Comedian Tig Notaro on Laughing Through Grief

All I want is a believable lesbian playing me. What about me? Uh, you're too old.
Damn it.

Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.
My guest today is comedian Tig Nataro.

She's best known for her dry-witted stand-up comedy, but she's also a podcaster, actor, director, and producer for film and television, including, most recently, the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light about the spoken word poet Andrea Gibson.

The film documents Gibson's life and relationship with their wife Meg after being diagnosed with incurable cancer.

I've met Tig a number of times at a variety of events, and I've always thought she was one of the most outstanding stand-ups around and, of course, got well known after her own cancer diagnosis when she started talking about it on stage.

It also broke the ice for other comics to talk about death and grief in their sets. I wanted to talk to Tig about that legacy, how she thinks about how comedy is shifting.

She's also been amazing on The Morning Show, playing a chief of staff of a tech giant.

She's doing an absolutely perfect job as one of the most heinous people I've ever encountered in my reporting career. I also want to hear about her career moves and where she wants to go next.

Our expert question comes from Pulitzer Prize winning writer Geraldine Brooks, whom I interviewed earlier this year about her memoir, Memorial Days, which is about the sudden death of our husband.

This may sound dark, but it's actually very uplifting, especially in this time we're focusing on things to be grateful for.

You will be grateful for this interview, I think, and it's an important one to think about. Stay with us.

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Tig, thanks for coming on on. Thank you for having me on on.
We have a lot to talk about with the morning show, where comedy is.

But I want to start because my wife and I last night watched the documentary about Andrea Gibson. And for those who haven't seen the documentary and don't know about it,

Andrea was a spoken word poet.

Talk about what they were like and how the idea for the film came about. First of all, it's beautifully shot, I have to say, and very funny, actually.
Very, very funny in a lot of ways.

So talk a little bit about that.

Well,

I met Andrea probably in 2001.

Andrea was part of this

political and social activist group called Vox Feminista. And to be completely honest, they were mainly preaching to the choir.
They were in Boulder.

The name could not, they couldn't tell it from the name. Anyway, go ahead.

Yeah, it was, it was actually a totally new world for me.

But meeting Andrea backstage through Mutual Friend, I was told that Andrea was a poet. I did not run in the poetry circles.

But, you know, Andrea felt very familiar just looking at this person. And I was like, yeah,

it's like from the gay world, comedy, music, but a poet. That's interesting.
And then Andrea went on stage and just annihilated the room. Like it was such a roller coaster of

just beautiful poetry and humor and

performance. Yeah, real performance.
This was like the rock star of poetry is what I always tell people. And,

but I connected with Andrea, I think, very on a comedic level. Andrea was one of my favorite people to laugh with.

And our mutual friend, Steph Willen, and I were, when Andrea was going through everything, different friends were kind of dealing with different parts of

their life. And we were, as Steph and I were talking about Andrea's podcast and how to produce it and edit it and kind of find what the show was supposed to be.
And Steph just casually said,

I feel like Andrea's life would make a really interesting documentary right now. And I was like,

oh my God. Like, I couldn't even believe it hadn't crossed my mind.
It was so obvious. And so

I worked quickly.

And I, that day, immediately started reaching out to any and every documentarian, financier, anybody that I knew

in that space. And,

you know, the pitch was my non-binary poet friend with stage four ovarian cancer.

And so a lot of the response was like, hmm, let me think about that. Or, oh, a poet.
Okay.

And then Ryan White and Jessica Hargrave,

who I had known,

they got back to me in three days and they were just like, we're going to buy tickets to Colorado. We're going out there immediately.
Like they got it. They got Right.
Why did it strike you?

Because if you're working on a podcast, why a documentary? Why did you say, oh, yes, this has to happen? I think it was just knowing.

I mean, Steph and I had known Andrea for so many years, and we knew that this was a really dynamic person who had a really

kind of mind-bending

approach to dealing with really rough news. And

I just, there was just something in me where I just felt like this will be an incredible film if it's in the right hands. And yeah, you seem to have gotten their ethos beautifully.

And I think that was the way they were, correct? I mean, talk a little bit about what they were like.

Well, I mean,

I think the movie absolutely captured Andrea, as well as Meg Falley, who is Andrea's wife and also another poet.

And that's the thing that the filmmakers laugh about: they're like, we were so, they were so hesitant about a poet and what, you know, and then they were like, oh my gosh, there's two poets in this story.

