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By
Suzanne

Interview with Sarah Silverman of "The Sarah
Silverman Program" on Comedy Central 1/29/10
Read my review
of the show's premiere!
I missed this one, which is a real shame because Sarah
was a hoot!
Sarah Silverman
January 29, 2010/11:00 a.m. PST
SPEAKERS
Eric Drumm – Electric Artists
Sarah Silverman
PRESENTATION
Moderator Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to
the Sarah Silverman Program conference call. At this time, all
participants are in a listen only mode. Later we will conduct a question
and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I
would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Eric Drumm with
Electric Artists. Please go ahead.
Eric Hi, how is everybody doing? So, first we’d like to thank Sarah for
being with us today to talk about the new season of the Sarah Silverman
Program premiering Thursday, February 4th at 10:30 on Comedy Central.
Due to the number of people that have dialed in today, we are asking
everyone to please limit themselves to one question, and then re-enter
the question queue if you have more questions. This will allow us to
field as many questions as possible within the time that we have.
Just a reminder, this call is being recorded, and there will be a
transcript sent to you in a couple of days. So, everybody have fun, and
I’ll turn it back over to Stephanie.
Sarah Wait, I can’t even like hear laughs or anything? Oh. It’s lonely,
but it’s oddly not, but then it is.
Moderator Our first question comes from Matt Rodriguez. Please go ahead.
Matt Hey, Sarah. Pleasure to talk to you. I was wondering, you touch on
a lot of controversial subjects, and—
Sarah Oh, God, I’m so sorry. This is so unfair to you. My dog is going
crazy because the … guy is here. Can we have a quick time out? I’m so
sorry. I’m so sorry; I just don’t want to be like not listening fully.
Matt All right.
Sarah Thank you so much. I’m so sorry. Hey, I’m sorry.
Matt That’s all right. I was wondering what kind of subjects are you
going to be touching on this season. Like, what kind of taboo and
controversial subjects? You tend to do that a lot in your show.
Sarah We do, although I don’t think we ever really go, “What can we
tackle this season?” I think that would kind of be a slutty way to go
about it. We just continue to still try to just write stuff that makes
us laugh, and when a bunch of comics are in a room, it takes more to
make us laugh; or less. I mean, aggressively stupid goes a long way in
the room and on the show.
Let’s see, I find out I was born with both looks and personality? No,
it’s weird to not have anything coming back. I’m imagining you all
laughing on mute. What else? My imaginary friend from childhood comes
back as an adult and we have a lesby affair. Steve and Brian have a
great … this season; their love as well as Jay and Laura; there’s some
wedding action, and it’s very funny; there’s a new mayor in town who
makes gay sex and brunch illegal. I should just look through the—let’s
see, I go on “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Let’s see, Andy Samberg plays my imaginary friend this year. Ed Asner is
in an episode as a Nazi war criminal. It was really, really—let me tell
you something about older actors. Ed Asner is about 80, and Murray, who
is on our show, Gershams, is 87, and they’re such pros that when they’re
not shooting, they are in their chair sleeping. Just like containing
their energy. And we have some really great pictures of elderly Nazi war
criminals in set chairs sound asleep.
Matt Thank you.
Sarah Billy Crudup plays himself on the show in an episode. I know you
didn’t ask who guest stars were. Let me think. There’s some heavy
psychedelic drug-taking in an episode. There’s a lot of drugs this
season, actually.
Let me think; let me think a … second. I’m just reacting to nobody. Let
me think—oh God, I need to drink this coffee that’s in front of me.
C’mon Sarah, you’re embarrassing yourself.
I try to fight the taboo of child molesters and vans. Oh, my God, my
brain, my brain. This is going to look so cool on a transcript; lots of
dot, dot, dots, and little breakdowns.
Matt Well, it sounds like you have a good season coming up.
Sarah It does, right? I know I’m forgetting like eight episodes. There’s
one episode; our eighth episode actually is a Steve and Brian story line
that, you’ll actually, dare I say, cry at the end.
It was written as a drama. Rob Schrab, actually, who directs most of the
episodes, and writes so much and created the show with me, wrote this
episode; and he wrote the “A” story like it’s a drama. I don’t think
it’s like a very special “Family Ties,” but I think you might get choked
up at the end.
Matt Huh?
Sarah Yeah.
Matt What?
Sarah I know.
Matt Yeah. Well, thank you.
Sarah All right. Good. I’m trying to answer the questions really extra
full since you might get a—oh my God.
Moderator Okay. Are we done with that question?
Eric Yeah, let’s move on to the next question so we can get more of
these in.
Moderator Okay.
Sarah All right, all right. I’m sorry.
Eric No problem.
Moderator Our next question comes from Marc Eastman—
Sarah If I drink coffee, I’ll be much more better at, articulate,
rather.
Moderator Our next question comes is from Mark Eastman. Please go ahead.
