Natasha
Leggero
February 4, 2014
"I think you start to move out of the realm of comedy if you're really aware that everyone's suffering and you want to help everybody. Obviously you could do political humour. And I'm always interested in political undertones but comedy is just a place to make people laugh and present ideas that can make people laugh." – Natasha Leggero
Natasha Leggero: Hi, this is
Natasha.
Guy MacPherson: Hello, Natasha, this is Guy
in Vancouver.
NL: I can tell
you're from Canada because you say Na-TASH-a.
GM: I'm sorry.
NL: That's okay. No problem.
I like it.
GM: Na-TOSH-a. Is that better?
NL: That's how they say it,
yeah.
GM: Na-Tosh-a. Spell it with an O
then!
NL: (laughs)
GM: How are you?
NL: I'm good.
GM: You've been here to the
festival before, right?
NL: Is this the proper
Vancouver festival?
GM: Well, you know what they do
here? They always change the name.
NL: Why do they do that?!
GM: I think it has to do with
sponsorship. And some different people are involved in running it this year.
NL: Oh, interesting. Yes,
I've been there the first year it was around.
GM: I remember seeing you at Tom
Lee Music Hall, I think. I can't even remember what year that was. You weren't
as known as you are now, but I remembered you.
NL: Well, I hope I've made
some progress in eleven years.
GM: (laughs) Has it been
eleven years?! Well then yes, you have. Do you tour much?
NL: I tour when I can, yeah.
It's a little sporadic. But yeah, I've been touring. I always have my dates on
my website. I've been doing some stuff in town, some acting work, so I had to
be in town for that. That's what's great about being a comedian; you don't have
to go on a proper tour, like a musician does where you gotta pack up the band
and book cities next to each other and go on a bus and go on for six months.
With comedy, you really can kind of go on the weekends.
GM: Some comics are just
constantly on the road but I know you are an actor, too. It's nice that you're
able to work around that.
NL: Yup.
GM: I know you were a child
actor. Is acting your first love?
NL: Um, yeah, I guess. It
was definitely my first instincts as a performer or creative person, was to
act. I didn't really know about comedy then but my mother just got me into some
acting class as a child; after-school program. And the theatre in my hometown,
which was a regional theatre, needed a child to be in all these different
plays, so they remembered me from my, I think it was my Catholic school
uniform, and they remembered this girl who had this Catholic school uniform, so
they called all the Catholic schools and found me. And I became a part of their
theatre company from ages like 10 to 17.
GM: You just took to it.
NL: Everyone's always like,
'How do you do standup? It's the hardest job in the world!' I mean, if you need
that much attention, this is not a hard job. (laughs)
GM: And you need that much
attention?
NL: Well, I think with
standups in general there is something that is driving them to go out night
after night by themselves on stage, especially in the beginning when there's a
high probability that it's not going to go well. And to keep doing that over
and over and over again, sometimes a couple times a night for a decade – at
least three of those years are probably not going great.
GM: Did the early years for you
not go great?
NL: Well, I was actually
pretty good from the beginning! (laughs) I mean, my first time
on stage it was like still the best performance I've ever had. I don't know
what happened; I just wasn't expecting people to laugh. So when they laughed, I
couldn't even believe the feeling. I was also on an Ambien and had some wine so
probably it was drug-induced! (laughs) But I just remember the
laughter feeling like these waves rushing over me. It was kind of an
out-of-body experience. The second time on stage, it was a terrible bomb.
GM: That's not uncommon to hear.
NL: Right. The thing about
standup is that they say it takes ten years, and it definitely does take ten
years, I think, but different people have different things they need to work
on. Some people are just natural writers, and then they've got to work on their
stage presence for eight years; some people it's just very easy for them to be
on stage but they have to learn how to write a joke or learn how to connect
with the crowd. There's just so much to learn. It's an art form. It's cool to
be able to be a part of it and to have that opportunity to learn all that there
is to learn about it.
GM: You being a performer prior
to being a standup, albeit in a different way, was the area you needed to work
on the joke-writing?
NL: I think just also me believing
I could be funny and that just my own experiences of things and relaying them
to be enough and just finding a way to be natural and be yourself. That's
another issue. I think I got very lucky because I hadn't seen any comedians. I
knew who, like, Rodney Dangerfield was. But I wasn't looking at my peers and
seeing how great all these people were, especially the women, or else I would
have probably been too afraid to perform. I would have been comparing myself to
them.
