Pod Insights On with Kara Swisher Comedian Tig Notaro on Laughing Through Grief About this episode How do you grieve the impending death of a lifelong friend when you are a multi-hyphenate comedian, actor, director and producer? If you are Tig Notaro, you produce a film about their life and work — as she has done for the late spoken word poet Andrea Gibson with the documentary Come See Me In The Good Light.
Best known for her dry-witted stand up comedy, Tig is also a podcaster (Handsome), actor (Star Trek: Discovery, The Morning Show), director (Am I Ok?) and producer for film and television.
Kara and Tig discuss the documentary, Gibson’s life and relationship with their wife Meg Falley after they were diagnosed with incurable cancer, how Andrea’s death opened her up to experiencing grief in a new way, and how it all relates to Tig's own 2012 cancer diagnosis, which she shared on stage in a genre-breaking set. Plus: how the comedy world is shifting under Trump and Tig’s plans for an all-lesbian action film.
Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kara Swisher? All I want is a believable lesbian playing me. What about me? You're too old. Damn it.
0:16 Kara Swisher? 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 Notaro. 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.
1:01 Kara Swisher? 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'll be grateful for this interview, I think,
1:45 Kara Swisher? and it's an important one to think about. Stay with us.
1:56 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from The Guardian and their new show, Stateside, where journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman use the entire independent reporting resources of The Guardian to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what is actually happening in the world. Join Kai and Carter three times a week as they utilize all the reporting resources The Guardian has across news, international coverage, climate, culture, wellness, and more. And The Guardian's not owned by a billionaire, they fearlessly report the facts without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more. And listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube. That's theguardian.com/stateside.
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3:55 Kara Swisher? Tig, gracias por venir.
3:57 Speaker 03 Gracias por invitarme.
3:59 Kara Swisher? Tenemos mucho que hablar, el programa de la mañana, dónde está la comedia. Pero quiero empezar porque mi esposa y yo anoche vimos el documental sobre Andrea Gibson. Y para aquellos que no han visto el documental y no saben de él, Andrea era una poeta de palabras. Hablen sobre cómo eran y cómo surgió la idea para el filme. En primer lugar, es bellamente filmado, debo decir. Y muy gracioso, en realidad, muy gracioso en muchos sentidos. Entonces, hablen un poco de eso.
4:28 Speaker 03 Bueno, conocí a Andrea probablemente en 2001. Andrea era parte de este grupo político y activista llamado Vox Feminista. Y, para ser completamente honesta, eran principalmente predicando a la iglesia. Estaban en Boulder.
4:48 Kara Swisher? El nombre, no podía decirlo por el nombre. De todos modos, sigan adelante.
4:53 Speaker 03 Sí, fue, en realidad, un mundo totalmente nuevo para mí. Pero, encontrando a Andrea en el escenario a través de un amigo mutuo, me dijeron que Andrea era una poeta. No estaba en los círculos de poesía. Pero, ya sabes, Andrea se sintió muy familiar, solo mirando a esta persona. Y yo pensé, sí, es como del mundo gay, comedia, música, pero una poeta, eso es interesante. Y luego Andrea salió a escena y aniquiló el cuarto. Como que fue una rueda de coche de poesía y humor.
5:34 Kara Swisher? Performancía.
5:35 Speaker 03 Sí, real performance. Esto era como la estrella de la poesía, es lo que siempre le digo a la gente. Y, pero conecté con Andrea, creo, mucho en un nivel comediario. Andrea era una de mis personas favoritas con las que reír. Y nuestros amigos mutuos, Steph Willan y yo, cuando Andrea estaba pasando por todo, diferentes amigos estaban tratando de diferentes partes de su vida. Y cuando Steph y yo estábamos hablando de la podcast de Andrea y cómo producirla y editarla y encontrar lo que la serie era supuesta ser, y Steph simplemente dijo: "Siento que la vida de Andrea haría un documental realmente interesante en este momento". Y yo estaba como...