Marc Hi, Sarah. I was actually just kind of wondering, looking through
the old shows--actually I’ve seen the first show of the season—it seems
like you’ve got kind of a shock and comedy and shocking comedy, and you
know some things are just there to just, I think, shock. Maybe I’m wrong
about that, but—
Sarah Oh, you don’t like the show.
Marc No, I do like the show.
Sarah Oh yeah.
Marc Shocking isn’t bad.
Sarah No, I don’t think shock is bad. I don’t think it is. I don’t think
it’s derived in particularly sweaty ways. I think it comes a little more
organically. I do think we’re not more beholden to shock than story, or
anything. I think—like what do you have in mind when you say that …?
Marc Well, actually, I guess the question I was going to ask is, maybe
during the writing process, how much is, “this is really hilarious”
versus “this is kind of shocking and funny?”
Sarah We never go for shocking if it’s not funny to us. I mean, I think
that we go for aggressively dumb, but I don’t know because that has been
what really makes us laugh in the room lately, like the biggest
compliment you can get is, “That is so … dumb.”
But shock—I don’t think we go like, “Ooh, that will really shock them.”
I mean, does anything shock anyone anymore? I think we kind of hopefully
reach beyond that a little bit with our fart jokes, no. But, I think
that this season there is actually growth and character arc and stuff.
Hopefully still just really dumb and funny and silly. And anything smart
you can infer from it from you smart brain is great. I don’t know that
it’s pure shock value. I don’t know how long that can last, and maybe
that’s what you’re saying. I feel like we’ve got a really, really full
season.
Marc Well, good. I think that pretty well answers my question.
Sarah Really? Oh, good.
Moderator Our next question comes from Sean McCarthy. Please go ahead.
Sarah Can you say what the Website is, too?
Sean Sure. My name is Sean McCarthy, and I’m with the Website, The
Comic’s Comic. I noticed the first couple episodes of this season have
more of a cinematic tone that reminded me a lot of Jesus is Magic.
Sarah Oh, good.
Sean And I wasn’t sure if that was deliberate, or—
Sarah No, not deliberate, but I think cinematic certainly—I’m glad you
guys got some of the episodes. I think the first one, “Proof is in the
Penis” feels really cinematic to me. We just haven’t been on the air in
14 months, and that kind of kills us in our hearts, but we just really
wanted to start with this one because it just felt like for people who
are fans of the show, we know you’ve waited a long time, and here’s
something that may be kind of special, or worth the wait; that has slow
reveals, and just feels maybe like something special. We love that
episode.
Sean Okay.
Sarah Did that answer your question? Wait. Have a followup one. That
wasn’t good.
Sean I just wasn’t sure if we can expect big musical numbers all season
long, or if this is just the first couple of episodes?
Sarah No, no, no. There’s musical—it’s very uneven. We’ve just kind of
went organically with how it went, so there are a couple episodes that
have no music. There’s an episode that has, I think the second episode
has three songs. It’s just kind of however it works with the story and
however we’re moved when writing the outline.
Usually in the room, someone will just start, get a snag in their brain
of a—there’s an episode where Steve writes a song that becomes famous
called, “I’m glad you hurt your hand because Brian like hurts his hand.”
That just came from the writer’s room of me. Rob Schrab hit his hand,
and I was in an extra obnoxious … mode, and I just started going, “I’m
glad you hurt your hand. I’m glad you hurt your hand.” Then Rob wrote it
into the script.
Sean Oh, great. I have other questions, but I’ll wait until it goes
around again.
Sarah Oh, okay. I hope this was good.
Sean Thanks, Sarah.
Sarah All right, thanks.
Moderator Okay, our next question comes from Rosa Cordera. Please go
ahead.
Rosa Hi, Sarah, you’re awesome.
Sarah Thank you.
Rosa I love you, you’re so frickin’ hilarious.
Sarah What are you from?
Rosa AccidentalSexiness.com.
Sarah Oh, I’ve seen that before. I know I shouldn’t have sidebars, but
my friend, Chelsea Peretti, is a hilarious comic, and she writes for the
show. She wrote the second episode, actually. But she has a joke about
the girls whose G-strings come up, you know, past their pants. “Oh, no.
I made a sexy mistake.” Whenever I see AccidentalSexiness, I think of
her jokes. Okay, sorry.
Rosa I’m so flattered that you’ve seen my site before.
Sarah Yeah.
Rosa That’s awesome. I have a question. You were spotted with a boy at
Madeo’s yesterday. Could you tell us who he is?
Sarah Holy …. That’s so weird. I feel like that place people, yeah, God.
Rosa If you can’t, then that’s cool. I totally respect it.
Sarah No, he’s my boyfriend, Alec.
Rosa Oh, Alex. He’s very cute.
Sarah Alec. A-l-e-c, Alec.
Rosa Alec.
Sarah He writes for “Family Guy.”
Rosa Oh, really? Cool. Everybody’s wondering who this mystery guy is.
