Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: This is Talk Easy.
Speaker 3: I'm standing Forgoso. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Today. I'm joined by writer, actress, and comedian Zee Way.
Speaker 2: As you may remember, zee Way came to prominence at
Speaker 2: the height of the pandemic, when most of us were
Speaker 2: trapped at home endlessly doom scrolling in search of signs
Speaker 2: of life. For most of twenty twenty, though, zee Way
Speaker 2: would take the instance Graham Live every Thursday at a PM,
Speaker 2: where she would conduct a series of charged interviews with actors, authors,
Speaker 2: and fellow comedians, many of whom had either been quote
Speaker 2: canceled or had recently made a public misstep on social media.
Speaker 2: These conversations, especially when the subjects were white, would invariably
Speaker 2: turn to the matter of race, and this is where
Speaker 2: things got famously complicated, as zee Way would pose questions.
Speaker 4: Like can you name five black people off the top
Speaker 4: of your head? How many black friends do you have?
Speaker 5: And when you say black people, do you capitalize the bee?
Speaker 2: Comedian Larry Wilmore called these ig live performances a kind
Speaker 2: of racial high wire act that would often reveal the
Speaker 2: subject's ignorance or self involvement, or frankly both. Zee Way
Speaker 2: would then move these interviews out of her Brooklyn bedroom
Speaker 2: and into a studio where she would create her self
Speaker 2: titled late night variety program for show Time, starting in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one. It ran for two excellent seasons before
Speaker 2: abruptly being canceled this past spring. She's recently returned with
Speaker 2: her debut collection of essays entitled Black Friend, which you
Speaker 2: can now find wherever you get your books. She's also
Speaker 2: at the tail end of her tour, so if you'd
Speaker 2: like to check out one of her shows, visit zway
Speaker 2: dot com. That's zway dot com For today, I wanted
Speaker 2: to talk to the writer comedian about the art of interviewing,
Speaker 2: the influence of the Cobert Report, the power of satire,
Speaker 2: why she turned to memoir, and how she found her
Speaker 2: singular voice after years of searching. That's all coming up
Speaker 2: next with our guest ze Way. I hope you enjoy Seaway.
Speaker 4: Hello Sam, thank you for being here, Thank you for
Speaker 4: having me.
Speaker 2: You have called your work a modern deconstruction of the
Speaker 2: American interview, which has devolved from thoughtful discourse to inconsequential
Speaker 2: conversations about celebrities promoting their movies. Yes, so, I was
Speaker 2: thinking we try to do the former a little bit.
Speaker 2: If you're up for it being something thoughtful, got it?
Speaker 2: I think? Sure? You're writing your excellent new book, Black
Speaker 2: Friend with everything that I create. My question as always,
Speaker 2: why am I doing this? Is it for money? Is
Speaker 2: it for attention? Is it to help people? Is it
Speaker 2: to heal myself? Is it because if I am anything
Speaker 2: less than perfect, I feel I do not deserve love.
Speaker 2: Now that you finish writing, how would you answer those
Speaker 2: questions in this moment?
Speaker 4: Ooh, so your question is just repurposing my question? I'm kidding.
Speaker 4: How would I answer that? Let's see, is my book
Speaker 4: for money? Is my book for what? Are the questions? Reminded?
Speaker 2: Attention? To help people, to heal myself? And for money?
Speaker 4: All of the above? I would say. Honestly, I got
Speaker 4: paid to write a book, but writing a book was
Speaker 4: a really difficult process for me, and interestingly enough, I
Speaker 4: found that in the first draft of the book there
Speaker 4: was something fundamentally missing in my writing, which was that
Speaker 4: I wasn't being vulnerable or connecting with my audience. And
Speaker 4: so I thought it would be a disservice to the
Speaker 4: people who have supported me both recently and for the
Speaker 4: majority of my career to not offer something with a
Speaker 4: little more weight. But the fear of that with vulnerability
Speaker 4: is that if I show myself, will I regret it
Speaker 4: because people won't love to see me. So I think
Speaker 4: that that's probably part of the process, especially with a
Speaker 4: book which took me three years to write, So every
Speaker 4: single one of those tempoles I definitely hit.
Speaker 2: How do you feel now that it's out there?
Speaker 4: I feel relief that it's over. Honestly. What's interesting is
Speaker 4: that when you write a book, you write a book
Speaker 4: and you turn it in for the last time, and
Speaker 4: then that is so relieving because my book would haunt
Speaker 4: me every day during the process because I'd think, why
Speaker 4: am I not writing? Why is it not finished? And
Speaker 4: so I got to that point and then immediately you
Speaker 4: have to do an audio book, which requires you to
Speaker 4: sit down and read it, which was not I won't
Speaker 4: say painful, but I will say it was work. It
Speaker 4: was labor.