"I think that your stage persona finds you, if you keep at it long enough. And if you're lucky, it can present itself to you as your evil twin." – Natasha Leggero
GM: When did you develop your persona
of the sort of snooty, vapid, rich girl type?
NL: I mean I guess that's
just who I am. (laughs) I think that your stage persona finds
you, if you keep at it long enough. And if you're lucky, it can present itself
to you as your evil twin. So it's definitely a part of you, and it's a part of
you that you want to unleash and the part of you that you want to react to
society, but it's not exactly you.
GM: I can tell talking to you
that you're not the Tubbin' With Tash character or when you did the fake CNN
interview about diamonds. That sort of character who looks down on people and
doesn't really get that other people might be struggling.
NL: I think you start to
move out of the realm of comedy if you're really aware that everyone's
suffering and you want to help everybody. Obviously you could do political
humour. And I'm always interested in political undertones but comedy is just a
place to make people laugh and present ideas that can make people laugh.
GM: What interests me is you got
your BA in Theatre Criticism.
NL: Is that what interests
you?
GM: It does, being a critic
myself and not getting a BA in it.
NL: It was one of those
things where I wanted to get my degree. I went to acting conservatory in New
York and my mother really wanted me to get a proper degree so I went to Hunter
College. They didn't really offer anything much in theatre except criticism. So
I started taking the courses and I ended up really liking it. I would go to the
theatre and I would write critiques, sometimes scathing critiques, of things
and I actually was awarded for it and the teachers really liked what I was
doing. It was the first time I was getting praised for a scholarly thing. And
also I think it really helped sharpen my critical mind. So when I moved to L.A.
I kind of already honed that skill of criticism. So I just instead of directing
it to Broadway, I directed it towards TLC.
GM: What are your thoughts on
critics in general, having studied it yourself?
NL: I used to ask my
teacher, I said it seems so mean to say all these mean things about people if I
don't like what they’re doing. And he would always come back pretty
relentlessly saying you should distrust those feelings and just go for
it! (laughs) So I don't know. At the time it wasn't the
clearest advice. But I'm sure that at the beginning of modern art, all of the
artists who were part of a movement, were very critical of each other. I think
it's how you get better.
GM: I think most people use the
word 'criticism' as automatically negative when the intent might be
constructive criticism or looking at something objectively or dispassionately.
NL: Right, but then also
criticism as an art. Look at old Dorothy Parker play reviews. She's clearly
scathing and also making jokes at the expense of how she feels people failed.
So that in itself is entertainment. So then what? She shouldn't entertain
because she doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings? I just think it goes
against art. But that being said, though, one thing I try to do is have the
target at least be... what's the word I'm looking for?... It's hard to make fun
of someone when they can't do anything about it. But if someone can do
something about something, I think you have more range to criticize.
GM: Like if it's a choice they've
made.
NL: Right. Like due targets.
Deserving targets.
GM: Everybody's a critic these
days. Everyone has a blog, everybody's online.
NL: Not only that,
everyone's published! I was thinking about that today because you read about
young writers in the '50s and '60s and they had all their rejection letters
sent to them. Now it's like just to be published, all you have to do is just
log in to your internet. I was watching CNN last night and while the experts
are talking, while the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair is
trying to make a point, there's a Twitter feed coming on underneath him. I
don't care what your Aunt Cathy has to say about Woody Allen's escapades.
They're not an expert. Whatever they have to say is undoubtedly sentimental,
not that learned, and just simple and small-minded. I'd rather listen to the
man who's the editor of Vanity Fair.
GM: Any time they say, 'Tell us
what you think,' I just change the channel. I don't care what the people think.
NL: They don't even say that
anymore. Now there's just a constant feed coming up underneath the people. I
think that's going to be the norm and I think TV is going to become like that
as well – everyone's going to be commenting and chiming in while we're trying
to take in whatever it is.
GM: It really pulls focus. You
can't read something, process it, and give your full attention to what the
person's saying at the same time. You'll miss parts.
NL: Yup.
GM: They did that last season
on The Bachelor. It drove me crazy.
NL: That's a bad example of
you trying to concentrate. (laughs)
GM: I can't concentrate on the
bikinis if I have to read the Tweets!
NL: I hear you.