He’s very cute.
Sarah There. Mystery solved.
Rosa I wish you luck on the season. It looks like it’s going to be
awesome.
Sarah I can’t believe that’s what you put your question—that’s how you
used your question.
Rosa I did, I did. Everybody was wondering, and I wanted to be the one
to know.
Sarah Well, his mother will be very pleased, just seeing his name ....
Rosa Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah All right. Take care.
Rosa You, too.
Moderator Okay, our next question comes from Ben Sumner. Please go
ahead, Mr. Sumner.
Ben Hey, Sarah. I’m from Gunaction.com. Sports, beer, media, humor,
girls, and gadgets. That’s what we do. I am a huge fan of your show. I
absolutely love it. What I was always wondering is, if you didn’t make
it into comedy, what would you be doing?
Sarah I would probably work with retarded adults.
Ben See, my guess was phone sex, just because I think you’d be really
good at it. I think you would be funny, and people would be requesting
you.
Sarah I think the woman moderating this would be doing that. She’s got a
very sexy voice. Yeah, I like being around the mentally handicapped.
Ben That sounds like a good episode for your show. Maybe season three?
Sarah You know what? It is an episode this season, but it’s not exactly
that. It’s less. But there is an episode this season where I get in
trouble for peeing in a mailbox, and I get sent in to work at this place
called, “The Little Buddies Program” which works with retarded adults;
but I think I’m paired with a mentally handicapped adult, and she thinks
she’s paired with a mentally handicapped adult, and we’re so
condescending to each other that we never realize who’s retarded,
because it’s like, “Do you like ice cream? I love ice cream!” “Do you
like ice cream? I love ice cream!”
Ben This sounds like a great season coming up, and I’m really looking
forward to it. Thank you.
Sarah Awesome. Thank you.
Moderator We have our next question from Claire Daniel. Please go ahead.
Claire Hi, Sarah. It’s Claire.
Sarah Hi.
Claire I know you have a boyfriend, but I was wondering, your show comes
on before his. Is there any sexual tension with Demetri Martin? And do
you have any tips for romance in the workplace?
Sarah Wait, is there sexual tension between me and Demetri?
Claire Yeah.
Sarah No. He’s awesome, though. He’s got a beautiful girlfriend.
Claire Yeah. Let me ask, with Alec, what were the four things you felt
with him that you noticed were boyfriend material?
Sarah I’m sorry, I did not hear you. What are the what?
Claire How did you know Alec was boyfriend material, and do you have any
tips for girls? What they should look for in a man?
Sarah I don’t want to polarize women and men, but I feel like all of us,
what we wish for, and then what we are attracted to are often so
different. I remember my shrink told me, “We don’t get what we want. We
get what we think we deserve.” So, you have to kind of work on accepting
yourself before you feel like you deserve love. Because it’s nice to
actually be attracted to someone that’s crazy about you, and just get
to--. I love love, so I’m going to be corny and not funny, but I think
it’s awesome to just get to love somebody to pieces, and they just love
you back to pieces. It’s not a turn off because they like you, and
mostly, yes, he’s funny as …, you know?
Claire Yeah. So someone who loves you, someone who’s funny?
Sarah Yeah, I’m one of those lucky people that’s attracted to someone
loving me. A lot of people aren’t. You think you are, but you’re not.
For me, it almost makes life harder, but you’ve got to be funny. Also,
we enjoy a lot of modern warfare—I think, what is it, Tour of Duty 5?
I’d have to look on my thing.
What I’m saying is I’m 10. I’m 10 years old. Did I answer anything? Oh
my God, what has this become?
Claire No, that was great, that was great. Thank you. It sounds like you
are very happy.
Sarah Yeah.
Moderator Our next question comes from Candice Hucking. Please go ahead.
Candice Hi, Sarah.
Sarah Hi.
Candice I was wondering, since you were nominated for an Emmy, has that
created higher expectations for yourself, and for the show now?
Sarah Well, we’ve always had high expectations for the show. Not in
terms of accolades, but we work on it the same. I think everyone that
works on it has this awesome love for it. I know it’s so corny when
people say that, but we really are like a group of friends. We stand on
the set, not just the cast and the writers, but the crew. With all our
huge, crazy insane gaps in production, all the crew works their way back
to the show because we just have such an awesome time. We stand around
going, “Oh my God. We’re making show business. Like this is going to be
on TV.”
It doesn’t seem fair to get to do what we all love so much.
We didn’t expect it so much, that none of us knew they were even
announcing the Emmy nominees. I just woke up to my alarm clock and
looked on my phone, and saw like eight calls, and I thought there was an
emergency. It just never occurred to us ever, and then it was so great.
We couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it, and we’re so happy that
anyone, especially the hoity-toits, would appreciate our show as much as
we do. It was awesome.
