Sarah Silverman‘s latest special, Someone You Love, has the comic at the top of her game, mixing thoughts on everything from religion to life coaches, dried fruit, abortion, language, and obscure porn genres in an hour that’s fun, often silly, meticulously crafted, and quite organic in how it all came together.
Originally airing on HBO at the end of May and freshly released on vinyl this week, the special isn’t so much an act of career strategy or one with an overarching theme. It’s a check in on where Silverman’s head and material was at the time, enhanced by some quick road work and put out into world after HBO tapped her on the shoulder asking for the work.
In the following conversation, recorded a couple of months ago, we discuss the themeless theme, why “segues are for suckers,” Silverman’s evolving process and thoughts on building a comedy special at a point in her career where audiences can be a little too ready to laugh, and her want to be more funny than earnest. In essence, it’s an origin story for one of 2023’s best comedy albums.
Every comedian seems to work on different tracks. Some are like, “I’m going to do a special every other year.” Do you have something like that or is it just that this is when it fits into your schedule, this is when the material worked for you?
I never plan. I never think about the future. This is only my fourth special. I never think of it until some entity goes, “Hey, you want to do a special?” And I actually owed HBO a special and then the pandemic happened and everything and then they were like, “It’s time.” So I went on the road and I had what I had. I had about 37 minutes and then I went on the road for two months and then I had the special and I honed it and shot it at the end of that tour. So it all came together on the road. But I’m glad because unless someone kicks me in the ass, I just never do it.
I’m sure there are specials between the specials I’ve shot, bits and jokes that came and went. I don’t have goals. (Laughs) I don’t think about the future. I’m just always doing standup and working on it, so that’s just a constant in my life.
Having goals is a little overrated sometimes, to be completely honest. I’ve been trying it out for the last couple of years, not a fan. A lot of anxiety comes with goals, so I think you might’ve cracked it.
Thank you. I mean, I’m not against goals. I’m pretty disciplined, so I work. I’m always working on something, but I don’t necessarily have some end in sight or some vision of how it will go. (Laughs)
Once you know, “Okay, I’ve got to drop this special, I’ve got to work on this for a couple of months,” do you start by thinking, “Okay, what’s the theme that I want to talk about?” Or is it just finding your way through wherever your mind is at that point?
The latter. I guess I could go like, “Well, I want to talk about this or I want to talk about this.” But I never really do it that way. I mean, of course, I would say, “I want to talk about abortion rights,” but I didn’t go, “I want to talk about abortion rights” and then write those bits. Those bits were swirling in my head because of our dwindling rights. So I don’t know, it’s a little chicken and egg-ish, but I don’t sit down with a pencil or the laptop or whatever and go, “I want to write a joke about this topic,” because it’s not fruitful for me. It’s just not the way my brain works. And then the trajectory of the special, of course, I’m messing with the order or how things might go together.
You might think that things within a similar category go together, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes you want to go to other places and then have your mind remember back to something from earlier. The placement gives the material all different kinds of opportunities to connect. Because I realized years ago, many years ago now probably, that segues are for suckers. (Laughs) We don’t talk in segues as humans. We don’t go, “Speaking of that, I, da, da, da.” You know what I mean? Your brain just kind of goes to different places and you suddenly start talking about something else because one thing led the other to the other in your head, and now you’re saying it. It’s like we can connect anything organically. And so once I realized that, I realized stuff can be in any order and that gives you more opportunities.
To me, it’s a way of catching people by surprise.
Yeah, I mean it’s just like if we let ourselves work the way a human brain works, it’s just like everything is connected somehow, even the most different things. And there’s a way in, even if it’s just a pause while your mind goes, “Oh, this!”
Like you said, you wanted to say something about abortion in the last special. There was a great bit about legislating male masturbatory behavior. The one with the GoPro cameras and the kids. It’s a great joke. When you’re crafting material that is talking about a heavy issue, what’s the hierarchy of importance? That you’re saying something [on an issue] or the thrill of saying it in a way that it’s funny, and it gets there? Because that’s a hard line to cross. There’s so many people that try to do political humor and they do it badly.
