Judd: What would you consider your worst moment onstage?
Sandra: My worst moments are when my energy is low. When I’m really tired, and my energy is bad, then I’m vulnerable.
Judd: Do you think there’s anything that a comedian shouldn’t do?
Sandra: I don’t know. I have a lot of opinions on that. I guess—I guess, you know, it depends on the person. You can’t generalize.
Judd: You don’t think there’s anything that’s off-limits? I mean, I’ve seen some pretty crude stuff.
Sandra: See, I have a lot of opinions on comedy. If you get me started on that, then I’ll say my opinions, and I’m gonna regret it.
Judd: You’re gonna say something that you’re gonna regret?
Sandra: Yeah, because I don’t think that there are very many people that should be doing comedy. Because I don’t think most of them have a point of view or an attitude or a conviction.
Judd: Do you think comedians should make a statement, like a political or social kind of—
Sandra: I think if you’re really good, you do that without trying to. You invoke emotions from an audience without being obvious about it. But the art of being a great performer is almost a dead thing. There are very few people who dedicate their lives to being a real artist and to the artistry of performing. Because there’s a whole—it’s not just standing up there. It’s a movement and it’s a tone of voice and it’s a seduction and it’s a school of thought. The old entertainers, they knew everything. They knew how to dance, and they knew how to sing. They studied it. And it’s not something you just get away with being—um, you know—that’s one thing I’ll say about Robin Williams, even though I get tired of his comedies. He’s an artist and he knows his craft. So does Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor knows movement.
Judd: I was reading somewhere that there’s a Steve Allen book and it said that he didn’t think that the old comedians could stand up to anybody from today. I guess he’s talking about Henny Youngman and, I don’t know, maybe Jackie Gleason, all of those old comedians doing stuff they did like in the Catskills in the forties. He said that they wouldn’t stand up to anybody today.
Sandra: I don’t know about that. I think times are different. And like I said, in those days, comedy wasn’t something you just got into because it looked accessible, and easy, and you could make some fast money. I mean, those people were raised with that feeling. That need to entertain. I think you really have to be driven by something to be a good entertainer.
Judd: Is there anyone right now that you just like—is there anybody you look at and say, “I wish I could be that good”?
Sandra: I think people think that about me right now.
Judd: Yeah.
Sandra: I’m more interested in what I’m doing—I’ve been through that already. I’m beyond that. Christ, if I was still at that point, I never would have gotten the film.
Judd: So you think you have it down?
Sandra: Oh no, I don’t have it down. But I’m certainly doing what I believe is true to what I think, and honest. I mean, I believe that people are talking about me. And I can’t think of anybody who impresses me right now as much as I impress myself.
SARAH SILVERMAN (2014)
I’ve known Sarah Silverman since she moved to California to do standup when she was twenty-one years old. Back then, she was the young, hilarious girl who was from the same town in New Hampshire as my friend and roommate, Adam Sandler. That always seemed so weird to me, the idea that two brilliantly funny people could come from the same small town.
I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time with her in the intervening years, in a work capacity (we worked together at The Larry Sanders Show, where I was a writer and she an actor playing a writer), and in the deeply competitive world of Garry Shandling’s weekly pickup basketball games (where I have tried and failed to keep her out of the paint). Not only is she way funnier than I am—I feel pretty comfortable calling her one of the most essential comedic minds of her generation—but she’s also way better than me at basketball.
Judd Apatow: I was thinking recently about the first time I met you. You were so young.
Sarah Silverman: That was back when I was, like, really doing stand-up.
Judd: Did you go straight from high school into the clubs?
Sarah: Yeah. When I was seventeen, I went to summer school in Boston. I knew I wanted to be a stand-up but I’d only done it at high school assemblies and stuff. But I went up at open-mic night at Stitches when it was on Mass. Ave., and that was the first time I ever did stand-up. It was my third year of high school. I remember the comedian who was onstage when I first went in to scope it out, too. Wendy Liebman.
Judd: Wow.
Sarah: And she did two jokes. I completely remember that night. I have this sense memory of walking through the doors and the first thing I heard was her saying, “Someone thought I was Lady Di, but it turned out that they were just saying, ‘Lady, die.’ ” And then the other one was—wow, I ruined that joke.
Judd: I was interested in comedy from a really young age, too. As a ten-year-old kid, I was watching a scary amount of Merv Griffin and Dinah Shore.
Sarah: Oh, my mother always loved Dinah Shore because she said she did her own hair. She thought that made her so down-to-earth.
Judd: What drew you to try comedy, though? Why did you like it so much?
Sarah: My dad taught me swears when I was a toddler and I saw, at a really early age, that if I shocked people, I would get approval, and it made my arms itch with glee. I got addicted to it. It became this source of power in a totally powerless life.
Judd: Did your dad get a kick out of it?
Sarah: He thought it was funny to teach his three-year-old daughter swears.
Judd: What do your parents do for a living?
Sarah: My dad is alive. I always say, “He was a retailer,” and then people go, “Oh, did he die?” But no, he’s just retired. His dream was to be a writer—and he wrote all these books that he self-published when he retired—but he was always a retailer. He owned a store called Crazy Sophie’s Factory Outlet. And he did his own commercials. I have a bunch of them. They’re amazing. He has such a thick New England accent. You can’t understand a thing he’s saying. He’s like, “When I see the prices at the mall, I just want to vomit! Hey, I’m Crazy Donald!” He was Crazy Donald, like Crazy Eddie, only in New Hampshire.
Judd: That must have been a big deal, in a small town in New Hampshire, growing up with your dad doing commercials.
Sarah: Yeah, he was always on the radio waves talking about his sales, and jean brands that you never heard of, like Unicorn. And my mom was like Shelley Long in Cheers. Diction is very important to her. She says, like, when and where. She was the opposite of my dad.
Judd: Did they stay married?
Sarah: No, they got divorced when I was like six and a half, but I was thrilled because they hated each other. I mean, I never saw a loving glance or a smile between them until long after they were divorced. Now they’re close. They’re like army buddies, you know. Like siblings. My mom is sickly and my stepmother checks in on her almost every day.
Judd: So your dad remarried and his wife is close with your mom?
Sarah: Yeah, they’re all close. My mom remarried, too. They both found the loves of their lives, so I was able to see—unfortunately, not in my formative years—but I was eventually able to see what a loving marriage can look like.