage with visual arts. You can go to museums. You can go to any exposition as an English speaker, as a tourist, and you can engage with that, but performing arts, I mean, you can go to the opera,

You know, you can go to Opera and the opera is typically not in French anyways. I mean, unless you're seeing Carmen, like, you know, so you can go to the opera. You can maybe go to a concert and you can go to a symphony, but you can't act. But the theater is completely inaccessible. There's so much theater in Paris, but it's really inaccessible to international communities. And I feel like as an international city, I'm a bit like, well, why not do it in English? If there's an English author and an English-speaking play, something that I want to do here, I think there's something interesting about engaging with international artists

because theater also takes from other cultures, right? So I haven't fully developed it yet. I just know that if I want to do a play in English, I'm certainly not going to hold back. If I want to do a play in French, obviously, I can do that too. So yeah, and then the stand-up I've been finding this interesting space in English too. I perform in French. I have no desire to produce in French because I feel like there's just enough going on. I feel like there's like a new comedy club every year.

The market's getting a bit saturated. But English is a little underdeveloped still. So right now we have an open mic show once a month. I do it once a month, which is, it's good engagement. I might even do it every week, but because it's the show that's open to everybody, I don't, you know, no one's getting paid. I've been kind of going slowly. And then I have a weekly show that I'm going to pick up again in March,

starting on Wednesdays, I think. I'm starting again slow, which is why we're going to start on Wednesdays in a smaller room. but it's a nice cozy room that I have performed at before, and it's really fun at Best T. Oh, amazing. Okay, well, I'll definitely be there. I'd love to come and watch you and support. And I agree with you about English theatre. It's kind of been in my mind a lot, too, because there's a huge expat community, and I see it growing and growing more and more in Paris, and I think there's a huge demand for that, too, you know, and I don't know why I've had this idea of doing sound of music, just the sound of music's been in my mind.

You know, I'm a singer, so I love that. I was like, well, come on I do sound of music in Paris? You know, should I do it in English? I don't know. But I think it's really great. And so if you need any good feels for that and vibes and help, we're here to support with that and really, really awesome what you're doing. And I love that you're following your heart.

I think it's really brave. Arts isn't easy, but it's kind of, if it's your nudge, then, you know. Yeah. It's a bit of a curse sometimes, too, honestly. Like, I feel like when you're creative, you have, you need a creative outlet the way an athlete needs to run, you know, or I mean, I'm saying run, like, needs to just, you know, sport. Like, like, if you talk to a professional athlete or you talk to anybody who's just athletic, it's like, it's part of their nature. Like, if they don't get out, if they don't work out, they don't do anything, they go, they go nuts. And I personally don't need it. I can stay at home for two or three days and not move.

It's not going to do anything to me. It's not, probably not very good for me. But I've never been particularly athletic. But this creativity, I think people, people always, people, I feel like people see creativity as a luxury when actually I, I think creativity is a deep human need for a lot of people. Not everybody. And that can feel like a curse sometimes because you're like, I need to get this out. I have this weird addiction to talk about my trauma to strangers. And I don't know why I can't stop.

Well, it makes all of us feel less alone in the world, so don't stop, please. No, I completely agree. And I always say that I believe we're all creative souls, and we're all kind of just these divine beings having a human experience. And so we have to channel the creator and the creativity in some way. And if you are more artistic, you know, that's even like enhanced for you. You have to at least channel them into something. And it's quite amazing when you get to see it be in the world then, you know.

So I appreciate that a lot. And on that, I do want to have a quick plug into just saying thank you to the creators of this platform and our distributors to being able to partner with them. RSS.com who is our distribution platform and makes us have a space that we can put this out into the world and have it on Spotify, Amazon, Apple, YouTube, wherever you're looking. It's there. And then also to a company called Blender Bombs, Bomb Company, who they are in the US and they have these nutritious snacks. So if you maybe need like a quick nutritious snack for your stand-up comedy, I really highly recommend and they have these little balls, you know, they're really delicious. And they gave us a 20% discount for our audience, so please DMS for the code. And then lastly, we've partnered with BNE Sim, which is the best network ever Sim.

I've been using them on my travels, I think it's great. And they've also given us a discount to pass on to our community. So thank you to all these partners for making it possible. And then I quickly want to move into a small segment. We'd have this thing called the PPS, person, place and space, which we feel have the feels, and each week we pick a different one. And this week it goes to, it's not really an organization or space. It's kind of a group of ladies and men joining now too,

but good friends who were on the studio show, the production that you know about. and they started a poetry evening once a month now. And it's mostly for kind of Balkan, Russian and Ukrainian voices, but also international poetry. And I was really privileged to read my poem there last week. And just being able to share in Afrikaans was wonderful. And I just really love what they're doing and kind of opening up this art space for internationals in Paris to feel at home.