6:20 Speaker 03 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, um, you know, the pitch was, my non-binary poet friend with stage four ovarian cancer.
6:51 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
6:52 Speaker 03 And so, a lot of the response was like, hmm, let me think about that. Or, oh, hmm, a poet, okay. And then, Ryan White and Jessica Hargrave, who I had known,
7:05 Speaker 03 they got back to me in three days and they were just like, "We're gonna buy tickets to Colorado. We're going out there immediately." Like, they got it. They got it.
7:15 Kara Swisher? 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"?
7:22 Speaker 03 I think it was just knowing. I mean, Steph and I had known Andrea for so many years and we, we knew that this was a really dynamic person who had a really, um, kind of mind-bending approach to dealing with really rough news. And, um, uh, 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...
7:58 Kara Swisher? Yeah, you seemed 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.
8:07 Speaker 03 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 is 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, um, yeah, Andrea was just, I always say that...
8:41 Speaker 03 Everything was so precious to Andrea. But then also, nothing was too precious. And you could, you could talk about, you could, 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's 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.
9:21 Kara Swisher? 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?
9:43 Speaker 03 Um, 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. And, 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.
10:14 Kara Swisher? Depression, she talked. You couldn't see it there after the diagnosis, which was interesting.
10:19 Speaker 03 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 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,
11:01 Speaker 03 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.
11:30 Kara Swisher? Right.
11:30 Speaker 03 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, 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,
12:12 Speaker 03 I don't, but I have in moments of my life.
12:17 Kara Swisher? Yeah, there was a lightness though, too, by the, in this documentary, because it's also heartbreaking. They saw it before they died, is that right, at the Sundance?
12:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:26 Kara Swisher? Talk about that a little bit.
12:28 Speaker 03 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.
12:50 Kara Swisher? Right.
12:50 Speaker 03 And Jess was coming. And he said that the first, he said Meg walked out, hugged them both so warmly, and Andrea walked out and said,
13:01 Speaker 03 Hi, I'm Andrea. I guess you're gonna be with me when I die. Welcome to my home. And he just said he had never experienced anybody's, any subject so open. And in fact, that dinner scene, the very beginning of the movie, I don't know, you probably remember.
13:22 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
13:23 Speaker 03 That was the first day. It's a very funny moment.
13:25 Kara Swisher? The fingering conversation. Yes, yes.
13:27 Speaker 03 The thumbing. That was the very first day.
13:30 Kara Swisher? It started with fingering and then went to thumbing. So let's be accurate.
13:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, then the truth came out.
13:34 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
13:34 Speaker 03 But, 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.
14:02 Kara Swisher? Right.
14:03 Speaker 03 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're, they wouldn't be hurting anyway 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.
14:37 Kara Swisher? It won festival favorite.
14:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, even out of scripted films.
14:40 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
14:41 Speaker 03 It was, yeah, it was wild.
14:43 Kara Swisher? 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.
15:01 Speaker 03 It's life.
15:02 Kara Swisher? Yeah, exactly.
15:03 Speaker 03 Life is the point. And Andrea didn't think that...
15:09 Speaker 03 That they were gonna 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 and, 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 in my life. I had been maybe four or five times before and you're always expected to go to dinners and parties and events and schmoozing and here we were with Andrea and Meg, sitting in this, we were in this Airbnb,
15:54 Speaker 03 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- Time 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
16:37 Speaker 03 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, 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- Yeah, expecting the worst, yeah. -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? I was, it was so confusing.
17:10 Kara Swisher? So one of the things about the documentary was interesting is, as you said, holding attention on to poets, to lesbian poets who live in rural Colorado. Like, again.
17:20 Speaker 03 And not massive celebrities, but Andrea was certainly, like I said, a rock star in the poetry world.
17:26 Kara Swisher? Right, but you do have a lot of producers, is what I was noticing. Sarah Bareilles, Brandi Carlile, Kevin Nealon.
17:36 Speaker 03 Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach.
17:38 Kara Swisher? 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.
17:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think Ryan wanted to really
17:54 Speaker 03 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.
18:03 Kara Swisher? Right.
18:04 Speaker 03 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
18:41 Kara Swisher? Open them.
18:42 Speaker 03 Their final show. And so I felt like that's a natural moment for me to be in.
18:48 Kara Swisher? Sure.
18:48 Speaker 03 Briefly, briefly. And even Sarah Bareilles 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, and we crossed paths there. And she was just like, anything I can do for this movie. And so that's where Sarah Bareilles and Brandi Carlile collaborated on the final original song on the, in the documentary is Andrea's poem that they put to music and sang, and it's so beautiful.
19:26 Kara Swisher? It is, absolutely.
19:30 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
19:39 Kara Swisher? Support for this show comes from The Guardian. Trying to locate news sources that reliably separate fact from fiction can seem like looking for a needle in a haystack these days. Social media feeds, cable news, and subscription-based news outlets might be able to give you one version of the news, but not in the way that you need. You want news fast, but slow enough to actually absorb the information. Stateside with Kai Wright and Carter Sherman is here to do just that. The podcast tries to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions regarding the world at large at your own pace. Three times a week, hosts Kai Wright and Carter Sherman bring their expertise together to showcase different and engaging perspectives regarding the world today. They will use their collective knowledge to discuss the news, international affairs,
20:22 Kara Swisher? climate, culture, sports, lifestyle, fashion, and wellness. Plus, The Guardian wants to emphasize they're not billionaire-owned, meaning they're free to report the whole picture without interference. Go to theguardian.com/stateside to learn more and listen wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube starting May 13.
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22:20 Kara Swisher? You mentioned your own cancer diagnosis. One of the big moments, of course, the film is when Andrea performs onstage for what they believe will be the last time. You were their opening act. You were 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'd been diagnosed with cancer. Let's play that clip.
22:43 Speaker 03 Good evening. Hello.
22:46 Speaker 03 I have cancer. How are you? Hi, how are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer. How are you?
22:57 Speaker 03 Ah, it's a good time. Diagnosed with cancer.
23:04 Speaker 03 Feels good.
23:06 Kara Swisher? Did you think about that moment during Andrea's show?
23:11 Speaker 03 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, of...
23:43 Speaker 03 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, 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.
24:20 Kara Swisher? Right.
24:21 Speaker 03 With, with multiple camera angles and have edited it as a, as a full standalone concert special that we're hoping to release.
24:31 Kara Swisher? So every, 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.
24:48 Speaker 05 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 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.
25:22 Kara Swisher? Great question from Geraldine. For people that don't know, her husband died suddenly on the street in Washington DC.
25:27 Speaker 03 Oh, my gosh.
25:28 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
25:29 Speaker 03 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, Um, how this movie changed me was I've, I work in Toronto and I was a full-time
26:10 Speaker 03 cast member on this new TV series and, 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 wanna, I wanna be in my life and I felt like I was missing it and, um, and I
26:51 Speaker 03 wanna be present for it. I guess what I'm getting at is trying to really curate the life that you wanna live so that you can have real experiences that it, it's really hard to shut down, everybody knows this, the, 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?
27:17 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
27:17 Speaker 03 Do I, 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, I, after so many interviews of me lying to myself and everybody I was talking to of like, oh yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm definitely work-life balance. I'm getting on that and I'm, I'm, I'm handling that. Yeah, I'm, I see it in my, 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
27:58 Speaker 03 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.
28:12 Kara Swisher? The way you want it to live it. You're right. Yeah.
28:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:15 Kara Swisher? 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 wanna 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's what it is. It's you're wasting my time. Now, now doth time waste me essentially.
28:43 Speaker 03 That reminds me, I so connected that deeply because it's different, but the same when I was, I was such a
28:55 Speaker 03 I failed three grades and then dropped out of high school.
28:58 Kara Swisher? Oh, wow.
28:58 Speaker 03 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 schoolwork. 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.