Speaker 2: Can I add I listened to the audio book really
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I would want to have like someone else read it
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 4: I wanted someone. I wanted Chet Hanks to read it.
Speaker 4: Actually people said no, but I was actually adamant.
Speaker 2: Did he say no?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 4: He didn't say no. On my side of the street
Speaker 4: said no if we did not want to go out to.
Speaker 2: Him, and go out to him, yeah, I mean that
Speaker 2: would have.
Speaker 4: Been iconic, amazing, freeing, liberating, relieving.
Speaker 2: So how was it reading passages of your book that
Speaker 2: are deeply vulnerable that you have already lived and then
Speaker 2: like worked hard to put them into an.
Speaker 4: Essay we living? It is not challenging to Okay, writing
Speaker 4: is challenging to me because I am a professional writer. Yeah,
Speaker 4: of course I'm a professional writer. I've been a professional
Speaker 4: writer since I mean, free five. I wasn't getting paid
Speaker 4: at age five. You should have been, I should have been, right,
Speaker 4: But I probably got paid for my first joke when
Speaker 4: I was twenty twenty one. So I've been writing for
Speaker 4: a minute. And when you I'm reading my book on
Speaker 4: an audiobook, I'm still editing this. So I'm thinking, as
Speaker 4: I'm reading it aloud, I'm thinking, wait a second, this
Speaker 4: sentence should be a move like this. Oh this is wrong.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I wish I had more time. So it's
Speaker 4: like the constant critique of this being like my work.
Speaker 4: So that was really the difficult part, honestly. So at
Speaker 4: one point when I was recording the audiobook, I put
Speaker 4: air pods into my ear and listened to classical music
Speaker 4: by Johnny Greenwood The Phantom Thread How Yeah, House of Woodcock.
Speaker 4: I love that song, and I would listen to that
Speaker 4: as I was reading, so I could relax and just
Speaker 4: appreciate that, appreciate the journey of it.
Speaker 2: That is incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was really weird. My director Unice said, quote,
Speaker 4: no one's ever done that, which I appreciated.
Speaker 2: To get back into what you were referring to earlier,
Speaker 2: this push and pull between wanting to write these essays
Speaker 2: but not wanting to share too much, but feeling like
Speaker 2: you want to share more than you previously had. Like
Speaker 2: I was thinking, how do you hold that? With this
Speaker 2: upbringing that you had that did value privacy? Yeah, how
Speaker 2: did you hold all that? And putting this unto the book?
Speaker 4: I mean it was quite difficult. I think that ultimately
Speaker 4: I I worked through it. So in essays, some essays
Speaker 4: are completely cut from the book because I didn't want
Speaker 4: to share those facets of my identity. And there are
Speaker 4: other essays that I really pushed forward because I wanted
Speaker 4: to share more. So Wikifee is one of the first
Speaker 4: essays that was complete for the book, and it was
Speaker 4: about my feet score being really terrible on wikifeed dot
Speaker 4: com being rated okay, And over the course of three
Speaker 4: years I started to really unpack why I felt so
Speaker 4: self conscious about that rating. And so that's an essay
Speaker 4: particularly that went from being super just. I mean, it
Speaker 4: was really funny, but it was not vulnerable at all.
Speaker 4: It was just a straight joke, super like straight satirical,
Speaker 4: and then it unpacked into something that was like an
Speaker 4: examination of what it means to be a public woman.
Speaker 4: So rewriting and writing are my process. And so I
Speaker 4: held that all together by just like going into essays
Speaker 4: and thinking, do I enjoy this essay? Is it good?
Speaker 4: Is it worth publishing? Will people appreciate it? Do I
Speaker 4: appreciate it? And then interrogating that at every.
Speaker 2: Turn for people who are maybe not familiar with what
Speaker 2: wiki feet is, how would you explain it?
Speaker 4: Wikifeet is a photo sharing app that rates people's feet.
Speaker 4: It gets I think twelve million unique visits a month,
Speaker 4: and I am on it and I didn't know I
Speaker 4: was on it until twenty nineteen when my friend found
Speaker 4: my profile. That led to a lot of spiraling as
Speaker 4: well as comedic fadder.
Speaker 2: Does it signify that you've made it if you're on
Speaker 2: that site.
Speaker 4: I write in my book that my friend believed, Kelly,
Speaker 4: believed that me being on wiki feet was a sign
Speaker 4: of my fame, because once you're a woman whose feet
Speaker 4: are on the Internet, you have now reached an upper
Speaker 4: echelon of public space. But I when I was on wikifeed,
Speaker 4: I this was before the pandemic, this was before my show,
Speaker 4: before everything, really, but I had still been coming up
Speaker 4: as a comedian in New York and had done a
Speaker 4: bunch of shows, written on shows, been cast on shows.