It would have been great to have some sort of momentum with the other
award shows in the season, but we weren’t eligible for any of the
others; Golden Globes or SAG Awards, or any of that stuff because we
weren’t on the air in 2009, at all. It will have been 14 months since
the last time we were on when we air on February 4th. You’d think we
were “The Sopranos” or “Lost” with these gaps, and not a 21-1/2 minute
show about fart jokes, but we’ll take it. We really love it. We love
being together and making this super-super dumb, funny, silly show.
Candice All right. Well, thank you. Good luck this season.
Sarah Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from Erin Bliglow. Please go ahead.
Erin Hi Sarah, this is Erin from Poptimal.com. How are you?
Sarah Oh, good. How are you?
Erin I’m good. Congratulations on the success of the show. I have to
change topics a little bit, and I need to know if you think Conan got a
raw deal?
Sarah Yeah. I mean, I feel pretty confident that he’s going to end up on
top somehow, but totally. I just can’t get my head around it. The guy
has done so much for NBC and for Late Night, and has made such a
success. If you remember, any talk show starts out super slow. No talk
show has ever been a hit from day one, ever. And to switch from 12:30 to
11:30 seems like no big deal, but it is. It’s a whole different animal.
Not that I know, but from what I know, from what I see. To have him move
his whole family and hundreds, over a hundred, hundreds, maybe, of
staff, taking their whole lives and moving to L.A. Getting their kids in
schools out here, and then only giving it six months? That’s … crazy.
They should never be able to use the words, “The NBC Family.” Ever.
But, that said; people go, “Well, he got so much money,” and that’s nice
that he got money, but he loves that job. Also, he got the money, but
the rest of the whole crew doesn’t, and he’s got …. He’s a good guy. I
think they all probably feel real displaced, and abandoned. And they
have every right to feel that way.
I can’t help but hope that he lands at FOX or somewhere, anywhere.
Wherever he lands, he’ll always have an audience. I just thought that
that was a real … move on NBC’s part. And then on top of it, of course
the last week or two of the show was just amazing, you know?
Erin Oh, of course, yeah, the ratings just went through the roof after
the whole debacle, so what do you know?
Sarah But I look forward to “Late Night 2” or “Late Shift 2”.
Erin Right, right.
Sarah His old partner must be over the moon. I can’t wait ….
Erin Should be interesting. Okay, well thank you so much. I appreciate
it, and good luck with the upcoming season of the show.
Sarah Thanks, Erin.
Moderator Our next question comes from Todd Jackson. Please go ahead.
Todd Hi there, Sarah.
Sarah Hi.
Todd This is Todd Jackson. I’m from a site called Deaddashfraud.com.
It’s kind of about comedy, but very much in a nerdy way. So, what I was
curious about was, how difficult is it for the writers to create the
show in your voice. Did you ever have times where you say, “Sarah
wouldn’t do that” or “Duck wouldn’t do that.” You probably know what
Duck can’t do, but that sort of thing.
Hello?
Moderator I think she lost her connection.
Todd Oh, boy. Just when I got going, too. Look at that.
Moderator Yeah, she lost her connection. We’ll have to wait ‘til she
calls back. I think that may be her there. Hang on a second. I’m going
to have to release you back to get her call unless somebody grabs it.
Todd Okay.
Moderator Hang on. We’ll just wait for a second. That’s her coming back
in. Okay, Ms. Silverman?
Sarah Yes.
Moderator Okay, you lost your connection. Mr. Jackson is still here with
his question. Go ahead, sir.
Sarah I’m sorry.
Todd That’s all right. I understand. These things happen. I’ll just
start again.
How difficult is it for the writers to create the show in your voice? Is
there times when you say, “Sarah wouldn’t do that” or—
Sarah I’m there the whole time. I’m one of the writers. There’s just
like five of us, so there’s never a problem. There hasn’t been much
turnover; it’s been like Dan Sterling and Rob Schrab and I, and then
John Schroeder, tall John, he’s 6”10”, and Harris Wittels and Chelsea
Peretti, and our writer’s assistant, Eric Schaer, who’s written two
great scripts in the past two season. But, it’s just a small group. We
work out of my apartment usually the first three weeks, because we never
have office space when we finally get picked up.
Todd Oh, wow. Okay.
Sarah So it’s very intimate. My hands are all over it, but also, the
guys know me so well; sometimes more than I know myself.
Todd So it’s literally a case that sometimes you go, “I wouldn’t do
that,” and they go, “Yes, you would,” and you go, “Yeah, maybe I would
do that.”
Sarah Yeah, sometimes, but sometimes it’s such a fine line that I’ll go,
“Eew, I don’t want to do that.” And I’ll do something so very similar to
it, but it’s just one of those things that there’s no rule book. It’s
just kind of by feel, and that’s it. Some writers get far more excited
about—you know, I mean, writing for Jay is super fun—like everyone has
such a specific voice; between Laura and Brian and Steve and Jay. I know
Dan Sterling loves writing Jay’s stuff, his professions of love—is that
right? Professions?
