This week, we’re highlighting 25 talented writers and performers for Vulture’s annual list “The Comedians You Should and Will Know.” Our goal is to introduce a wider audience to the talent that has the comedy community and industry buzzing. (You can read more about our methodology at the link above.) We asked the comedians on the list to answer a series of questions about their work, performing, goals for the future, and more. Next up is Sophie Zucker.
Tell us a story from your childhood you think explains why you ended up becoming a comedian.
When I was in high school, I was kind of vocally disliked. I was “popular,” but in that “Megan Fox villain of an early-2000s movie” kind of way — people talked a lot of shit about me. Often to my face. Or worse, on my Facebook. Sometimes I deserved it (I was dramatic and my parents were rich), but in general, I felt like people were too comfortable shitting on me, and it definitely hurt my feelings. It gets funnier, I promise!
I remember one night, I was having a sleepover with my friends, and we were drinking (sorry) and I started rapping (sorry again) about how this girl who hated me was my “best friend.” Honestly, very early Doja Cat of me. It doesn’t sound that funny now, but at the time, trust it was. I had my friends cracking up. So then I rapped about another person who hated me, and another, and another. Using humor to cope with the parts of my life that I was the most humiliated about felt really good. It gave those people less power, and it made me feel like I was in control of how others saw me, at least briefly.
That’s now a trend in my comedy: taking the parts of myself or my story that feel shameful or icky and then putting them onstage in order to transform them. Basically, doing comedy puts me at my most confident, and I learned that in high school when people bullied me and I was forced to joke about it. And now I have no shame at all, ever, which is both a blessing and a curse.
What unscripted or reality series do you think you’d excel at? What archetype do you think you’d be?
I love this question because I actually don’t watch any scripted television, at all. I can tell you every single contestant on Ink Master and which ones have sexual-assault charges (it’s a bunch). Anyways, as badly as I want to say I’d be on Love Island, my favorite show of all time (more twists and turns than Mad Men), I know I’m not hot enough to excel in a Mallorca villa full of sexy 20-year-olds. So instead, I’ll go classic with the Real Housewives of New York.
While not a competition show, RHONY rewards those who are not afraid to embarrass themselves, can create drama, and can put away a bottle of Chardonnay in under an hour — all things at which I am skillful. I think I’d be a Dorinda Medley type — she is a mean drunk with a heart of gold. She is quick to put people in their place, but just as quick to apologize. She spent many years on the show in a relationship with a man who wasn’t good enough for her, just because they liked to party together. She’s also smarter than the average housewife and sows discord in an impressively under-the-radar way. Am I describing an archetype? I might just be writing a character summary of Dorinda. But either way, that’s who I’d be: loyal bitch smartypants who simps for some random dude. That’s me. (See also: Gizelle Bryant on RHOP, Heather Gay on RHOSLC.)
What’s your proudest achievement of your comedy career so far?
Although getting hired to write on my parents’ favorite show The Daily Show was a real overachieving oldest-child moment, I think completing a 25-night run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has been my proudest. Going into the festival, I truly wasn’t sure if I was going to make it through the month. I identify as a sick girlie — there’s always something wrong with my body (I’m Jewish and likely inbred) — and I was really worried about stamina as well as vocal health, since my show is a one-woman musical. But I was really disciplined in my care of myself (also tough, because I identify as a binge drinker), and I completed the 25-night run kind of easily! I felt like if I had three days off, I could’ve done another month.
But more than just making it through, I was proud of how well the show was received. For an independently produced show like mine, you’re basically just going off of your own confidence that the show is good and that people will respond to it and tell their friends — and that those friends will choose to see it out of the thousands of other shows they could see. Which is not a lot to go off of. Very naïve of me, very dumb. Going to the Fringe felt like jumping off a cliff and hoping it wasn’t going to end in total devastating failure, which I guess in this cliff metaphor means death. But I didn’t die. I almost sold out the whole run, got a bunch of great reviews, and was nominated for the Comedians’ Choice Award.
That felt like such an accomplishment, because it showed me that people were really ready to receive me as an individual artist. Not just as the actor on some show, or the writer on some other show, or part of a group, but just me, with my own hour, 100 percent my voice and vision, onstage the whole time. Which has always been my goal. I’ve been very up-front about wanting to be a star my whole life (got into musical theater too early), and the reception at the Fringe made me feel like I was on my way. It felt awesome — not better than drugs, but close.
What have you learned about your own joke-writing process that you didn’t know when you started?
I’ve learned that I like to treat the audience like I’m already kind of annoyed with them. My onstage persona, which is just an exaggerated version of myself, took me a long time to figure out, and I think this sort of antagonistic presence was one of the final pieces. Having that POV of, You guys should already know what I’m talking about, and if you don’t, you’re dumb has helped me filter a lot of my ideas. You know, kind of that voice you get when you’re talking to your mom: Jewish American princess meets Larry David. So, incredibly Jewish. What would that character have to say about getting an abortion? About therapy? About playing the ukulele? Writing through that lens has helped my jokes become funnier and also feel more like mine, and not just bland, observational humor. I guess since I am a character actor, it’s helpful to have a character.