Speaker 2: But yeah, has your rating changed?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Of course through the ruth it is now four point five.
Speaker 4: I want to say I have beautiful feet, not gorgeous,
Speaker 4: but beautiful feet. And so every day I am racing
Speaker 4: to get to the top of that little list.
Speaker 2: I wish that for you, even though you don't like lists.
Speaker 4: I hate less but wikifeet I want to be the
Speaker 4: number one foot goddess on that site.
Speaker 2: That's still an aim.
Speaker 4: That's a tangible goal. I like to have something to
Speaker 4: hold on to.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll try to give you a memento after this type.
Speaker 4: In think well, I'm holding onto this cup that I
Speaker 4: will steal.
Speaker 2: It will be given to you. Thank you.
Speaker 4: Now, who is manipulating?
Speaker 2: Who's you know that we'll figure that out there or
Speaker 2: whom I don't know?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: Who? Whom? I thought it was like interchangeable.
Speaker 4: It's not interchangeable. But it has to do with the
Speaker 4: object and subject of the sentence.
Speaker 2: Well, you went the Northwestern you would know No.
Speaker 4: I learned that from an episode of the Office.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to some of the key
Speaker 2: influences that shaped all the comedy that people know you from.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, you grew up as a middle child of three
Speaker 2: to Nigerian parents and Lawrence, Massachusetts, a working class city
Speaker 2: that had a local paper called The Eagle Tribune that
Speaker 2: you and your father would read daily, a tradition only rivaled,
Speaker 2: I think by ABC World News, which you both would
Speaker 2: watch every night at six point thirty as a kid.
Speaker 2: How do you think these programs shaped your interest?
Speaker 4: I love news. I consume a lot of news. The
Speaker 4: Ego Tribune was really popular. They had this thing called
Speaker 4: the Sunday Funny where they had the Family Circus comic,
Speaker 4: So that was really really hot in my elementary school.
Speaker 2: And ABC World News. I don't even know. I'm not
Speaker 2: even sure. I remember that now.
Speaker 4: I know, and I was talking to someone at ABC.
Speaker 4: Was it Peter Chennings.
Speaker 2: I believe that sounds right right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I watched it, and that was during all of
Speaker 4: the beautiful era that is the George Bush administration. So
Speaker 4: I really got American history at its most. Poet.
Speaker 2: I heard that from kindergarten to eighth grade you had
Speaker 2: perfect attendance. I did straight.
Speaker 4: A's, straight a's, Yeah, I did a shoot a's.
Speaker 2: What was it like to have a decade of never
Speaker 2: being sick.
Speaker 4: I think it's not that I wasn't sick. I think
Speaker 4: it was that I was spreading disease. I just took
Speaker 4: school really seriously. Nigerians take education really seriously. Fun fact,
Speaker 4: I think the majority of African immigrants in college in
Speaker 4: the United States are from Nigeria. Like that's how serious
Speaker 4: they take it. It's cultural. I also didn't get the
Speaker 4: flu until I was eighteen in college, and I thought
Speaker 4: I was going to die. It was the worst experience
Speaker 4: I've ever had, but I treated it like a job.
Speaker 4: You'll find that I am very I'm both unseerious and
Speaker 4: very serious.
Speaker 2: You write in the book that your father's interest in
Speaker 2: news you only understood later to be surprising, or I think,
Speaker 2: what do you call it? Uncommon? Or I can't the
Speaker 2: way you discribe.
Speaker 4: I think that I can only speak for myself, which
Speaker 4: is that I did not know what was normal and
Speaker 4: what was not normal, right, And so I assumed, because
Speaker 4: I grew up with my parents that that was normal,
Speaker 4: that reading the news every day and being hyper informed
Speaker 4: about local politics was normal. And I realized as an
Speaker 4: adult that that is a choice that people actively make,
Speaker 4: and so that informed the choices that I actively make.
Speaker 4: What's interesting about my work is that it has a
Speaker 4: certain it comes at an intersection of like evergreen and topicality.
Speaker 4: The things that I cover are like both pertinent today
Speaker 4: and you know two years down the line. Like even
Speaker 4: watching like old YouTube episodes of Bated, It's like, how
Speaker 4: precient are some of the things that I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: Still I was rewatching a bunch of them.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, oh yeah hot.
Speaker 2: What were the things that you thought were normal that
Speaker 2: you later felt were not normal? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean I even have an essay about it called Discomfort,
Speaker 4: where I talk about how normal it was for my
Speaker 4: parents to absolutely refuse me being allowed to go to sleepovers?
Speaker 4: But how not normal I felt as I rejected constant
Speaker 4: offers because I was very popular. So that's I think
Speaker 4: a great example of my experience as a child, which
Speaker 4: is that my parents were really strict, and so that
Speaker 4: was normal to me until I realized that that wasn't normal.
