How often do you change or update your stand-up set?
“Well, there's always new stuff weaved in, always. But there are certain anchors that stay consistent for a few months and then they rotate out because I can't find a way to make it interesting. If you say it too many times, I cannot very well say to the audience, ‘You know what just happened…’ I just don't like that. It's fraudulent and it sounds bad to my ear. And there's stuff that I'm just sick of saying. Then there are ideas that grow, like it's not there yet but I keep it because I know someday I'll hit on what it is I wanted to say about it.”
Do you get requests for your old bits?
“Unfortunately, and I don't understand that because you've heard it, obviously, because you're requesting it. It's weird. It's very strange, like, ‘No, you say it.’ Sometimes I have the audience, I say, ‘You tell it. You probably know it better than me.’ So I like to let the person say it. And usually they get it wrong, which is weird because they're the ones that seem to like it so much. Then there will be times when I don't remember at all what the person's talking about. They're like, ‘Well, I saw you in Houston in 1989 and you did this thing about salad dressing.’ ‘Well, I have no idea what that was but thank you, that's nice that you thought so well of it.’”
How hard is it acting then, to keep the same lines fresh?
“Very hard for me. For other actors, they don't have a problem with it at all. They're far more professional than I. It bugs the s**t out of me to do the same thing over and over and over. Especially when it wasn't that well written to begin with. That kills me. And it's like, ‘I'm telling you Mr. or Mrs. Director, take 14 is not going to get any better than take two because I'll tell you, this writing stinks.’ That drives me nuts. Especially if they don't let you try it another way. It's fine if you do it over and over again, if you're trying different ways to bring some truth to it. If you're saying exactly the same thing, exactly the same way as you're directed to do in certain circumstances, I don't understand that. Then it's not a collaboration and there's no joy.”
What do they hire you for if that's all they want?
“I have no idea. I have no idea. There are certain things where it's a great environment and you can say whatever you want as long as you do one as written. Then you can play around. Then there's some directors who ask for you specifically and direct you even to voice intonation. Like they felt, ‘I want to have your voice go up here.’ And I'm like, ‘You could have had anybody come in here and do this. You do it. Why are you paying money to fly me here and put me up in a hotel? This is absurd.’ And I don't mean that to be facetious. I'm saying that for real. ‘You shouldn't waste your money and time then. You should have somebody A) who's more malleable than I, or B) you should do it because this was very expensive for you to fly me out here and put me up at this hotel for this amount of time to do something that clearly anyone could do, if you're going to direct them within an inch of their lives like that.’”
20 years later, how is the stand-up lifestyle?
“Well, it's very different now than it used to be. It's not grinding the way it used to be. I work in nicer venues and stay in nicer places now. There was a time when it was almost dangerous when I was younger and flew into a hub city, renting a car and hitting every s**ty club and then hoping that I could find a Motel 6 or whatever. Sometimes it was kind of fun because you'd be with another comic and it sucked so bad it has to be good. You're very young and it can be exciting.
There were times where my friend Laura Milligan and I couldn't have been more than 23, 24, driving across California looking for crappy hotels to stay in, bombing in bar-comedy clubs or Chinese restaurants. And it was, for some reason, because we were so young and it was so awful, it was great. It would not be fun at my age now, but luckily now I get to work with great people. Laura was great, too. It's not that I didn't work with great people, but now we get paid a nice salary and we are put up in nice places and it's not as dangerous. It was really, for women, dangerous. It's not dangerous anymore.”