29:43 Speaker 03 And I just thought, I know in my gut, in my soul,
29:51 Speaker 03 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,
30:01 Kara Swisher? Yeah, it's always a gym coach.
30:02 Speaker 03 It's always a gym coach. It was assigned to like, make sure that we all ended up alive by the end of the day. And that was the only contribution. He got in front of the door. He's like, whoa, 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.
30:24 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
30:25 Speaker 03 And he was so baffled, but he had to just kind of
30:28 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
30:29 Speaker 03 get out of my way.
30:29 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
30:30 Speaker 03 And let me go. And I, I was like, oh my gosh.
30:33 Kara Swisher? I can do it, I can do that.
30:35 Speaker 03 And I, you know.
30:36 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
30:38 Kara Swisher? There we have the story. 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, this idea that, you know, I don't have time for this shit kind of thing? I suppose that's the headline version of it.
31:20 Speaker 03 Um, 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
32:04 Speaker 03 closest friends and ex-girlfriends and parents and it was really beautiful.
32:09 Kara Swisher? Right.
32:10 Speaker 03 And it was really, there were so many dynamics going on that were
32:18 Speaker 03 Being navigated, having to be put aside. And it was so beautiful.
32:28 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
32:29 Speaker 03 And 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.
32:49 Kara Swisher? Right.
32:50 Speaker 03 And so I think that that is what changed me, as well as Andrea's, something opened in me. I am the most like, non,
33:05 Speaker 03 I don't even claim that I'm spiritual. I'm like, but after this experience, I was seeing Andrea, I was feeling Andrea, I was,
33:18 Speaker 03 in really ways.
33:21 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
33:21 Speaker 03 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 many different lines where I'm like.
33:38 Kara Swisher? 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 Feimster and May Martin. Tell the story of what happened there. It was funny and weird. And have they made more appearances?
34:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, I was, it was days after Andrea died and my co-hosts 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 what's happening? And, and so it felt like, okay, I'm open to, 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.
34:53 Speaker 03 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.
35:11 Speaker 03 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", Oh, wow. Shania Twain song. Yeah. And which is a great song, and it's in the documentary as Andrea and Meg's song. Yeah. And I had just, when I left LA, I had just left Meg, who was staying with us for screening in Los Angeles. And we had talked about this project we were going to work on.
35:54 Speaker 03 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, that was wild. And I sent that to Meg. And she said, oh, my gosh, I'm weeping. And the next day,
36:26 Speaker 03 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.
36:44 Kara Swisher? I love a harp. I would be thrilled, but go ahead.
36:49 Speaker 03 I love a harp, but this is, it's like, how is our tea gonna 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 gonna be a funny tea. The first song she starts playing was Shania Twain.
37:12 Kara Swisher? Oh, my God. Wow. What's with this village in Shania Twain?
37:16 Speaker 03 I was, 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?
37:26 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
37:27 Speaker 03 And they said, they were, I have it on video, too. They were just dumbfounded. They said, this is Andrea Meg's song?
37:34 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
37:35 Speaker 03 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.
37:51 Kara Swisher? Oh, wow. That's funny. Wow. It looks like we made it. Great song.
37:55 Speaker 03 Yeah. It's, it is.
37:57 Kara Swisher? It's a great, I love Shania Twain. I was a Shania Twain.
38:00 Speaker 03 I wonder, I know, I'm like, gosh, has she heard that her song is in this, in this film?
38:07 Kara Swisher? I don't know. I don't know. That's a good, well, that's a good question. I'll have to find it for you.
38:10 Speaker 03 Get her on the horn.
38:11 Kara Swisher? So I'm gonna 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 nominated set, Liv, as a turning point for talking about tragedy in stand-up comedy. Since then, Liz Glaser, Patton Oswalt, and Sarah Silverman all came out with specials about death, to name a few. What do you think about the fact that making, okay, to talk about illness and grief is part of your comic legacy?
38:33 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's interesting. You know, there was no big plan behind it. I was a comedian that was just very observational.