Speaker 2: Was everyone heartbroken that you couldn't attend their sleepover?
Speaker 4: They thought it was weird for me to constantly be like, no, sorry,
Speaker 4: I can't lead my house. I don't even know. I've
Speaker 4: had people from my past reach out to me about
Speaker 4: this book, and it's been really compelling. What do you mean, Well,
Speaker 4: because they congratulated me on this book, and I'm like
Speaker 4: examining moments that they are sometimes a part of, and
Speaker 4: that's really wild to me.
Speaker 2: We're talking about news the Eagle Tribune and the ABC
Speaker 2: World News. The other key influence of your work, I
Speaker 2: think came like your freshman year of high school. In
Speaker 2: that first year that I mentioned, there was a teacher
Speaker 2: that introduced you to both Jonathan Swift and Stephen Colbert. Yes,
Speaker 2: do you remember the first time you encountered both of
Speaker 2: their work?
Speaker 4: I found it to be deeply radical, But the things
Speaker 4: that those two particular people got away with saying obviously
Speaker 4: or not so obviously. Jonathan Swift wrote an essay about
Speaker 4: how citizens should eat Irish babies, and it's like a
Speaker 4: satirical commentary on how disenfranched as the Irish people were
Speaker 4: by the Brits.
Speaker 2: This was a honest proposal.
Speaker 4: Exactly in decent proposal.
Speaker 2: Modest proposal. I think it's modest proposal. Indecent would be.
Speaker 4: I think there's a movie called indecent Proposal that plays
Speaker 4: off of.
Speaker 2: That, right, I think so that's the Redford movie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: where he tries to buy Woody Harrelson's wife.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh. Regardless, a modest proposal was such a it
Speaker 4: like shook the countryside and got people so riled up
Speaker 4: and got Jonathan Swift in so much trouble. And then similarly, Colbert,
Speaker 4: he was doing that show daily the things that he
Speaker 4: said during the White House Correspondence dinner when he jokes
Speaker 4: about shooting someone in the face right next to the
Speaker 4: President of the United States, to comment on Dick Shaney famously,
Speaker 4: you know, having an incident in which he famously did
Speaker 4: do that I found to be groundbreaking, Like I did
Speaker 4: not know you were able to be so honest and
Speaker 4: so disrupt in your work. And so that really inspired
Speaker 4: me because suddenly I moved from a space where I
Speaker 4: felt like I had to be so codified into understanding
Speaker 4: that there's a world with satire where you can really
Speaker 4: say whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Can we take a look at that Colbert White House
Speaker 2: Corresponds Dinner Share.
Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with.
Speaker 5: It, Mark Smith, Ladies and gentlemen, the Press Corps, Madame person, lady,
Speaker 5: mister president. My name is Stephen Colbert, and tonight it
Speaker 5: is my privilege to celebrate this president because we're not
Speaker 5: so different, he and I.
Speaker 4: We both get it.
Speaker 5: Guys like us. We're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol.
Speaker 5: We're not members of the Factinista. We go straight from
Speaker 5: the gut, right, sir, That's where the truth lies, right
Speaker 5: down here in the gut. Do you know you have
Speaker 5: more nerve endings in your gut then you have in
Speaker 5: your head.
Speaker 2: You can look it up now.
Speaker 5: I know some of you're gonna say, I did look
Speaker 5: it up, and that's not true. That's because you looked
Speaker 5: it up in a book. Next time, look it up
Speaker 5: in your gut. I did my gut tells me that's
Speaker 5: how our nervous system works. Every night on my show,
Speaker 5: The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut. Okay,
Speaker 5: I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I
Speaker 5: call it the No Fact Zone Fox News. I hold
Speaker 5: a copyright on that term.
Speaker 4: It's so genius because it is it's that's two thousand
Speaker 4: and six. It's really actually before we got into like
Speaker 4: a post fact world, and so I find it to
Speaker 4: be brilliant, so brilliant.
Speaker 2: Saw that was it one of those like light bulb
Speaker 2: moments in a movie where you went, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I didn't know people could do that.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. I mean, it's so funny because it
Speaker 4: also doesn't. It both relies on media and the environment
Speaker 4: which we live, and it also relies on just absolutely
Speaker 4: abandoning facts. And it's very silly. And so I really
Speaker 4: appreciate that because I find that it's important for comedy
Speaker 4: to be like funny, and so it allows me to
Speaker 4: be to walk the typrope of being smart and intellectual
Speaker 4: while also laughing.
Speaker 2: It seems to me that that performance, but also the
Speaker 2: the Kobe Report in total, served as a kind of
Speaker 2: template for you in years to come.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent.