But

yeah, Andrea was just,

I always say that

everything

was so precious to Andrea, but then also

nothing was too precious. And you could, you could talk about,

you could watch Andrea, like I said, annihilate a room to tears.

And then you could hang out afterwards and have the most inappropriate laughs. It just, there's nothing.

Nothing you can't talk about with Andrea or Meg. Nothing you can't joke about.
And that's such a sweet spot,

I think. I mean, that's what I'm desperate for in my relationships with anybody.
Yeah. Now, you said you connected on a comedic level.
Talk more about that. You're both genre-bending performers.

I would say humor on stage is dry, earnest, and also intense, but also very funny and visceral.

You look alike a little bit, too, a little bit. How would you say your personalities were similar or dissimilar?

I think,

look, I've had moments in my life when I have felt deeply tortured and confused and frustrated with

life and the world and myself.

But I feel like that's where Andrea and I were.

I think

there was more of a separation. I think Andrea had

for a long time a very deep struggle with

depression, she talked. You could

see it there after the diagnosis, which was interesting. Yeah, well, I mean, and I had cancer personally, like I went through my own cancer diagnosis, and

among other things that happened simultaneously, but it

I feel like I don't understand who I was even remotely before 2012, before my diagnosis. And that cracked me open in in a way that

it's sad that a lot of people can't get that awakening until something horrendous happens.

But I'm still human and I fall into my old ways of taking things for granted, getting frustrated by the dumbest things. And then

I can snap myself out of it in ways when I really get back in touch with what I went through. And going through

Andrea's illness and the making of this film, it opened me on a whole different level. Very, very life-changing for me and

everybody that worked on that film. I mean, even the crew.
Right. It was a very small crew, but that crew continued to fly out and visit Andrea and Meg even after the film was done.
It was

very...

a very close

group of people. But I would say, and yeah, to go back to like

a lot of people in our lives would say I was kind of the stand-up version of Andrea, and Andrea was a stand-up version of me. And even Meg the other day was like, God,

it's crazy how much you remind me of Andrea.

And

I see it and I feel it. But again, I don't think I carry that heaviness.
I don't, I don't,

but I have in moments of my love. There was a lightness, though, too, by the end, but in this documentary, because it's also heartbreaking.

They saw it before they died. Is that right? At the Sundance? Yeah.
Talk about that a little bit.

You know, Ryan Wyatt, the director, he and his producing partner, Jessica, they're best friends from childhood in Georgia. They did the Pamela Anderson documentary.

Ryan said that he didn't have any phone call or Zoom or anything before he showed up at their door. They just knew he was coming and just

was coming. And he said that the first, he said, Meg walked out, hugged them both so warmly, and Andrea walked out and said,

Hi, I'm Andrea. I guess you're going to be with me when I die.
Welcome to my home. And he just said he had never experienced anybody, any subject so open.

and uh in fact that um dinner scene the very beginning of the movie i don't know you probably remember yeah that was the first day fingering very funny fingering conversation yeah the thumbing yeah the thumbing that was the very first day it started with fingering and then went to thumbing so let's yeah then the truth came out yeah but um

but anyway so andrea thought that this film was going to end with their death but then as we were going along in the process, Ryan said,

You know, we don't need our hero to die. He said, We can wrap up this film, and it's a really beautiful story, and then we can submit it to Sundance, and then Andrea could potentially see this film.

Right. And so we did that behind Andrea and Meg's back.
We wrapped it up, put an ending, which didn't end up being the ending, but a working ending,

submitted it to Sundance without telling them just so

they wouldn't be hurt in any way if they didn't get into the festival.

And so we sent it in, and

we heard through the grapevine. It got in unanimously.

And then we were able to share the good news with Andrea and Meg. It won festival favorite.

Yes, even out of scripted films. Yeah.
It was, yeah, it was wild. Yeah, so what was interesting at the end, I was everyone you are expecting that the final moment, right?

That's what you're expecting from it, which was kind of interesting. And then I had to look it up and I was like, oh, they got to go to the film festival.
That's wonderful, right?

Because that's the death isn't really the point, is it? It was, it was the life. It's life.
Yeah, exactly. Life is the point.

And

Andrea didn't think that

they were going to make. be able to make the trip out to Sundance because at that point there was a lot of tumors in Andrea's lungs, and Andrea was struggling to breathe.

But last minute,

Meg and Andrea were able to drive out from Colorado to Sundance.