38:41 Kara Swisher? Right.
38:42 Speaker 03 And every now and then, there was something personal, barely, in my comedy. And
38:50 Speaker 03 When I went through that period of time, 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.
39:31 Speaker 03 When I pictured walking onto Largo Stage in Los Angeles, I could not imagine saying, you know, well, yeah, when I was driving today. Yeah, right. 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.
40:16 Speaker 03 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 like, 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 it, just so sarcastically.
41:02 Speaker 03 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
41:16 Speaker 03 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.
41:26 Speaker 03 We'll be back in a minute.
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43:41 Kara Swisher? 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 Birbiglia, 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.
44:08 Speaker 03 Well, I was gonna 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.
44:31 Kara Swisher? Right.
44:32 Speaker 03 People would all kind of reference Dennis Miller. But, um, 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's really going into an emotional story, you want to feel like you're really, really getting a real...
45:14 Kara Swisher? A real version of it.
45:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:16 Kara Swisher? 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.
45:27 Speaker 03 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...
45:54 Speaker 03 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 bro-y and-
46:09 Kara Swisher? Do you want to re-enter that world, or do you think it's not the best use of your time?
46:15 Speaker 03 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 onstage, 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
46:53 Speaker 03 with that. I'm 54, I've got a family I enjoy being with, and it's so different. I'm so different.
47:02 Kara Swisher? 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.
47:18 Speaker 03 What I'm doing with Handsome?
47:20 Kara Swisher? 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.
47:27 Speaker 03 I mean, we're not deeply-
47:29 Kara Swisher? No.
47:30 Speaker 03 I think just us as people, it's political.
47:33 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
47:34 Speaker 03 But before I started that podcast, I had a podcast with Cheryl Hines-
47:41 Kara Swisher? Oh, yes.
47:42 Speaker 03 About documentaries.
47:43 Kara Swisher? Yes.
47:44 Speaker 03 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-
48:07 Speaker 03 Joy and lightness, like I just really, really needed that. And so that's really what I wanted to do and I wanted to, um, 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, uh, I just wanted it to be silly.
48:40 Kara Swisher? You're right, you're not political, but you, like this, this documentary was very political without being explicitly political. You had the lives of two, uh, 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.
49:01 Speaker 03 You mean handsome?
49:02 Kara Swisher? Yes, handsome.
49:03 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, yeah.
49:04 Kara Swisher? Because it's, um, you know, it's, 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?
49:15 Speaker 03 It's political.
49:16 Kara Swisher? 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? Cause the chiefs of staff are the most evil people in technology of all the technology, of all the billionaires, just so you know.
49:46 Speaker 03 Well, I, thank you. I appreciate that. And I honestly, it was more so that I worked with somebody that had
49:58 Speaker 03 Kind of like a parallel ranking in their world of 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 gonna 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
50:29 Kara Swisher? Very soon.
50:30 Speaker 03 Very hyper traumatic show.
50:33 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
50:34 Speaker 03 And, yeah, I was, I was relieved that whatever I was going for seemed to
50:41 Kara Swisher? Oh, you did.
50:42 Speaker 03 To.
50:43 Kara Swisher? 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.
50:49 Speaker 03 Well, and I have to say, there's something also comforting because I don't first and foremost identify as an actor. I've known Jon Hamm for years. And I, there's a comfort level that I have with him.
51:06 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
51:07 Speaker 03 Just as a person.
51:08 Kara Swisher? Right.
51:09 Speaker 03 That I felt like I could fall in line with this dynamic.
51:13 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
51:14 Speaker 03 More comfortably.
51:15 Kara Swisher? Yeah, absolutely.
51:16 Speaker 03 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.
51:26 Kara Swisher? Uh huh.
51:27 Speaker 03 Believe me, I am too. But they'll be like, I'm sitting here on my couch in Texas, watching you on screen with Jon Hamm. And I'm like, how the hell did this happen?