So a really big shout out to Vère Libre, which means towards freedom and to those ladies we love your fields and then our second last segment is something I want to ask you as well is we do something called the gems which is basically what in this week did you feel like you learned or maybe you felt like you had gratitude for something in your life

so I'll start I think what I really felt this week was you know sometimes you go through these like lulls, we were talking about this earlier, like these really deep kind of dark spaces that you feel like, what am I doing with my life? You know, what is coming next? And then you follow a little yes, and that little yes takes you to another space, and that space takes you to the bigger yes where you really wanted to go to. So this week, it was kind of really just for me, apparent that I needed to follow the little nudges to be able to get to the bigger things and hold faith, which is not always

so easy to do. But that was really a gem for me. And it's, it's, it's, it's an ongoing one so yeah and for you uh something i learned i guess honestly this was like a bit of a tough week but i think something i learned this week i ended up you know kind of shifting things around with the planning of the show and it was just a good reminder like i i guess i just did a better job than i did before at listening to my gut feeling uh something i've been working on like i really feel like when i'm producing events and shows i i promise you whenever I feel like I have a really good energy and flow with the team, everything kind of just lines up. And whenever I feel like I'm not listening to myself, I have like this little voice in

my head about like, there's something about this person I don't really like, but I want to be inclusive, so I include them. And then there's like some weird, like something, there's like some weird dissonergy, I don't know how to say it, something. And then I'm just like, oh, in the process, I'm just like, I might feel a bit stressed when I respect. you have a text message or a bit like from you know and then I feel like there's like this weird it's like it throws me off and I feel a little misaligned and then I promised you I get fewer people who come and so I think this week it was just a little bit of a I just I trusted my gut on something in a way that I didn't in in previous times I guess it's progress I'm just

I guess I'm just thinking that's something I learned and that I'm going to plan to continue doing I love that yeah I think trusting your regard as like the most basic human thing that we should be doing but we don't do it very often strangely enough you know so that's wonderful that you that you did yeah we justify we're like there's no evidence for this to be wrong so we ignore it yeah it's been taught to think in like this like fact-based data-driven you know and and you know there's this like guilt right of like saying no to somebody or rescheduling something or speaking up about something that you don't like so that's why we ignore our gut.

We want to keep harmony and we just and we use facts to kind of justify why we should ignore our gut. And it's so easy to do. But I'm just getting better at listening to it, I guess. Yeah. I love that. And for everyone else listening out there, I want to encourage you, listen to your gut this week. And I wonder what you're feeling about being honest with yourself, about being honest with other people. And as we kind of close out this theme, you know, we're going into next month.

we're talking about our human hardware rather yours and ours everyone's which is also a really interesting topic as we kind of explore but deeper what it is to be human and in these vessels of the body so before we do end off I have one more question for you and that is what is on your reading list so we have a segment called the stack and I want to ask you what is in your stack and so maybe that's a book that you've read and want to recommend or maybe that's a book that you still want to read that's kind of sitting there waiting? Yeah, so I have, I guess I have two just like assignments. One, I'm reading my friend's book that just came out.

So it's cool that I'm just like, oh, my friend's an author, that's been honest. And I helped him with his book lounge and I started the book, but I did finish. I do recommend it, though. It's an easy read. It's called Generation Desperation, How I Made and Lost a Million Dollars. There's a little trading bit in there that even I'm not following, but it's really interesting about our psychology around money and also the millennial economic crisis that we're kind of all going through at Gen Z's also feeling it. I think it's just millennial. We're the ones

providing that evidence first, I guess. And then the second one is my boyfriend has been really bugging me to read The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. I forgot. Oh yeah, because my friend's name, Alexander Hurst, author, important. I don't even remember who wrote The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, but it is quite a famous book, I believe, and it's very self-help vibes. So maybe good for this audience. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for recommending those. Yeah, both of them actually sound amazing, and I'd love to add them to my stack too.

But for anyone listening, the books that I recommend on the podcast are also on the website. So you can always go check out the recommendations and then buy them from their via the various platforms. So thank you so much for coming on today and just sharing so openly, so honestly, and talking about all these pertinent things. And I just want to say thanks for sharing your light throughout with the world. I know it's not always easy, but it's amazing that you are. Thank you. Thank you.

I hope I didn't go on too many tangents. Really fast, but thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. We love any tangent. If you haven't just yet, follow Friday Fields on Instagram. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn, you can share with us all your fields this week by tagging us at Friday fields.com. And you can also find the website at that handle. And now as you ease into this weekend, take a moment. Celebrate who you've become, what you've overcome and what is yet to come

as you do the crazy and cool things that you do. As the author of then take you. You know the truth about life and work is that it's hard, but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in while we earn it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week. And of course, keep it raw and real. Until next time.