Some of the producers and my wife came out. We all got an Airbnb, and I had the most atypical Sundance experience of my life.
I had been maybe four or five times before,

and you're always expected to go to dinners and parties and events events and schmoozing. And here we were with Andrea and Meg sitting in this, we were in this Airbnb having tea by the fire.

And we would go out every now and then, me, Steph, the producer, Ryan and Jess, and we'd go to very targeted

situations, moments that we had to just introduce ourselves. And then we just got back in the car, went back to the Airbnb.
We had no vibe of how the movie was doing other than the premiere went well.

And we were like, wow, that felt so good. I mean, truly, we spent our whole weekend.
Yeah, in the Airbnb. Yeah.
In the Airbnb, having tea, laughing, and sitting by the fire. And then I go back.

I was working in Toronto and I get all of these texts and calls. And, and I was so scared that it was bad news about Andrea.
And so I called my wife and I was like, oh, God, what do I do?

I'm not, I can't do this. I can't do this.
And she said, said, you just have to, you just have to call. And I did.
I called Meg and Andrea and they were like, did you hear? And I was like, what?

I was so

far

in the direction. Yeah.
I was like ready to cry. I was just like, what? And they were like, we won Sundance.
And I was like, wait, what are you talking about?

What do you mean?

It was so confusing. So one of the things about the document was interesting is, as you said, holding attention on to poets, to lesbian poets who live in rural Colorado.

Yeah. And not massive celebrities, but Andrea was certainly,

like I said, a rock star in the poetry world. Right.
But you do have a lot of the producers, is what I was noticing.

Sarah Borelis, Brandi Carlisle, Kevin Nealon.

Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach. I was like, what is going on here? A lot of people could have been in it, right? You decided not to have that, like people talking about Andrea.

Yeah, I think

Ryan wanted to really

just be a fly on the wall in their lives. And I think it is so much more compelling.
It's that idea of show, don't tell. Right.

Um, and and we were showing people this life, and there was some talk about me being at that dinner in the very beginning of the film. And I,

I just, not that I'm the biggest, most distracting star that you could stumble upon, but I just,

I didn't want to be in, I wanted to very naturally, if it ever made sense, but I did not want to be in the movie. I wanted the attention to be on Andrea and Meg.

But then the one little moment I was okay with being in was

Andrea wanted me to open

their final show.

And so I felt like that's that's a natural moment for me to be in. Yeah.
Briefly, briefly.

And even Sarah Borelis was such an Andrea Gibson fan that she just flew out. We didn't know her personally, but she flew out to Andrea's final performances in Denver.

And

we crossed paths there. And she was just like, anything I can do for this movie.
And so that's where Sarah Borelis and Brandi Carlisle collaborated on

the final original song

in the documentary is Andrea's poem that they put to music and sang. And it's so beautiful.
It is, absolutely.

We'll be back in a minute.

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You mentioned your own cancer diagnosis. One of the big moments, of course, the film is when Andrea performs on stage for what they believe would be the last time.

You were their opening act. You're only on camera for a minute, you said.

It's hard not to be reminded a little bit of a breakthrough moment for you in 2012, as you noted when you told an unsuspecting audience that you've been diagnosed with cancer.

Let's play that clip. Good evening.
Hello.

I have cancer. How are you?

Hi, how are you? Is everybody having a good time?

I have cancer. How are you?

Ah, it's a good time.

Diagnosed with cancer.

Feels good.

Did you think about that moment during Andrea's show? Um

I actually didn't, oddly, and nobody's asked me that until just now. I mean,

I don't know. I

maybe in the deep, deep corners of my mind I did, but I think that I was

I realize now I was in deep denial when Andrea was ill because Andrea seemed so okay

and because I had heard so many stories of

people

kind of beating the odds and living longer, living 10 to 15 years. And I kept thinking, like, I think that's what's going to happen with Andrea.

And so I think there was maybe a level of disassociation in certain times where I just thought, okay, I know

we're doing supposedly Andrea's final show here. We're filming this, but I didn't believe that that was going to be Andrea's final show, even though it very unfortunately ended up being.

But the good news is we filmed the whole thing

with

multiple camera angles and have edited it as a full standalone concert

special that we're hoping to release. So

every episode, we get a question from an outside expert.

Yours is from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Geraldine Brooks, whose memoir Memorial Days is about her grief journey after the death of her husband, Tony Horowitz, who is a friend of mine also, and so is Geraldine.

Have a listen.