It has to be funny or you’re just preaching. I mean, there are some moments in this last album where I wish I had more time with it, and it ends up being a little, not preachy, but more observational where I go, “Ooh, it would be great if there was something hardcore right here that I never found.” And so I left it a little bit earnest. What I’m thinking of is “my friends who are in a relationship,” and I see it’s not hard enough for me, like hardcore [in] the comedy. But I really liked what I was saying and people were laughing because they connected with it, which isn’t normally where I like to leave things. (Laughs) I want it to be harder, but I did leave some things there.
But yeah, like the abortion stuff and everything, it’s got to be, if you can make everyone laugh, then anything they retain or think about after that is frosting on the cake. But that’s not necessarily my job, that’s just my personal thoughts. But obviously where I used to say it has to be funnier than it is mean for things I did, now I feel like — and I still feel that way obviously — but it also has to be funnier than it is earnest, which is kind of the way I’ve been going. So I am trying to find that balance because my power is comedy and it is crazy during times like this to try to talk about what matters to you and have enough of a distance to make it funny is hard. But I think about emergency room doctors, they have to have some kind of distance in order to be good at their job.
Yeah, of course.
I feel the same. I don’t compare myself to an emergency room doctor, but to me, I think about how someone can’t come in with a knife in their eye and the emergency room doctor goes, “Oh my God! You have a knife in your eye! Oh my God, that must hurt.” They have to have a certain distance in order to be useful. And I feel the same way with comedians. It’s wonderful to talk about what you’re passionate about, but you need to have some kind of distance in order to be useful because you’ve got to make it funny.
This question’s got a few different pieces, but I’m curious about… I say curious all the time. Sorry.
Curious is great. I like it better than mine. I always say interesting.
I’ll go through the transcripts and see the word curious 9, 10, 11 times. But anyway, you’ve been doing this for a while. Obviously, I’m curious… (drops head in shame). But I am! Is it easier to come up with material now? Is it more fulfilling and is there part of what it felt like when you started that’s still a part of the process now?
It’s a great question. I don’t find it any easier. I mean, I don’t find it easier in terms of writing. I find it the same because the more I know and the more I’ve been doing it, and the more it’s muscle memory and the more all those things, the world around me is changing and comedy is changing. So the challenge is always new and different or else you just become a caricature. And so though imitations of me are very good, I try to not always be like that same caricature. Not that I’m trying to be different for different’s sake, but because I’m just, how can you not be different as years go by?
Oh yeah, I’ll be different tomorrow.
Yeah. But I find it the same amount of challenging. I may have more credibility with an audience where they’re kind of ready to laugh, but in that way, it’s a little harder to be willing to disappoint them, which I am doing every day right now because I’m starting over. Lately I’ve just been going, “Listen, I just did a special, I have nothing, and I have to be able to come out here and try new things and be willing to disappoint you, which makes me brave.” (Laughs)
It’s obnoxious, which I like. And then just to keep their expectations down. But I learned from Chris Rock, he will do a special, he’ll start over. He’ll walk into the Comedy Cellar, the audience will go bananas for four minutes, and then they calm down to listen, and he will disappoint them. He will try 20 new things and see if one hits, or maybe there’s a couple where he realizes, “Okay, this is an area.” But you have to do that work and you have to do it in front of an audience, and there’s just no way around it. There are going to be people going home going, “That wasn’t so great.” But there’s no other way around it. You got to do it
With an audience that’s ready to laugh and the looking, loving gaze… There’s no way around it, but is it more of a challenge for you then to know where the level is, to know what’s funny and what’s not? How do you tell the difference between what’s a Sarah Silverman laugh versus this is just funny and anybody could say it kind of laugh?
Well, I think you get as a comic, and I think comics tend to be pretty hard on themselves, but I think as a comic, you learn when a crowd is laughers and when you feel like you earned good stuff there. I could have a great set where the audience is laughing and come off and be like, “But yeah, no, they were laughing at anything there.” Or I could work out my set at Largo with the best crowd and then go to the Comedy Store and realize, “Oh no, I need to work on a bunch of this stuff to make it actually as strong as it feels when I’m at Largo and the audience just wants to love you.” They love comedy so much that you have to go someplace tougher to really see where you’re at.
‘Someone You Love’ is available to buy on vinyl now and can be streamed on Spotify and MAX.