Speaker 2: You're writing the book about a high school memory. That
Speaker 2: quote fundamentally changed my brain chemistry. Which took place during
Speaker 2: a school assembly between fame director Spike Lee and a
Speaker 2: fellow classmate. Happened that day? And how did it change
Speaker 2: your brain chemistry?
Speaker 4: Well, oh, gosh, what happened?
Speaker 2: We can read from the book if you also, if
Speaker 2: you want to read that passage.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't want to read any of my book, okay,
Speaker 4: but do you want to read it, you should read it.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to read it for you.
Speaker 4: Why not?
Speaker 2: I'm no chet Hanks.
Speaker 4: I think my book deserves to be to be read
Speaker 4: by a man. I want that on record. I so
Speaker 4: in my book, I write an essay called Affirmative Actions.
Speaker 4: To last essay in the book because it was the
Speaker 4: hardest essay to really figure out for me, even though
Speaker 4: it's one of the first essss I wrote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the three parts, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And so I wrote about affirmative action, especially in this
Speaker 4: climate of like it being canceled. And so I remember
Speaker 4: in high school we would have these guest speakers, and
Speaker 4: all of them were sort of iconic, but Spike Lee
Speaker 4: came to speak, and I loved his speech because it
Speaker 4: was so groundbreaking and like revolutionary and fundamentally caused so
Speaker 4: much raucous Where Spike Lee gets on this tangent about
Speaker 4: how race is a merit, which made the student body
Speaker 4: lose their mind.
Speaker 2: When you say lose their mind, what did that look like?
Speaker 4: I mean, we just were having conversations about race being
Speaker 4: a merit or not being a merit at a time
Speaker 4: when I was specifically applying to college, and I mean,
Speaker 4: you just catching shrapnel at that point, eighteen years old.
Speaker 4: Seventeen years old, not equipped to have these conversations. This
Speaker 4: was pre Tumbler, where I thought that the gen Z
Speaker 4: which I identifies gen Z, but gen Z really has
Speaker 4: a lot of the language around like intersectionality and micro
Speaker 4: aggressions and whatever that I didn't have growing up. I
Speaker 4: was like, man, I just don't feel good. And so
Speaker 4: I was not equipped to have these conversations, but found
Speaker 4: myself in these conversations constantly. It was probably the first
Speaker 4: time in my life that I was required to really
Speaker 4: think about the context of my body in any space.
Speaker 4: So in the exchange where Spike Lee says that race
Speaker 4: is a merit, someone came up to the microphone and
Speaker 4: said sort of challenged him on the idea that race
Speaker 4: was a merit and talked about how people were taking
Speaker 4: their spots. And that is sort of the argument around
Speaker 4: affirmative action, right, is that do these people deserve to
Speaker 4: go to these schools if they don't necessarily have the
Speaker 4: quote unquote grades or the skill set or the talents.
Speaker 4: What constitutes a good college applicant, what constitutes a good
Speaker 4: college body student body? And so this like teenager was
Speaker 4: challenging Spike Lee about race, and it was just such,
Speaker 4: it was wild. It's something that's imprinted in my brain.
Speaker 2: The teenager said. My question is that people should pull
Speaker 2: them sous by their bootstraps to succeed, and only then
Speaker 2: they can achieve the American dream. My question is, are
Speaker 2: we doing minorities, African Americans, black Americans no favors when
Speaker 2: we give them our spots on elite schools like Yale
Speaker 2: and Harvard.
Speaker 4: I don't think that's a direct quote. I think that's
Speaker 4: honestly my memory of it. So I don't know how paraphrase. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know how accurate it is. It's more about
Speaker 4: like the sentiment I felt. But the reason why I
Speaker 4: like to redact people's names. Honestly, is because I think
Speaker 4: that these stories are less about the individuals and more
Speaker 4: about what they represent. Right, because affirmative action has been
Speaker 4: fundamentally repealed in the United States of America, specifically in colleges, right,
Speaker 4: and there are several organizations working to get protections in
Speaker 4: jobs removed as well. So it's not an individual's idea.
Speaker 4: It doesn't belong to one singular person. This is a
Speaker 4: ground swell of people who believe this, And so why
Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with this moment, it's because it so perfectly
Speaker 4: crystallized during my childhood what is still very relevant today.
Speaker 4: And someone asked me recently, like what do you think
Speaker 4: about from an action being repealed? And the truth is, like,
Speaker 4: I went to college, I got my degree. It's not
Speaker 4: my problem. It's maybe my children's problem, if I ever
Speaker 4: choose to have any if the world exists in that
Speaker 4: much time. But it's not something that I have to
Speaker 4: deal with on a day to day basis. But how
Speaker 4: can you not start to ruminate on the political climate.
Speaker 2: It was repealed this summer, Yeah, exactly six to three. Yeah,
Speaker 2: can I go back the thing you said that was
Speaker 2: fascinating that was the first time you had those conversations
Speaker 2: like that moment sparked a bunch of dialogues in high school.