I'm Geraldine Brooks, and my question for you is,

when Andrea Gibson

at the end says,

I fucking loved my life,

I wonder if

with everything you've you've been through and with watching her go through what she went through, if you have any insight for the rest of us about how we can have that feeling

before it gets right to the end.

Thank you.

Great question from Geraldine. For people that don't know, her husband died suddenly on the street in Washington, D.C.
Oh, my gosh.

That's that whole thing, like we were talking in the beginning, is this movie is about life more than it's about death.

And it's about, I can't remember if Andrea said it in the movie or after, of like trying to find that joy before getting any sort of terrible

diagnosis or news. And it's hard.
It's really, really hard because there's so much noise in life. And I think one of the things, like I was saying,

how this movie changed me was

I work in Toronto and I was a full-time cast member on this new TV series. And

I was just spending half of my year in an apartment, a furnished apartment away from my wife and kids. And I was just like, this is not life.

I mean, no offense to the show. I'm still on it, but I asked to be downgraded to just a recurring guest star because I started to really

become keenly aware all over again

that

I want to be in my life and I felt like I was missing it and

I want to be present for it. I guess what I'm getting at is trying to really

curate the life that you want to live so that you can have real experiences that

it's really hard to shut down,

everybody knows this,

all of the noise of life. And do I really need to do this with my time?

Do I really want that person in my life?

Do I really need to be start to finish every day

so busy?

Like, do I, like, no, I don't. And so I think that you have to just really, and this is all new to me because I am,

after so many interviews of me lying to myself and everybody I was talking to, of like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm definitely work-life balance. I'm getting on that and I'm handling that.

Yeah, I'm, I see it in my face. And then I was like, no, I'm not.

I'm not doing that.

And I have to, I'm in charge and I have to make the changes to live my life, to actually live my life.

That's a long-winded way of saying that I think you just really have to find ways to very honestly show up and experience your life. The way you want it to live it.
You're right. Yeah.

Yeah. I was leaving a job that I just didn't like anymore.
I wasn't enjoying it. And someone, you know, I was trying to be polite and they said to me, well, why are you really leaving?

It was a very prominent job. And I said, I don't want to talk to you anymore.
I was like, there's only so many seconds and I can't talk to you. And they were like, what?

And I said, okay, I have to go now and I won't be talking to you anymore.

You wanted to know that's actually that yeah that's what it is it's you're you're wasting my time now now death time waste me essentially and that reminds me uh i i so connect with that deeply because it's different but the same when i was i was such a

i failed three grades and then dropped out of high school

and I was

in school suspension one day and I was like basically 73 years old. I was supposed to be out of school long ago.
And I'm sitting there in in-school suspension because I was tardy a million times.

I didn't turn in my school work.

So I'm sitting in there.

And when you get assigned a day of in-school suspension,

They deliver your classwork and you need to finish that. And if you don't finish that, then they just add more days to in-school suspension.

And I was sitting there going, Well, I never do my work in the first place. Why would I do it in here? I don't know who they think is going to be doing these stacks of assignments.

And I just thought, I know in my

gut, in my soul,

that this is not my world. And I got up from my desk and I just started walking to leave.
And the gym coach that was, you know,

it's always a gym coach that was assigned to like make sure that we all ended up alive by the end of the day, and that was the only contribution.

Uh, he got in front of the door, he's like, Whoa, whoa, where do you think you're going? I said, Oh, I'm heading home, and he was like, Oh, no, you're not. And I said, No,

I actually am, I quit, I'm done. I'm like, I'm just gonna head home now.
Yeah, and he was so baffled, but he had to just kind of

get out of my way and let me go. And I drew, I was like, Oh my gosh, I can do it.
I can do that. And I, you know, I,

there we go.

This is the story. Absolutely.

One of the things that was interesting with Andrea, she wrote a lot about death and grief before they were sick. And there's a line in one of her poems, Every Time I Ever Said I Wanted to Die.

And by the way, you use the poetry beautifully. And it's hard to do that, but you did it perfectly.
And it goes, sometimes grief is the fastest route to truth.

Now, you've lost your mother, your father, your stepfather, and you said that you felt grief differently than in Andrea's death, or you let yourself feel it.

Can you talk about that? Do you think having kids changed things for you? What you were just talking about? Like this, this

idea that I don't have time for this shit kind of thing. I suppose that's the headline version of it.