GM: Did being a critic help you
when you were a judge on Last Comic Standing?
NL: Of course, yeah.
Definitely. That advice the teacher gave me, it made me less afraid to say no.
I had a feeling when I decided to do that job – because I was kind of in awe of
Greg Giraldo and Andy Kindler and they're such masters, and I was thinking,
'How am I going to hold my own with these people?' because they're just so
brilliant and they've been doing comedy longer than I have and who am I? I
think I'd only been doing comedy for six years – but I just had this thought
that I'm just going to say what I think is funny regardless of what anyone else
says. And that's kind of the way I knew I could make the most of that
situation.
GM: You'd only been doing it
about six years, you said?
NL: I think so.
GM: That is impressive and
surprising. How did that gig come about?
NL: They just called me in for a
meeting and talked to me and liked my thoughts on comedy.
GM: Did you get grief from the
other comics?
NL: The sad part about a show
like that, or maybe it's a good part, is a lot of people who are good wouldn't
subject themselves to that regardless of screen time. So the kinds of people
who were good who were doing it were very young or just inexperienced and
usually not people I knew. That wasn't the case all the time. I mean, sometimes
there were some good people. Some really good comics have come from Last
Comic Standing. Amy Schumer was on Last Comic Standing. But I
think she was very young at the time and she was a New York comic – and by the
way I wasn't a judge then. But for a certain type of person, it's a great
opportunity to shine.
GM: Did you have any awkward
interactions later because they comics were working professionals you might
have come across?
NL: Not really. I think everyone
was pretty cool. The one person I said no to that I'm friends with now is Eric
André. (laughs) He really could not have been cooler about it.
For whatever reason, I wasn't liking his set that day. He called me right after
and was like, 'I just want you know, I know that this is a TV show and you have
to do what you have to do, and I still love you, and you're so cool, and I
don't take this personally.' That's the dream response. And obviously Eric's
hilarious. He was just super cool about it. He's probably the main person I'm
friends with now that I had to say no to.
GM: You can only comment on the
set you see in that moment. You may think someone's hilarious but they didn't
bring it that day.
NL: Right.
GM: I read that one of your
influences is Woody Allen, and you just mentioned him. Any thoughts on the
latest craziness?
NL: I'm awaiting his response. On
CNN, they said that Woody Allen is preparing a response. I think that'll be
good. Hopefully it's in the form of a movie.
GM: That no one will go see now.
NL: No, I doubt it. The real sad
truth is that there's nobody like him. It's not like he's one of the greats. I
mean, he is one of the greats but in terms of what he's done for women in
movies, there's nobody writing movies that are on that level of funny and on
that level of exposing a woman's psyche and great parts for women. He's someone
who's actually, maybe to his detriment, inspired by women. And I feel like most
of the directors, especially in comedy, are inspired by men. They're inspired
by the fat, nerdy version of them. They never got chicks so they want this
out-of-shape dude who represents them and all man to triumph. So man is the
hero. I think with Woody Allen's films the female is the hero. Kind of like how
the females were in the '30s and '40s in the beginning of movies. And Woody
Allen's obsessed with old movies. I just think that that's something that's
really lacking in films.
GM: I read something yesterday by
a lawyer who used his film, his art, as evidence against him. She used Manhattan, where his
character dated a 17-year-old.
NL: But the thing is, being
interested in having sex with a 17-year-old, which I would venture to guess most
42-year-old men would get turned on by that idea, is completely different than
being a predator and molesting a 7-year-old. I don't think that's the same
thing. But again, I don't think anybody will know. There's really no way to
know. I can just say that I'm a huge fan of his films.
GM: Are you still doing Tubbin' With Tash?
NL: That's on a hiatus right now
but perhaps we'll bring some more back. People definitely want us to.
GM: Yeah, they're ridiculously
compelling.
NL: (laughs) Thank
you.
GM: Have you shot the
pilot, Another Period?
NL: We shot the pilot. I'm also
doing a special that I'm recording in April in Boston.
GM: A standup special?
NL: Yeah. For ticket inquiries,
you can go to my website.
GM: Have you spent much time in
Vancouver?
NL: Yeah, I love it. I was there
filming stuff another time and it was really fun.
GM: Any more roasts coming up?
NL: I don't know. No, not that I
know of. I haven't heard.
GM: You were on the one when
everyone was telling Sarah that she was old. She was unhappy with that.