Todd Yeah.
Sarah I thought I just made that up, but it makes sense.
Todd Yeah. How do you profess your love?
Sarah Yeah, right. Professions of love. Title of a book.
Todd Or a soap opera.
Sarah Yeah. Next on “Professions of Love.” Did that answer your
question?
Todd I think that gets it pretty good.
Sarah Okay.
Todd Thank you very much, Sarah.
Sarah Thanks, Todd.
Moderator Our next question comes from Lena Lamoray. Please go ahead.
Lena Hi, Sarah.
Sarah Hi.
Lena Lena from lenalamoray.com
Sarah Oh, hello. Yes.
Lena Now how many episode ideas have been shot down by the network?
Sarah None. None. I could complain about Comedy Central about plenty of
things, I guess, but they are super cool about the most important thing,
which is content. They may have gripes or they might complain or try to
lure us away from a topic, but they never put their fist down and say,
“No.” It’s awesome. They really have not meddled with any of the content
we like to do.
They’re great about it. They never really sensor us, and even the
standard and practices people can make is crazy, but really as long as
we can give them a way to defend it, they’ll let us go. They just always
need to know how to defend something that they’re worried about.
Lena So they pretty much give you free rein?
Sarah Yeah. I don’t know why my dog is barking. Let me see if there is a
murderer. What is it, buddy? He’s very old. He plays Doug on the show,
but his name is Duck. Okay. Did I answer that?
Lena Yes. Thank you.
Sarah Oh, did I? Thank you, Lena.
Moderator Our next question comes from Jerry Nunn. Please go ahead.
Jerry Hi Sarah, its Jerry from Windy City Times in Chicago.
Sarah Hi.
Jerry Hi. You are now being televised on The Logo Network, and the
commercial is hilarious.
Sarah Yeah.
Jerry How do you feel about your gay fans?
Sarah Well, they saved us. We wouldn’t be on the air if it wasn’t for
Logo. Not that that’s the only reason why, but I mean—it’s funny because
I was talking to some gay friends of mine, and they were just like; it’s
not just that Steve and Brian are gay, it’s just kind of the subversive
humor. It’s that kind of like absurdist stuff is I guess up, the cup of
tea of a lot of people in the gay community; maybe more in general than
the straight community. I don’t know, but yeah. I’m just so grateful.
I know that gays belong to Kathy, but any fall over, I’m not going to
take. I’m just so grateful to Logo. They didn’t even think twice about
helping us, and in terms of the content, never, ever had even a request.
They really are amazing over there, and I can’t express how grateful we
all are for them, because we wouldn’t have had a third season without
them, and they asked for nothing in return. The fact that their end of
the bargain is that they get to air the episodes, it’s like really? It’s
amazing to us, too. Its so win-win and we’re just so grateful. So
totally grateful.
Jerry Awesome. I interviewed Lisa Lampanelli this morning. She wanted me
to tell you “Hi.”
Sarah Oh, I love her.
Jerry I do too.
Sarah I love when she says, when she saw—who is the guy with the huge
penis? He was married to Pamela Anderson?
Stefan
Jerry Oh, Tommy Lee.
Sarah She said she didn’t know whether to suck it or feed it a peanut.
Jerry Well, awesome. Good luck with your season. I appreciate it.
Sarah Thank you. Thank you.
Moderator Next we have a question from Stefan Glitz. Please go ahead.
Stefan Hi, how are you?
Sarah Hi, how are you?
Stefan Good. I’m calling from forcesofgeek.com.
Sarah Oh, awesome.
Stefan And, first of all, we actually have a mutual friend. I went to
high school with Stevie Summersquash.
Sarah Oh my God. I love her so much. Stevie “Blue Sky” Summersquash.
Stefan Yes. Most memorable name in the world.
Sarah Awesome.
Stefan The question I have for you is did … Franklin ever make up?
Sarah Yes. Actually he did. He came to Caroline’s once when I was there,
and his guy goes, “He’d like to introduce you when you go up,” and I
don’t know why, but I go, “Nah, that’s okay.” I should have just let
him. I don’t think he ever was angry. My take on it was that he just was
super excited and wanted to milk it for all that it was worth; which I
don’t blame him for. It was just a riff. I think I had just seen
Broadway’s “Danny Rose,” and his name was fresh in my head.
Stefan Okay. Well, that’ll work.
Sarah Good. Thank you.
Stefan Back in the queue. Thank you very much and continued success.
Sarah Thank you.
Stefan Bye bye.
Moderator We have our next question from John Latchem. Please go ahead.
John Hi, I’m here on behalf of Home Media Magazine. My question is what
kind of cool things can fans expect from the DVD of Season 2, Volume 2
that’s coming out soon?
Sarah Hold on, I’m going to look at it right next. I just got a box of
them. First of all, let’s see. It’s the rest of Season 2. Season 2 got
split up by the strike for us. There’s also a bunch of animated shorts.
