‘The juiciest stuff is what’s in all our minds’ … Iliza Shlesinger. Photograph: Avalon/Iliza Shlesinger

Iliza Shlesinger: ‘I’m thinking what many women are thinking – but saying it out loud’

The American comic on performing to a stripper party, the best heckle she’s had and why honest emotions are funny

Interview by Liam Pape
Monday 20 November 2023

How did you get into comedy?
I was always into watching funny shows – what was on TV that I could sneakily watch after my mom went to bed. I would put on Comedy Central or MTV, Monty Python reruns, Kids in The Hall, The State, In Living Color, Absolutely Fabulous and, of course, SNL. I would write and film my own sketches and I joined a sketch troupe in college. From there I got the crazy idea that I could just speak, sans ensemble, alone on a stage. So I started doing standup. The rest is a blurry history.

Amy Schumer / That's All I Can Ask For

 

Amy Schumer

AMY SCHUMER: “THAT’S ALL I CAN ASK FOR”

SHORT PROFILE

Name: Amy Beth Schumer

DOB: 1 June 1981

Place of birth: New York City, New York, United States

Occupation: Comedian, actor

RÜDIGER STURM

Ms. Schumer, is laughter is always good weapon?

For me, it is, yeah. If you just laugh no matter what is going on, you feel like everything is going to be okay.

Jerry Seinfeld review – multimillionaire with a masterly common touch

Hammersmith Apollo, London
Now in his mid-60s, the comedian is still delivering beautifully honed, brilliantly timed observations on everyday life

BRIAN LOGAN

Sunday 14 July 2019

‘I

feel like a blacksmith up here sometimes,” says Jerry Seinfeld in a routine addressing 21st-century communication. Talking has been superseded; it’s an outmoded thing to do. That may be true when it comes to phones – or true enough to make a joke out of – but there’s nothing unfashionable about talking a la Seinfeld, whose brand of observational comedy spawned a thousand imitators and remains standup’s dominant mode. Tonight, we see it executed with perfect mastery by a man whose performing powers seem undiminished at a hard-to-credit 65.

Laughs flow freely throughout his 70 minutes on stage. Insights into the real Jerry, or new perspectives on the world – well, there are fewer of those, in a set whose proficiency feels a little facile, just a teensy bit soulless. Two-thirds in, he steps away from the gags to promise us a change of tack, a glimpse of where his life is in 2019. But what follows is more of the same common-touch comedy, in this case about marriage (he’s at 19 years and counting) and kids. Several of the “men do this, women do that” gags are retrieved from his back catalogue. His take on family life you could call timeless – or lacking in novelty.

But, technically, the jokes are so neat – and the delivery, exemplary. This man can do comic timing like Paul McCartney does melody. The opening sequence is a belter, as Seinfeld anatomises the night-out experience. Why are we here? Why is he? This is a “bogus, hyped-up, not necessary special event” designed to pass the time and make us feel our lives are great. But then – next gag – “‘sucks’ and ‘great’ are pretty close”, says Jerry, and isn’t everything a bit rubbish anyway?

It’s a deft start, narrowing the gap between megastar and audience, then stretching it again as comedy requires. But there’s little in tonight’s show to suggest the rarefied life multimillionaire Seinfeld must lead. His modern-life-is-funny gags are hard-wired to be relatable, from the routine about all-you-can-eat buffets to the number addressing the cult of “hydration”. Each is drolly brought to life as our host role plays gluttonous overeaters or energy-drink junkies exhaustedly craving a fix.

Perhaps because what Seinfeld is saying is often trivial, attention strays to how he’s saying it – with a sense of rhythm and cadence so finely tuned it could be applied to almost anything and still make you laugh. You might doubt there’s more humour to be wrung from that hoary standup subject, mobile phones. But Jerry manages it, with a routine looking at the anthropology of Uber, and wondering (as he did about dog ownership many moons ago) whether nowadays the human owns the phone, or vice versa.