I don't know. You know, probably it's mixed in there that because I have kids, but I would say more so than anything,

it was so

every death. I've been at four end-of-life death or bedsides: my mother, my stepfather, my cousin, and then Andrea's.
And Andrea wanted to die at home surrounded by loved ones. And boy, did they.

And

my mother, my stepfather, my cousin all died in hospital beds. But this experience was so.

I mean, Andrea's home, Andrea and Meg, their home was filled with Andrea's closest friends and ex-girlfriends and parents. And it was really beautiful.
And it was really,

there were so

many dynamics going on that were

being navigated, having to be put aside.

And

it was

so beautiful.

I felt like I was on mushrooms for months after Andrea died because I kept saying to Stephanie, my wife, I was like, I don't even understand how I'm going to come back from Colorado, exit the 101 freeway onto Melrose, and just go back to my life in Los Angeles.

Like, I truly don't understand. Right.

And so I think that that is what changed me, as well as

Andrea,

something opened in me. I am the most like non-I don't even claim that I'm I'm spiritual.
I'm just, I'm like, right, but after this experience, I was seeing Andrea, I was feeling Andrea, I was, um,

uh, in really

ways, yeah, I didn't even recognize myself. The way I was talking, the way I was,

and also Andrea's body of work that was left behind that already echoes in my mind the way I go through life. There's so so many different lines where I'm like.

In that, the striking line, which is in the film, the poem Love Letter from the Afterlife, they wrote, I am more here than ever before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined, so close.

You look past me, just wondering where I am.

Just after they died, Andrea made a kind of cameo on the Handsome podcast that you host together with Fortune Themester and Mae Martin. Tell the story of what happened there.

It was funny and weird. And have they made more appearances?

Yeah,

it was days after Andrea died and my co-host asked how I was doing. And I was

getting into it. And I wasn't, I was just sitting like I'm sitting right now.
I didn't touch anything on my laptop. And then all of a sudden,

I heard myself doing stand-up and material I didn't even recognize. I was like, hold on, guys, do you hear that? What's happening? And

so

it felt like, okay, I'm open to

what everyone is looking at me thinking. This is Andrea saying hello.

And that is something I would have shot down before. Sure.

And one of my favorite stories on this topic is: my wife was in London filming a movie, and I flew out there with our sons and my mother-in-law. and we were all out visiting.

And the first morning we woke up,

Stephanie's at work, and I take our sons into the little village nearby to go look around.

And there is just a man standing in the middle of the village area singing at the top of his lungs,

looks like we made it

that

Shania Twain song. Yeah.

And which is a great song. And it's in the documentary as

Andrea and Meg's song. And I had just, when I left LA, I had just left Meg, who was staying with us for a screening in Los Angeles.
And we had talked about this

project we were going to work on. And let's not jump to any decisions.
Let's just sit on it. And then I flew off to London.
And then she went back to Colorado. And so I walk into town.

This guy's singing their song. And I told my sons, I was like, guys,

this is Andrea and Meg's song. And I filmed the back of their heads just watching this man sing it.
Like they understood the beautiful moment we were witnessing. So I was like, wow, that was wild.

And I sent that to Meg, and she said, oh, my gosh, I'm weeping. And the next day,

we go for high tea. Stephanie's off work.
We meet up with her and her mother, and we're all sitting at this cafe.

And this woman with this gigantic harp comes and plops it down behind us. And we're like, we kind of look at each other like, oh boy,

this is like, there's a joke. I love a harp.

I would be thrilled.

I love a harp, but this, it's like,

how is our tea going to go? You know, we have a harp that's like two stories high sitting behind us.

And so we were all just looking at each other, kind of laughing like, this is going to be a funny tea.

The first song she starts playing

was Shania Twain. Oh my god, wow, I like this village in Shania Twain.
I would, this was a different area of town. And then I'm like, I'm looking, and I said to Max and Finn, my sons, I said,

do you recognize this song? Yeah. And they said, they were, I have it on video too.
They were just dumbfounded. They said,

this is Andrea Meg's song.

And I said, yes, it is. So I tell, I send that to Meg, too, and she said, well, it looks like Andrea followed your family to London and is giving us the okay to do

our

project together. Oh, wow.
That's funny. Wow.
But it looks like we made it. Great song.
Yeah.

It is. It's a great song.
I love Shania Dwayne. I was a Chenia Dwayne.
I wonder, I know, I'm like, gosh, has she heard

that her song is in this film? I don't know. I don't know.

Well, that's a good question. I'll have to find her for you.