Speaker 2: What was that like to have those conversations at that point?
Speaker 4: Difficult? They're deeply uncomfortable conversations to have with your friends. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's deeply uncomfortable to talk about race society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've done a good job of doing it.
Speaker 4: I mean, my show is deeply or my work rather
Speaker 4: is deeply uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I employed tension in my work, and so tension and
Speaker 4: then the relief or relief of tension is that's just
Speaker 4: a tool I use.
Speaker 2: Are you employing tension now?
Speaker 4: No, not at all. I'm honestly just thinking. But maybe my.
Speaker 2: Body No, your arms are cross, that's why.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is my thinking. But but I'm also leaning
Speaker 4: back looking at the ceiling because I'm honestly trying to
Speaker 4: like take your questions at face value and offer of
Speaker 4: sincere and direct answer.
Speaker 2: And you have I hope so I know, because I
Speaker 2: don't I've read every interview done or have you?
Speaker 4: Oh Yeahard, my goodness, gracious, what's the underlying theme?
Speaker 2: What would you think the underlying theme would be?
Speaker 4: Well, I asked you how I know the.
Speaker 2: Underlying theme because you're in them.
Speaker 4: I haven't read them all. I don't. Sometimes you don't
Speaker 4: even remember. Have you seen the John Mulaneyssue special where
Speaker 4: he talks about the GQ interview and he's like, I
Speaker 4: have no recollection of saying that. I found that to
Speaker 4: be really compelling because reading that interview before I knew
Speaker 4: about his journey, you just think, wow, comedians are eccentric.
Speaker 4: And then you start to really delve into where he
Speaker 4: spec where he was at that time of that interview,
Speaker 4: and it reveals, it reveals so much. So I don't
Speaker 4: have distance from the work for when I say.
Speaker 2: I think for him that interview took place with a
Speaker 2: significant amount of drugs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess I'm making an observation about what it
Speaker 4: means to have a record of your conversations and the
Speaker 4: distance that each year brings in referring back to that record.
Speaker 2: And the book of it, I think this book is
Speaker 2: another record of certainly your feelings and thoughts, and to
Speaker 2: have a paper trail, it's kind of amazing.
Speaker 4: I don't know. So I'm a privacy privacy hive, so
Speaker 4: part of me is ruteful that I exist at all
Speaker 4: on the Internet. But I accept that that is a
Speaker 4: form of that, that is life. There's probably stuff that
Speaker 4: I've done that I'm not happy about it, but that's
Speaker 4: you can interrogate that and make really good books and you.
Speaker 2: Have after the break.
Speaker 1: More from ze Way.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, this is Sam. As you've probably noticed, the
Speaker 2: writers and actors in Hollywood had embarked on a historic
Speaker 2: strike over these past six months. Both guilds have now
Speaker 2: recently reached a deal with the AMP. Thank god for that. Obviously,
Speaker 2: for a show like ours that has on writers, actors, filmmakers,
Speaker 2: this has proven to be a challenging time. I'll just
Speaker 2: be honest with you. It's been difficult to make a
Speaker 2: show about culture when culture has basically been put on
Speaker 2: pause for the most part, and yet myself, along with
Speaker 2: our incredible, incredible team, have continued to make new episodes
Speaker 2: just about every Sunday. We've done this with authors like
Speaker 2: Zadie Smith and WashU, musicians like Leave and Ludwig Gorenson,
Speaker 2: who created the score for Oppenheimer. We had on st Higham,
Speaker 2: we had on reporters like Sam Sanders and Matt Bellanie.
Speaker 2: We did an episode about the border with Beto O'Rourke
Speaker 2: and my father. We had a conversation with screenwriter Alex
Speaker 2: O'Keefe at the height of the strike about the conditions
Speaker 2: of being a modern screenwriter, the state of Hollywood, and
Speaker 2: really so much more. Through this turbulent, precarious time, we
Speaker 2: have continued to find stories that I think are worth
Speaker 2: telling and worth sharing with you. And so if any
Speaker 2: of those episodes, or if any of the episodes that
Speaker 2: I did not mention, have meant something to you, if
Speaker 2: the show has meant something to you, I would really
Speaker 2: appreciate if you shared the program on social media or
Speaker 2: with a friend, with a family member, anyone that you
Speaker 2: think would be interested in the kind of researched, thoughtful
Speaker 2: and honest conversations that we try to have here each
Speaker 2: in every Sunday. You can share and tag us at
Speaker 2: talk easypod across social media. If you want to drop
Speaker 2: us a line, you can reach me at SF at
Speaker 2: talk easypod dot com. That's SF at talk easypod dot com.