There’s some great behind the scenes stuff. We did audio commentary.
The behind the scenes stuff is really cool on it, actually, because we
always just have somebody around with a flip camera or something,
backstage, and they grab us between scenes, or whatever, and make
something cool out of it. And then, just all the episodes.
John Can you talk about the animated shorts? Like how you did those?
Sarah Those were done by this guy named Justin Roiland, who is an
amazing animator and writer, and Rob Schrab knew him from Channel 101,
which is a website that they do together. It’s a live show here in L.A.,
too, where people make TV shows that are under five minutes. I don’t
know if you know anything about it; it’s pretty spectacular, and it’s
how I met Schrab, and Dan Harmon—the three of us created this show
together.
There’s just this crazy pool of talent, and Justin does this great
animation, so we just kind of gave him free rein, and he would write
cartoons and stuff, and grab us in between scenes to record them. And
that’s that.
John I guess with the commentaries, looking back, I guess because the
show was so long ago, was that kind of trippy?
Sarah Yeah. We’re all so close to the episodes because we watch it in
tiny increments, building and building from each stage, and then editing
and everything, so we’re pretty familiar with it. But it is fun to then,
months later, just put headphones on and watch it, and talk. We end up
just having conversations while we’re supposed to be commenting on the
show.
It is fun, the things that come up and the stuff you remember about each
scene, and the kind of backstage antics going on, and the way we figured
out how to do this or shoot this. For people who are interested in that
stuff, it’s interesting. I wouldn’t shove it down everyone’s throat, but
I like that kind of stuff. We always just kind of go by the gauge of the
stuff we’re into. We’re film and television geeks. I could watch “The
Shining” featurette a thousand times in a row, and never get sick of it.
It’s just to taste. I like DVDs with extras.
John Thanks.
Sarah Thank you.
Moderator Next we have a question from Russell Trunk. Please go ahead.
Russell Good afternoon, Sarah.
Sarah Hello, good afternoon.
Russell This is Russell Trunk, from ExclusiveMagazine.com. So, my
question to you, is, as we all know, your character on TV uses bad
language, rants unashamedly, and is full of sticky-sweet self-importance
at the best of times. But in real life, honestly, is there anything
taboo to you? Some subject or person that you won’t touch; and if so,
why?
Sarah Well, I don’t like to make fun of people, real people, and the
only times I’ve done that is if it’s a Roast or stuff like that. You
know what I don’t like? When people ask me that, I always think of the
same thing, which is I don’t like jokes about fat women. I don’t like
fat jokes about women, and it’s just not tit for tat, you know? Like fat
women in white AmErica don’t deserve love, and I don’t think that’s
anything to make fun of, you know what I mean? It’s a bummer.
Actually, there’s a quote from “Family Guy,” that’s so brilliant about
that, that encapsulates exactly how I feel about it, which is like—oh,
I’m not going to say it right, but it’s—you know the father, Peter, and
the son—what’s his name, Chris? Chris is like, “Well, we’re fat,” and
Peter goes, “Chris, fat guys aren’t fat. Only fat women are fat.” It’s
just so true in our society, and it bums me out to make—it never makes
me laugh, it just makes me go, “Ugh.”
Russell So you’ve never encountered that in the show as a parody?
Sarah No, I mean if you ask me if there’s anything that offends me,
probably that. I guess if something isn’t funny; and of course, funny is
totally subjective, but you hope that if something’s offensive, it’s
more funny than offensive. If it doesn’t tickle your funny bone, then
all that’s left is offensive. We can only go by our own personal gauges,
you know?
Russell Absolutely. Well, you answered my question very thoroughly.
Thank you, young lady.
Sarah Oh. Thank you.
Moderator Next we have a question from Troy Rogers. Please go ahead Mr.
Rogers.
Troy Hi, Sarah.
Sarah Hi. Mr. Rogers?
Troy Yeah, I know. I get it a lot. I really like last season’s episode,
Kangamangus. I just wanted to know, do you have any personal slang words
you’d like to see become popular?
Sarah I was just kind of saying something about that. ….
Troy There’s one.
Sarah I did send a Twitter that said, “How about we start going, Oh,
that is so pre-Fontaine.” I think was like a runner, or something. You
guys, that is so pre-Fontaine. Okay, let’s go with that.
Troy Okay. Excellent. Thanks.
Sarah Thank you.
Moderator Our next question comes from Jay Jacobs. Please go ahead.
Jay Hey Sarah, it’s Jay Jacobs from PopEntertainment.com. How are you
doing?
Sarah I’m well. How are you?
Jay Good. Good. Listen, beyond the show, you also have a movie that’s
starting today, and I actually just spoke with Steve Buscemi about the
making of Saint John of Las Vegas. But I was wondering, what was he like
to work with, and what was the movie like to work on?