So, I'm going to switch. That's a wonderful story.
Let's switch gears a bit and talk about comedy in general.

The New York Times credits your Grammy nominees at Live as a turning point for talking about tragedy and stand-up comedy.

Since then, Liz Glazier, Patton Oswald, and Sarah Silverman all came out with specials about death, to name a few.

What do you think about the fact that making it okay to talk about illness and grief is part of your comic legacy? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, there was no big plan behind it.

I was a comedian that was just very observational. And every now and then there was something personal, barely, in my comedy.
And

when I went through that period of time,

I...

I not only had a cancer diagnosis, I had pneumonia and C. diff, which is an intestinal disease, very deadly.
My mother tripped and hit her head and died. And my girlfriend and I broke up.

And it was a four-month period of time where I had really seen firsthand how life

can just slip away and life as you know it and actual life. And so

I loved stand up so much and thought, I want to do this one last time.

And I just felt so compelled to share

the reality.

When I pictured walking onto Largo stage in Los Angeles, I could not imagine saying, you know, well, yeah, when I was driving today,

like whatever, whatever I was going to talk about. I just thought I have to share what I've been going through because

it was,

I didn't know if I had gone crazy. I was maniacally laughing about

different topics that I would never have found funny.

One of the things I discussed on stage was the questionnaire that the hospital sent my mother after she died, asking her how her stay in the hospital went.

And when I got that

questionnaire, I was so upset. I was so mad.
I wanted to make it my life's work to find who sent this and how to stop this. And then after I got back to LA, I was like,

oh my God, that is so funny.

And

I was crying, laughing.

That's funny. No, my God, it's so funny.
And part of my stand-up for that live album was me answering all of the questions.

You know, was your room too loud? Right. Did your nurses and doctors give you the appropriate care? Right.
And

so I just responded to all of that just so sarcastically.

But, you know, it definitely opened the side of me where I'm completely fine to share personal stories of my life and struggles. But I also am finding

a balance of, I don't have to tell you everything just because I told you that. And I like where I've landed with all of that.

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Some of the more recent, what I consider groundbreaking work, like Gerard Carmichael's Rathaniel, for example, has a really low joke count.

Talk a little bit about this evolution in comedy. I'm thinking of Mike Berbriglia, too.
Like, it's a little different.

It's more of a, I don't know what to call it. Is it comedy? Because it's very moving and funny in a way.
But do you feel a shift in comedy or not?

I mean, there is the whole bro comedy circuit, of course, that continues. Well, I was going to say, where to begin with the shift in comedy.

Yeah, I feel a massive shift, whether it is the bro comedy, very conservative comedy. You know, when I first started almost 30 years ago, it was very unusual to find a conservative

out

conservative comedian. Right.
People would all kind of reference Dennis Miller. But

yeah, I feel the shift. And

I think that when you

I think if you go to that personal place though, I mean, I think it's like anything you do though.

You have to really be behind what you're saying and not that people are being manipulated in any way with your performance and material. I mean, you want the most authentic experience possible.

And if somebody is is really going into an emotional story, you want to feel like

you're really, really getting a real

version of it.

And when you look at sort of the tech, the sort of bro comedy, and it's linked to tech bros too, which I deal with on the daily. What does the comedy world feel like right now?

Because it's all over the place. You know, I'm oddly the worst person to ask this

because

I feel like after the pandemic,

I really kind of stepped away. That's when so much of this shift started to happen.

And then when I resurfaced, it was a whole new world.

And it's still obviously changing. But

I don't know. I've been so, so removed from from the stand-up world.
I can only give you those broad strokes that you mentioned, where it's getting very personal and is also getting very broy.

Do you want to re-enter that world or do you think it's not the best use of your time?

I mean, I still do stand-up.

I'm about to start a tour in the new year.

But to go back to work-life balance, I told my agent I only want to do a weekend a month rather than these long hauls. Yeah, and I do a few shows a month in Los Angeles to kind of work out material.

And then I just go on the road. And I'm, I mean, I'm a real weirdo in that I just show up five minutes before I walk on stage and I walk on, tell everyone what I think is funny, and then I head out.

So I'm very removed. But I think I'm okay with that.
I'm 54. I've got a family I enjoy being with.
And

it's so different. I'm so different.
Yeah. A lot of people feel, though, that comedy is both under siege and critical during the time we're living in right now.

And obviously, you communicate it through the podcast that you have with May and Fortune. I'm curious what you think you're doing with that podcast.
My wife loves it, by the way.