As per his wonderfully withering gag about the vapid phrase “it is what it is”, the material zeroes in on how ridiculous we all are. But it also advertises senior citizen Seinfeld’s increasing detachment from the whole rigmarole. In the only section he couldn’t have delivered any earlier in his career, he celebrates life as a sexagenarian, when you can say no to everything with impunity, and anticipates his next decade, when – why bother speaking? – a dismissive wave should suffice.

It’s a lovely joke, but an unlikely scenario. Because nothing tonight suggests that, even at 65, Seinfeld’s appetite for talking – far less his aptitude – is remotely on the wane.

THE GUARDIAN

Portrait of the artist / Jerry Seinfeld, comedian

Jerry Seinfeld

Interview

Jerry Seinfeld, comedian

Kate Abbott

Monday 23 May 2011

'

Regret is arrogant' ... Jerry Seinfeld

When did you realise you were funny?

I thought everyone was funny in the beginning. Then, in my early 20s, everybody started to get very serious, so I decided I would rather hang around with the people who still just wanted to be funny.

What was your big break?

The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1981. That was like the first time you go sky-diving, and they say, "We've got the 'chute all set up, all you've got to do is convince your body that there's no problem jumping out of this plane."

Stage or screen?

Both. TV is intense when you're performing for a live audience and for a much larger audience beyond. When there's no studio audience, it's a bit dry.

What's your favourite TV show?

Top Gear. Those guys understand that they can cheat everything, it doesn't matter. They also know that the main thing we want to see is people having a good time making fun of each other. I'm a car fanatic.

Which comedians do you most admire?

Lots. I love Chris Rock, Jerry Lewis and Bill Cosby. The great thing about comedy is that you don't really have to think about it, you just go, "I like this guy, I don't like this guy" and it's all fine.

What advice would you give to a budding comedian?

If you are able to do it, you'll be found out very quickly. Figure out what your thing is and you'll be fine.

What one song would be the soundtrack to your life?

Oh boy, am I supposed to cry at this point? I really like this song Suavecito by Malo from 1972. It feels like a summer day. It always puts me in a good mood.

Is there anything you regret?

No. Regret is very philosophical and very arrogant. It's like: "Things should go the way I want and when they go wrong something terrible has happened."

Do you suffer for your art?

Yes, but I don't mind suffering. You suffer in all things – work, relationships, whatever else you do. Unless you're eating ice-cream, you're suffering.

What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you on stage?

I once did a show when nobody even knew I was on. It was in a discotheque in Queens, it was 1977. I went on and nobody stopped dancing. I stood there and did the show to myself.

What is it about standup that keeps you coming back? You can't need the money.

No, it's not about the money. It's about walking the true path of the samurai.

What's the worst thing anyone has ever said about you?

I don't have a good memory for that stuff. It's all kind of small to me.

CV

Born: Brooklyn, New York, 1954

Career: Best known for hit sitcom Seinfeld. Plays the O2 arena on 3 June.

High point: 'Seinfeld. I just can't believe that we somehow got that many good people in the same place at the same time.'

Low point: 'Don't give a damn.'

THE GUARDIAN

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star in this musical comedy which lacks the wit of the original novel

The 100 best novels / No 49 / Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925)

Philip French
Sunday 28 February 2010


T

his 1953 musical comedy, among the last of its kind to be made before the coming of the widescreen, features a golddigging Monroe and a man-eating Russell as busty girls en route by sea from the States to Paris, France. There are a couple of well-staged numbers but less wit and style than are to be found in Anita Loos's demotic classic on which it's based. Released the year Playboy was launched, it features much characteristic 50s coarseness and leering. Gentleman Prefer Blondes is among the weaker works of a great filmmaker, whose two finest comedies (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday) were made before the war and whose greatest film (Rio Bravo) was yet to come.

THE GUARDIAN