Tell us everything about your worst show ever. (This can involve venue, audience, other comedians on the lineup, anything!)
Okay, I’ve honestly had some real bangers of bad shows in the past year — those shows that make you think you were never good at this in the first place and question why you’re pursuing an art form you clearly suck at. But those aren’t that fun to write about since they rocked me to my core, so I’ll pick a bad show from six years ago that my friend and fellow Lady Who Ranches Kelly Cooper and I were both booked on.
It was an “all girls” lineup hosted by a well-meaning guy at some bar in Manhattan (always a red flag). But his audience was the same audience as always, a.k.a. older drunk men who were not interested in seeing any women. One by one, every single girl bombed. At the time, I was doing a lot of characters, so I’m sure I was sweating under a full wig and playing to silence. You can’t really walk that shit back. But that wasn’t the worst part — the worst part was there was another comic who was, I guess, helping produce the show, and she would not stop talking. Very loudly. At the front of the stage. She would stand up and say something, full voice, to the host while another set was going on. I think Kelly actually said something during her set like, “Am I interrupting you?” It was so bizarre. And then, of course, Kelly and I had to trek all the way back to Brooklyn. That comic-producer and I are still friends on Facebook. She lives on the West Coast now.
Let’s say we live in a “Kings of Catchphrase Comedy” alternate dimension where every single comedian is required to have a hit catchphrase. What’s yours and why?
Mine would be “… Are you serious?” but said in that super-nasally eye-roll way. It’s what I say every time I go visit my parents and their dogs, who have known me their whole lives, start barking like I’m an intruder who somehow managed to get past the doorman.
It’s a hypothetical question. I don’t want to know if my audience is “serious,” nor am I interested in any sort of response, but I want to make them feel like I’m scrutinizing their choices like the Jewish mother I aspire to be. “The other day my fiancé told me he wanted to take me camping, and it’s like … Are you serious?” That actually is something I’ve definitely said to a friend.
Nominate one comedian you don’t know personally you think is overdue for wider recognition and why you’re a fan of their work.
Okay, this is a hard question because my group, Ladies Who Ranch, hosted a mic for five years (RIP), so I do feel like I actually know many comedians quite personally. But I will choose someone who I don’t regularly hang out with (although of course I’m down!), and that is James Wendt. I love watching James onstage, and I have for years. Their comedy is so clever and so relaxed. They truly make me giggle whenever they say something sexy and shocking, which is often. And they do it all while wearing a perfect pair of false eyelashes. In my opinion, James should be booked on every show in New York, and people should be clamoring to work with them!
When it comes to your comedy opinions — about material, performing, audience, trends you want to kill/revive, the industry, etc. — what hill will you die on?
I personally am so bored of ironic comedy. I’m bored of comedy that’s supposed to be funny because it sounds like “bad comedy.” Don’t make fun of telling a joke, just tell a joke! I know it’s harder, but I think you can do it!
To me, ironic comedy is so flat and has run its course. I went to Oberlin, so I feel like I basically overdosed on ironic art, and I thought it was lame and easy then, and I think it’s lame and easy now. I think it more or less only works online, and even then, it’s so overdone. Feel your feelings for me onstage. I can’t make myself care about your jokes when you don’t even care about your jokes. Give me something I can sink my teeth into — not just a tweet that’s an approximation of how normal people tweet: “tfw when the ice cream hits >>>>” See? We can all do it.
Also, randomly inserting a British accent into your set is not a punch line ;)
If you had to come onstage to just one song for the rest of your life, what song would it be and why?
That would be “Maybe This Time,” from Cabaret. I slayed it my junior year of high school as Sally Bowles, and I’d slay it again.
What is the best comedy advice, and then the worst comedy advice, you’ve ever received, either when you were starting out or more recently?
The best comedy advice was from an older comedian who warned me that you never recognize the good times when you’re in them. He was on an incredibly popular sitcom for like a decade, but said it was only in looking back that he was able to appreciate his time there. I was just starting out in comedy and had this sort of chance encounter with him, but I’ve never forgotten it. It made me really want to savor every moment in the present, and not just think about what it would lead toward or what was coming next, or regret past experiences.
I still get excited just walking to a gig, or getting an email for an exciting audition. I remember the night I got cast on Dickinson, I went to a bar with Maya Sharma (also Ladies Who Ranch–er), and we celebrated until closing. I try to get happy about the littlest comedy news, and make a big deal out of the wins. It’s kept me going for sure.
The worst advice I got was also when I was starting out. I took a trip to L.A. to see if I liked it there, and everyone I talked to told me to become an assistant if I wanted to work in TV. And so I became a bad assistant for an awful woman, and I was fired and I’d lost like a year of doing comedy because I had to stay late to wash her coffee mugs every night instead of do improv on an indie team — an important milestone in every young comic’s career! In all honesty, I do think being an assistant implies a risk-averse mentality that is contradictory to being an artist. And 16-hour production days are not conducive to making your art. Just answer phones for a shaving company and put up improv shows in a basement! Being an assistant was not worth it and didn’t get me to where I was today. All it gave me was PTSD around white vans.