What I'm doing with Handsome? Yeah. Like, how do you think is the best way to communicate? Because you talk a lot about political issues on that show, but also very funny stuff, sort of.

I mean, we're not deeply. No, I think just us as people, it's political.

But

before I started that podcast, I had a podcast with Cheryl Hines about documentaries.

And once

her husband ran for president, I said, I need to, this isn't really my world. And we were doing such a stupid show together, like just so silly that it just felt not.

great timing with what was happening. So I stepped away and I wanted to go towards

joy and lightness.

Like I just really, really needed that. And so that's really what I wanted to do.
And I wanted to,

yes, we have gone into some politics, but in general, it's not heavy on that side. And I wanted it to just be something that was a joyful world

LGBTQ, but not only that and not

I just wanted to be silly. You're right.
You're not political, but like this, this documentary was very political without being explicitly political.

You had the lives of two people who are not what society thinks about going through, thinks about a couple. And of course, just acting like it's just the way it is kind of thing.

And the same thing with your show, which is actually climbing the charts rather nicely. You mean handsome? Yes, handsome.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Because it's,

you know, it's not just about comedy. It's about three friends, essentially, right? Or, but it's certainly just by existing, it's political, right? It's political.

Yeah, in some ways, you know, you're also doing a lot of different things. Obviously, you're an actor with recurring roles on Star Trek and Morning Show, by the way.
May I pay you a compliment?

I have met the character you play dozens of times. Every billionaire I know has that person.

And I don't know how you friggin' nailed that, but would you mind explaining to me how you decided to play it that way?

Because the chiefs of staff are the most evil people in technology of all the technology, of all the billionaires, just so you know.

Well, I thank you. I appreciate that.

And I

honestly, it was more so that I worked with somebody that had

kind of like a parallel ranking in their world.

It wasn't tech or anything like that. And I just

applied

any sort of memory and feeling about this person that I worked with. And I was like, I'm just going to

go for it and hope, you know, they'll give me a note one way or the other.

And,

you know, I more so identify as a comedian. And so here I am on this

very hyper-traumatic show. Yeah.

And

yeah,

I was relieved that whatever I was going for seemed to.

They actually asked me about the journalism part. I'm like, no, you don't get almost any of that, right? But her, that's the one.

Well, and I have to say there's something also comforting because I don't

first and foremost identify as an actor. I have known John Hamm for years and I there's a comfort level that I have with him just as a person

that I felt like I could fall in line

with this dynamic more comfortably. Yeah, absolutely.
I have these friends from my childhood.

My, my friends from childhood, they'll reach out and they're so confused that I am acting. Believe me, I am too.

But they'll be like, I'm sitting here on my couch in Texas watching you on screen with John Hamm. And I'm like, how the hell did this happen?

So, how the hell did this happen? I have just a few more questions.

Of all the things you do career-wise right now, what would you like, speaking of controlling your life, what would you like to do more of? What would you like to do that you haven't done yet?

And if you could do one thing, which of the one things, and what would you like? No more of this. I'm done with this particular part of my life.

Well, I mean,

I remember years ago,

it was recommended that I branch out from stand-up and just try other things because sometimes comedians can just get stuck in this. Crusty.
Yeah. And

so I thought, okay,

I guess I'll try that. And I've tried.
I've tried acting, producing, writing. My wife and I have co-directed and I've directed stand-up specials.

I think that I'm not good at talking to a lot of people and dealing with a lot of people. I like to just do what I do and be done with the day.
And so

I think I'll always

do some amount of stand-up,

but I really,

really loved producing this documentary. And it was such a compartmentalized joy because obviously my friend was dying, but the process and the people involved that really

were so focused on making this about love and positivity. And there's,

you probably know this well, too, that there's always a weirdo rattling around in some sort of project.

Yeah. There wasn't in this.

And

I just love,

I mean, really basic stuff. I just love feeling good and feeling good about what I'm doing and who I'm surrounded with.
Half of the shows I work on, like TV shows,

I love connecting with people between scenes. I love it.
I love it so much. So I think anything I do, I just want to maintain the life I have.
I don't need to own the world or Hollywood.

I'm not, that doesn't drive me. I want to maintain this tremendous life that I have.
I know

people say this, but I really am putting it into action of like wanting to be surrounded by good and good people. And whatever that brings.
I get it. I can be talked into directing again.

I don't want to direct, but I just,

I'm open.

If it's a good vibe, I'm in.