Sarah Oh, he is so amazing. I’m so happy to know him now, and he’s just
the kindest, most sincere, but like also the silliest man. He just takes
my breath away. Sometimes we’d be doing a scene, and I would just be
watching him. Like you forget you’re part of it, because you just want
to sit and just watch him.
But he’s such a great guy, and he’s so in love with his wife and his
kid. Whenever his phone would ring and he would see it was one of them,
he’d just go like, “Oh!” and it’s so cute. I just loved it; to work with
him and Peter Dinklage and Romany Malco, who is like, I want him to be
my life coach. He’s just got everything figured out. He’s such a neat
guy.
But, it was a blast. We had a lot of fun. It was nice to play somebody
nice, and I actually was replacing a woman who was—I can never remember
her name, she was great. She was in Lovely and Amazing.” Anyway, she for
some reason had to leave; she had a family emergency.
The only bad story I have from that is I flew in to New Mexico. I mean,
I just took it right away, because I was like, Steve Buscemi, okay,
whatever. I flew the next day, and I had to go straight from the airport
to wardrobe. And we started trying things on and nothing fit. The
wardrobe woman just starts tearing up, literally getting choked up with
tears, and she goes, “I got all size 0s, and you’re like an 8.” I was
just like, “Oh, I’m sorry.” So humiliating, but what are you going to
do?
It ended up being super fun, and even she was really nice, but it was
hard to feel like you hurt someone’s feeling because you’re too fat. But
it was really fun. I’m so happy it’s coming out. I just started seeing
ads for it on TV, and I was like, “Oh my God.”
Jay Well, it’s a good movie. I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the first two
episodes of the new season, as well. Good luck with those.
Sarah Oh, awesome. Thank you.
Jay Thank you.
Moderator We have our next question from Lauren Wiginton. Go ahead,
please.
Lauren Oh, hi Sarah. This is Lauren from …. I love the first two
episodes of the new season, but I was wondering; I’ve heard you talk
before about your battle with depression. I was wondering, when you’re
in that dark place, how do you continue to think and write comedically?
Sarah You know what? I think the best answer to that is just practice.
Practice, you know, when you do it every day, and it’s part of what you
do. You’re able to channel it through whatever mood. And also, I think
my sadness or my happiness, or any kind of manic thing; it forms
whatever kind of work I do in that day.
Sometimes it’s hard. I have dark times. Honestly, I’m pretty much a
happy person, and I like being happy. I like being content. I think
people that romanticize it don’t really know how bad it is, like
sadness.
There was a time, actually—you know when you’re just like—I don’t cry a
lot, but I felt like tears had been filling me up for days, and I’d been
pressing down. Then I was shooting one morning, a bunch of the …, so I’m
in my pretend bed with my real dog, and we’re about to shoot all the
good nights, and it just happened where literally Rob said, “Action” and
I went to talk and nothing came out. And just like tears. I felt so—and
it was just one of those things where I said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” It
just almost became totally physical. I just was like—and they were,
“It’s okay. Let’s take five.” And half of me is crying, I don’t even
know why, and half of me is crying because I just feel so bad for
holding things up.
It’s just so cool, because my real life sister plays my sister, and she
was there to do the scene after that, and so they were like, “Do you
want us to get Laura?” And I was like, “Yes.” And she came in and she
got into my pretend bed, and just rubbed my hair and told me stories
about when I was little, and it just made everything better. It was just
such a sweet, weird, bizarre, but homey, almost, experience. And then I
felt better, and I was like, “I feel better, but I’m afraid to call the
crew back, because I know when I see their faces, I’ll cry. Because they
love me.”
But we ended up making the day, no problem. It was good. It was just one
of those big cries that you don’t expect every couple years, and it was
so weird. But I think of it almost fondly, because I just love those
guys so much, and to have my own sister right there was nice.
Lauren How much is the character of your sister like with you and your
sister’s relationship in real life?
Sarah Similar, only she, I think, I hope to think we take care of each
other more. More of an equal—Laura is actually in real life older than
me, but I make her my younger sister because; one, she looks … really
good, and two, I decided it would be funnier for me to be mooching off
of my little sister.
But there’s four of us, four girls, and we’re all really close.
Sometimes I just feel bad for people without sisters. I remember one
time I was having a fight with a boyfriend, and I was like forwarding
all our emails of stuff to my three sisters. And we’re having a whole
conversation by email about, “If he said this, and you should …,” and I
accidentally copied him in one, and he literally saw the whole thing.
But I was just like, “You know what? Whatever you say to me, you should
assume that all of my sisters can hear. That’s how you should talk to
me. I don’t take it back. That’s how it’s going to be. So watch it.”
Lauren Thank you so much for taking my question.
Sarah Thank you.
Eric Hey, everyone. We only have time for about one more question.
Moderator Okay. We have our next question from Lisa Steinberg. Please go
ahead.