NL: I think with a roast it's
just really hard to figure out any angle, especially when someone's virtually
unroastable like Sarah Silverman. So I think people are just kind of grasping
at whatever they could come up with. I don't think anyone really thinks she's
old any more than they think that I'm a prostitute.
GM: Exactly. But that doesn't
mean she didn't feel stung by it. She's an actor over 40 and here they were
pointing that out. Even though it's a roast, and we all know the rules of the
game, you can't help your feelings.
NL: I just think there's a double
standard. I think that men who are 40... Everyone's talking about Jimmy Fallon,
new kid on the block. He's 40. It's just a different perception of men. I think
that's changing. I think we're entering the century of the woman and I'm pretty
excited about it. It's just going to take a little bit of time for the
perception to change. Women got a later start in a lot of ways. I think that
Sarah and all women really have nothing to worry about in terms of how they're
perceived. I think it's changing rapidly. I mean, comedy stars who are female
are all over 40 so I don't really understand what the big deal is. And people
are looking good until they're older than 50, especially if you take care of
yourself. I think sometimes it takes a while to even have something to say. I'm
actually more interested in what a woman who has some life experience is saying
than what a 22-year-old's saying. It just doesn't even really register with me.
Like Taylor Swift. What am I going to do with that?
GM: This kind of ties in with the
Tweeting and Woody Allen, but your Pearl Harbor joke that was supposedly
controversial, if you read Huffington Post, does that just make you sad for
humanity?
NL: I think it just goes towards
the thing I was saying that everyone now gets to say something.
GM: But the fact that they even
choose to.
NL: Well, people are bored. Most
people aren't artists. Most people don't get to express themselves through
their thoughts and through their ideas and through their talent. So people are
probably bored and they want to have a say. And a lot of people aren't that
intelligent. Or they don't have a great developed sense of humour. So they find
something to be outraged with. And by the way, I'm not saying that vets
specifically aren't intelligent or don't have a great sense of humour; I'm
saying people in general don't have an outlet so they like to get enraged by
things. So that was just an easy target.
GM: I guess it was. But it does
speak to their intelligence and their ability to process information or to
understand where the joke is.
NL: One of the main
problems as society becomes stupider and stupider – I think Harold Bloom
said this – is people's inability to understand irony. (laughs) As people’s
ability to understand irony diminishes, so does their ability to take a joke.
GM: So when it hit, did you have
to sit and think about how you combat it or did you just go write your
response?
NL: I definitely thought about it
and talked to my manager about it. They represent Bill Maher and were like,
'Let me see what Bill Maher does.' Because usually these responses just make it
worse. You can never win, essentially is what he's saying. But then I sent him
the response and he was like, 'This is just so to the point. I think you should
publish it.' And all I ever wanted to do was just get some of my fans on
Twitter to fight with the people who were sending me death threats! I didn't
think comedians would care or anything so it was just kind of nice that it
spoke to people.
GM: I guess the flip-side of the
culture we live in is that the life cycle is pretty quick. Or was it that your
response really quashed it?
NL: I just got a letter yesterday
from the vets' fund that I donated to saying that they completely understood
what I said, they got the joke, and they kind of apologized for people's
behaviour, and they said they were very grateful to me for raising awareness
for their fund and for vets. It's a really nice letter and I think it just
definitely makes everything come full circle.
GM: Does it give you pause in the
future about what you will or can joke about? Not that you made a mistake, but
it was perceived in a way you didn't intend it.
NL: Right. Obviously you
don't want to hurt people. Again, it's not their fault. If people don't understand
things and they can only process things on a literal level, it does hurt their
feelings. And that is sad. You don't want people to be in pain. And
people have lost their family in the war and they read
something like that, and it looks like I'm making light of it, and they haven't
studied comedy their whole life, and they live maybe sheltered existences, and
they've given up everything to fight for their country. Obviously it's painful
that it hurts people, but you just have to be yourself in the same
way that they're being themselves. And I guess the smartest person wins! (laughs)
GM: That's a measured and
charitable response that you can see their side of it, too, even though you
disagree with it.
NL: Everyone's
doing the best they can! You can't blame people for only thinking literally,
really.
GM: So your response, then, is just
to point it out to them that there was no harm meant, here was the joke, and
get over yourselves.
NL: I
suppose.
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