Speaker 2: This year will be starting our newsletter, which we are
Speaker 2: very excited to do and put out, But until then,
Speaker 2: sharing the show or reviewing it on the platform that
Speaker 2: you're listening to this right now, I know every podcaster
Speaker 2: talks about it, but it really does help us continue
Speaker 2: doing the work we so love to do here each
Speaker 2: and every week. And with that, I hope you enjoy
Speaker 2: the rest of my conversation with ze Way. When you
Speaker 2: went to Northwestern you double majored in radio, television and
Speaker 2: film and African American studies. Yes, you wrote lots of poetry,
Speaker 2: probably even more tweets. When you got that internship at
Speaker 2: Comedy Central. Was that where you found the template for
Speaker 2: the kind of work you wanted to do professionally?
Speaker 4: I think it deconstructed the mystique around entertainment, which is
Speaker 4: really fundamentally just office jobs. Specifically, being a writer is
Speaker 4: just an office job. I thought it was so glamorous
Speaker 4: when you're an intern. You get into the rooms and
Speaker 4: you realize, oh, these are just regular people with regularly
Speaker 4: who went to school and have regular lives, and that
Speaker 4: made it really accessible. And so I was able to
Speaker 4: strive for that profession because I knew it was something
Speaker 4: within my reach versus something I thought was far away.
Speaker 2: How quickly did you realize that?
Speaker 4: Well, I got a joke on Colbert Report as an intern,
Speaker 4: and so I was I felt very cocky Wow, I
Speaker 4: started dabbing. I was enterning there the week of George
Speaker 4: Zimmerman's trial proposition eight and then I think Edward Snowden
Speaker 4: and also fled the country, and so it was a
Speaker 4: I mean, talk about American politics are so weird because
Speaker 4: everything has just started. It's a flood, a flood of
Speaker 4: news and a flood of watershed events. I'm tired, actually
Speaker 4: of existing in a space where historical moments are constantly happening.
Speaker 2: I thought you were just going to end the sentence
Speaker 2: after existing.
Speaker 4: I'm tired, no existence, cool with it in different mid Yeah.
Speaker 2: That you mentioned you got the joke on the air.
Speaker 2: Then a jury reached a not guilty verdict in the
Speaker 2: Zimmermann Cheyvon Martin case. Yeah, you called that moment your
Speaker 2: own racial awakening in the book. What did that awakening
Speaker 2: look like?
Speaker 4: Wow, that's what it looked like. Wow. Shocked, shock. I
Speaker 4: was shocked. I was young.
Speaker 2: You're twenty one, mon, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4: Young. I was young, and I didn't know what I
Speaker 4: had know. This was the first viral story like that,
Speaker 4: and I found it to be really eye opening. It
Speaker 4: was shocking. That was a wild case. We're still talking
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this little this town in Florida.
Speaker 2: It's funny there are people older than me because we're
Speaker 2: basically the same age. I remember nineteen, yeah, both nineteen
Speaker 2: Goo goo ganga, Goo goo goga. When that moment feels
Speaker 2: like a precursor to what was to come, because it
Speaker 2: seems like your professional success often arrives on the heels of,
Speaker 2: or in response to, these national tragedies. Because again I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of November ninth, twenty sixteen, the day after Trump
Speaker 2: was elected, was also the day you filmed your first
Speaker 2: episode of Baited with z Way on YouTube after you won.
Speaker 2: Were you like, I need to make this show?
Speaker 4: No, Also, that day is not a tragedy to a
Speaker 4: good portion of the country. So that's all about perspective.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a tragedy for the person asking the question.
Speaker 4: Got it. I think that I don't feel at any
Speaker 4: point in my day that what I'm doing is necessary.
Speaker 4: That would be wild and deeply disturbing. But I am
Speaker 4: a human that exists in society, and so I have
Speaker 4: a response to the world around me, and particularly with
Speaker 4: my work, like it allows me to process the news,
Speaker 4: and my trauma response is to like joke about it.
Speaker 2: I really stuck on the thing you calling your work
Speaker 2: not necessary.
Speaker 4: I didn't say it was not necessary.
Speaker 2: Would you say it was that.
Speaker 4: That I don't move through the day and think, wow,
Speaker 4: this is so necessary. My work is urgent, but also
Speaker 4: it is evergreen. So there are things that I was
Speaker 4: talking about in twenty sixteen or still lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're write in the book about the piece of
Speaker 2: advice that Ira Glass has about. Oh yeah, the gap.
Speaker 2: For those who don't know, it's like, in the beginning,
Speaker 2: you make art because you have good tastes, and like
Speaker 2: that's what got you into making all this work. But
Speaker 2: in the beginning, there's this gap between the good work
Speaker 2: you love and the bad art that you're probably making,
Speaker 2: And your taste is why your work disappoints you, because
Speaker 2: what you're making is not particularly good at the start,
Speaker 2: but eventually, over time, if you keep at it, that
Speaker 2: gap closes and your work is as good as your ambitions.