Lisa Hi Sarah. I’ve waited this whole time with eager anticipation to
speak with you. I’m a huge fan, and thank you so much for speaking with
us all this afternoon.
Sarah Oh, thank you.
Lisa I put in all the efforts, and I’m glad that I’m the last caller, so
it’ll end on a great note, I’m sure and I hope.
Sarah Oh, good.
Lisa I was wondering, every season—now there’s been three seasons,
but—how do you challenge yourself when it comes to the shows? Is it
something like, “I’m going to do this, this season; or maybe I should
challenge myself to go outside this box this season?”
Sarah Gosh, I can’t say that I’ve really stood outside of it and thought
about it, and deconstructed it to that level, but it just kind of
happens, haphazardly. There are like, two episodes this season. You’ll
only notice it if you look for it. In one of them, it’s just kind of a
fading thing, but I have a real thing with necks. Like, why isn’t there
bone there? There’s so much important stuff in there. Like in your neck
and your throat. It’s crazy that evolution didn’t put something there to
protect it. It makes me mad.
So anyway, there’s like some times when I talk about it, and it became
into this episode where I get hit with a Frisbee in the neck, and it
becomes my obsession. Actually, I think it’s the second episode, if you
were sent it. It turns out that, oh yeah, I have to be looking up and
not anticipating a Frisbee is about to be thrown into my neck. My
biggest fear. It’s mean, it’s not … with dolphins, or whatever that was.
And just in terms of acting? This is really corny, but I try to—as
corny, or as absurd, or as aggressively … stupid something is, I know
that I try to play it real, because without that contrast, if I was
acting like, “Whew, I’m crazy,” there would be no contrast to how stupid
the material is. I am kind of aware of that.
Lisa Thank you so much again, and I meant to say I’m with Starrymag.com,
and I appreciate you, again, speaking with us this afternoon, and have a
good afternoon, and thank you.
Sarah Thanks Lisa. Thanks for hanging in there.
Eric That’s about all the time we have for today, everybody.
Sarah Oh, God. Did everyone ask one question, or? Sorry.
Moderator Yes, except for one person. We just have one other—two other
people, but one of people didn’t get a chance to ask a question.
Eric Sarah, do you have time to do that one?
Sarah Yes.
Eric Okay, great.
Sarah Yeah.
Moderator This will be the last question. It’s from; I believe the name
is Ilan Mester. Am I pronouncing that right? Please go ahead.
Ilan Okay. Hi, Sarah, I’m from … in Canada.
Sarah Hi.
Ilan Hi. I actually wanted to ask you, since we heard your dog. Have you
ever thought about giving him a co-star? Like an animal co-star on the
show.
Sarah You mean credit-wise?
Ilan No, no, like another animal or something. Because he’s such a big
part of the show.
Sarah Oh, you mean getting another animal. Of course.
Ilan Yeah.
Sarah I don’t know. Like should he have a pet? He should have a fish.
Would that be a good idea? Do you want to have a fish on the show? … I
don’t know, we haven’t really thought about it, though Laura always
brings her dog to the set, and they’re like best friends, but—
Ilan Then you should put him on.
Sarah But Laura will just pretend her dog, Daisy, just doesn’t get to be
on camera. “I don’t have on-camera looks.”
Ilan And actually, I just wanted to know about your YouTube videos that
are such hits. Have you thought about releasing another one? What are
your other ones about?
Sarah I never, you know obviously I make no—we shoot it in my apartment,
I do it for free. We just make it because we just love doing that stuff
when we think of something. I’ve been approached to do something where I
have to pump out a certain amount, and it would be monetized, but it’s
just not worth it because I feel like I don’t want to have to come up
with stuff. It’s just like if it moves me, and I think of something, we
shoot something in my apartment and put it up there. I kind of just like
it that way.
I own my Saab and my apartment. I don’t want to ever have to produce
something, even if it’s not inspired, you know what I mean? Like just
for the sake of it. Right now I don’t have any—we did everything. We did
all the ideas we had. Although there is one more video we’re thinking
about doing, but—
Ilan That is?
Sarah I just kind of whenever I think of something and want to do it,
I’ll do it, but I don’t like to be beholden to it in that way, and I
really love the internet. I love it as a medium. I just want to do stuff
I’m super-jazzed about and not be beholden to any kind of production
schedule.
Ilan Right. For sure. Thank you so much, Sarah, and great luck with the
season.
Sarah Thanks.
Eric I just want to thank Sarah for joining us today, and remind
everybody that there will be a transcript coming in the next couple of
days, so we’ll forward that to you as soon as we have it.
Sarah What is that going to look like?
Eric We’ll send it to you so you can add pictures to it.
Sarah No, no. It’s okay. All right, thanks everybody.
Eric And everybody, don’t forget to check out the premiere of “The Sarah
Silverman Program, Season 3,” this coming Thursday, February 4th at
10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.
Sarah WooHoo. Thank you so much.
Eric You’re welcome.
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