51:40 Kara Swisher? 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? No, I'm done with this particular part of my life?
52:03 Speaker 03 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
52:40 Speaker 03 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
53:25 Speaker 03 around in some sort of project or... Yep. 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...
54:10 Speaker 03 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.
54:21 Kara Swisher? I get it.
54:21 Speaker 03 I can be talked into directing again. I don't want to direct, but I just, I'm open. If it's a, if it's a good vibe, I'm in.
54:33 Kara Swisher? So it sounds like the documentaries certainly had impact in that way of creating documentaries.
54:38 Speaker 03 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.
54:54 Kara Swisher? These were compelling people.
54:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, of course. But it was like, I sat in an Airbnb. I, I wanted to just be with these people by the fire. That's what I'm looking for.
55:07 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
55:07 Speaker 03 I want that kind of like-
55:09 Kara Swisher? Well, you're talking about collaboration. You're talking about real collaboration as opposed to-
55:12 Speaker 03 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 information.
55:21 Kara Swisher? No, you didn't drop out. You walked out. Try to, try to read. Do not, don't retell the story. Drop out is different than what you fucking-
55:29 Speaker 03 Yes, I walked out.
55:30 Kara Swisher? You got up and you said-
55:31 Speaker 03 I took control. I walked out.
55:33 Kara Swisher? Enough. I'll see you later. Goodbye.
55:35 Speaker 03 Yes. Yes.
55:36 Kara Swisher? By the way, I heard you called me a powerless man on your handsome show, according to my wife.
55:40 Speaker 03 Yes.
55:42 Kara Swisher? This is accurate.
55:42 Speaker 03 You are.
55:43 Kara Swisher? It's true. It's absolute. 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, Stephanie, are creative collaborators. I heard you were working on an all lesbian action film. Can you explain this to me?
56:04 Speaker 03 The writer-director, Zack 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 gonna be this small role that nobody's gonna notice me.
56:50 Speaker 03 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, my phone's exploding. Right. I don't know, I'm not walking around going, oh, my God, you know, check me out. And so, and my phone's exploding. I was so confused. And then, uh, yeah. And so, I, um, I called Zach and I said,
57:32 Speaker 03 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, I love it. Yeah, and he was like, oh, my God, yes, let's make that movie. And so, um, who knows? It's, it's a Hollywood project. We're in the process of putting the script together. Yeah. I mean, listen, I, this is, 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 sold him on the Zoom.
58:16 Kara Swisher? Everybody, everybody, who wouldn't like it? I, you know what?
58:19 Speaker 03 Who? Come on.
58:20 Kara Swisher? It's, I, I don't know what else to say. I think it sells itself. It does.
58:25 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
58:26 Kara Swisher? It would sell.
58:26 Speaker 03 Everybody would go see the movie with hot lesbian action.
58:30 Kara Swisher? Yes, yeah. I like it. I'm sold. I'm there. I'm the, do you have a name for the film? Hot Lesbian Action, right now?
58:39 Speaker 03 Well, no, as of now, the, the movie is called Deviance. Takes place back in the, in some old timey days.
58:47 Kara Swisher? Right.
58:47 Speaker 03 Some closeted deviants.
58:51 Kara Swisher? 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.
58:58 Speaker 03 Thank you.
58:59 Kara Swisher? They're making the TV show of my, of my book, Burn Book. And, and I, and they said, what do 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. Just a believable lesbian.
59:11 Speaker 03 What about me?
59:12 Kara Swisher? 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, who's just getting.
59:21 Speaker 03 I'll dye my hair.
59:22 Kara Swisher? Yeah, yeah, you will. No, you're too old. I'm too old. Like, all these people are too, we need a 30 year old.
59:27 Speaker 03 You're too old to play you.
59:28 Kara Swisher? 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 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.
59:45 Speaker 03 Well, thank you so much for having me.
59:52 Kara Swisher? Today's show was produced by Christian Castro-Rosell, Kateri Yokum, Michelle Aloy, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa 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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