So it sounds like the documentaries certainly had an impact in that way of creating documentaries. Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my gosh. It was,

it was,

and everybody that worked on it walked away with the same feeling. I mean, just even as I told you, the crew continued to fly out to rural Colorado to visit these people.
These were compelling people.

Yeah, of course. But it was like,

I sat in an Airbnb.

I wanted to just be with these people by by the fire. That's what I'm looking for.
Yeah. I want that collaboration.
Well, you're talking about collaboration.

You're talking about real collaboration as opposed to. Oh, my God.
I love collaboration so much. I love being surrounded by people that have, I guess, because I'm a failure dropout.

I'm so used to not having to do that. No, you didn't drop out.
You walked out.

Try to read.

Do not retell the story. Dropout is different than what you fucking.
Yes. I walked out.
And you said, I took control.

I walked out. I'll see you later.
Goodbye. Yes.
Yes. By the way, I heard you called me a power lesbian on your handsome show, according to my wife.

Yes. This is absolutely.

It's true. It's absolutely.
It's a hundred fucking. I'm a power person.
I would say we can go beyond lesbian, but lesbian is good because it scares white men.

So

you and your wife, as Stephanie, are creative collaborators. I heard you were working on an all-lesbian action film.

Can you explain this to me?

The writer-director, Zach Snyder,

he was making this movie called Army of the Dead, and one of his actors got in trouble for sexual assault, harassment, all of that.

And then he said he was sitting in the editing bay and he was like, I can't release this movie with this guy now.

And he had already finished editing it. And then he called me.
He erased that guy, that actor, and then had me shoot an entire action film alone on a green screen.

And I was thinking, this is a massive international cast. I'm sure I'm just going to be this small role that nobody's going to notice me.
That's my self-esteem there.

But also, people were so kind of classically hot. And anyway, so we finished the movie.
It goes out.

And then I go viral for being sexy in this film. Okay.

And it was so

unexpected. I was like, wait, are my phones exploding? Right.
I don't know. I'm not walking around going, oh my God, you know, check me out.

And so my phone's exploding.

I was so confused. And then,

yeah. And so I.

I called Zach and I said,

I'm hearing it from straight men, gay men, gay women, and straight women that they think I'm hot in this movie.

What if

we just went for it and everyone's a hot lesbian? Yeah. And just

I love it. Yeah.
And he was like, oh my God.

Yes. Let's make that movie.
And so

who knows?

It's a Hollywood project. We're in the process of putting the script together.

I mean, listen,

picture this poster. Okay.

We have the name of the film. Yeah.
And then it says, hot lesbian action. Come on.

That's how I see him on this. Everybody, everybody.
Who wouldn't like it?

You know what? Who? Come on.

I don't know what else to say. I think it sells itself.
It does. Absolutely.
It would sell.

Everybody would go see the movie with Hot Lesbian Action.

Yes. Yeah.
I like it. I'm sold.
I'm there.

Do you have a name for the film?

Hot Lesbian Action. Right now.

Well, no, as of now,

the movie is called Deviance. It takes place back

in some old-timey days. Right.
Some

closeted deviance. Great.
I don't know. I think we'll just have to end on that because we were talking about grief and this is about joy.
I think that's a fantastic idea. I think it's an amazing idea.

Thank you. They're making the TV show of

my book, Burn Book.

And they said, what do you you need for this? The production company. And I said, all I want is a believable lesbian playing me.
That's all I have to do. It's a believable lesbian.
Hopefully.

You're too old. You're too old.

I'm old. It has to be a 30-year-old.
It has to be someone who's 30. He's just getting.
I'll dye my hair. Yeah.
Yeah. You will? No, you're too old.
I'm too old. Like all these people are too old.

We need a 30-year-old. I'm too old to play you.
I am too old to play me, so I can't do it. Anyway, this has been a delight.
Thank you so much.

Come see me in The Good Light Light is streaming on Apple TV and showing its like theaters. I cannot recommend it enough.
It is heartfelt, joyful, and

sad, but also incredibly funny, which is the best part of it. Well, thank you so much for having me.

Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Roussel, Kateri Yoakum, Michelle Aloy, Megan Burney, and Kaylin Lynch. Nishat Kirwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts.

Special thanks to Catherine Barner and Eamon Whalen. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan.
And our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following this show, you can't wait for hot lesbian action. If not, a harpist is not playing your song.

Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow.

Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us.

We'll be back on Thursday with more.

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