Speaker 2: And I wondered if it felt like the gap closed
Speaker 2: for you during the pandemic when you started making those
Speaker 2: Instagram live interviews.
Speaker 4: No, not at all. I thought my work was good
Speaker 4: in twenty sixteen. I thought my work was good in
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen. When I interviewed like a Partner. And also
Speaker 4: I did the New Yorker Fest and they showed What
Speaker 4: was really humbling about doing that was that they showed
Speaker 4: a clip of me talking to Rose McGowan on IG Live,
Speaker 4: and I was really humbled by the fact that the
Speaker 4: audience was laughing at this live interview I did in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty, like in my bedroom in Bushwick. So while
Speaker 4: I'm working through my comedy, I think it's I think
Speaker 4: it's good. So the gap, to me, I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: there's no gap. I see no gap, no thigh gap
Speaker 4: versus you.
Speaker 2: Never had to close the gap.
Speaker 4: So there are two answers, and there are two sides
Speaker 4: to this sword. Because every joke I tell, I'm like,
Speaker 4: is that the last joke I'll ever tell? Well, I
Speaker 4: ever tell a good joke again. But then also there's
Speaker 4: a part of me that is really trying to impress
Speaker 4: myself in that moment. So I don't even know how
Speaker 4: to answer your question in a way that feels accurate.
Speaker 4: I don't feel like I've closed the gap at all.
Speaker 4: But conversely, I do feel like the work that I'm
Speaker 4: doing or have done at that moment, I really enjoyed.
Speaker 2: That's a good answer. I agree that one that you
Speaker 2: mentioned with Parna is like unbelievable.
Speaker 4: Wild right, that was like so hard to do too.
Speaker 2: Was that where you learned the power of editing and
Speaker 2: post and reconstructing people's words.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, I think that is. But I would have
Speaker 4: to rewatch every single interview I've ever done to answer
Speaker 4: that with accuracy, because but I feel like it was
Speaker 4: a fundamental breakthrough because the interview was so deeply difficult.
Speaker 4: She was a Parna n Trila is such a deeply sweet, kind,
Speaker 4: not problematic person. I left interviewing her and thinking, Wow,
Speaker 4: what a mistake. Why, Like we did not hit the
Speaker 4: game at all? And as I was editing the interview
Speaker 4: with this editing named Corey, I found we found that
Speaker 4: the way to make it work in the game of
Speaker 4: the show was to at it was to employ the
Speaker 4: like sound by the culture of that current time. Is
Speaker 4: this person a model minority?
Speaker 6: Yes, Tiger Woods, he's a model minority for golf and
Speaker 6: adultree Wow. I think if you win anything with the
Speaker 6: word master in it and you're a minority, you're winning.
Speaker 7: That logic is sounds He's hot, oj Simpson, Is he
Speaker 7: a model minority. I want to say, no, he's a minority.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he hasn't modeled.
Speaker 4: Has he? Yes too, Mary, Yeah, he's great.
Speaker 6: Here's my controversial stance. Okay, I think of the rock
Speaker 6: not even as a human person.
Speaker 4: You're to humanizing this person of color can be better
Speaker 4: than people. Master.
Speaker 7: Could you say one just before we go, one thing
Speaker 7: that will make people go.
Speaker 4: Wow, Black lives matter? And that's the show. This is
Speaker 4: a part of Nancherla.
Speaker 2: Coming back. When you look at those IG live interviews,
Speaker 2: there's like an immediacy and an intimacy to them because
Speaker 2: anyone watching is feeling like a kind of secondhand mortification
Speaker 2: of seeing people fall into traps that you are very
Speaker 2: much setting for them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, certainly, I think that the timing of those Instagram
Speaker 4: lives were really really mapped onto like the discourse trademark
Speaker 4: of media. So if you think about like Oprah Winfrey
Speaker 4: in the early aughts, you think about particularly her interview
Speaker 4: with Tom Cruise and how shocking it.
Speaker 2: Was right jumping on the coup.
Speaker 4: It was a spectacle, like no one had any expectation
Speaker 4: of how that would go, including I'm sure the guests
Speaker 4: in the host. I feel like we've moved into a
Speaker 4: really manicured presentation of interviews, and that Instagram Live, Instagram
Speaker 4: Live and live television in general doesn't allow you to
Speaker 4: have the same amount of control machene and edit so
Speaker 4: that everyone is experiencing everything in real time. What's really
Speaker 4: fun about live is that one it's the moment is
Speaker 4: the moment, and you all create it together and it
Speaker 4: never happens again because you never have that alignment of
Speaker 4: people and the tech working and the exact way and
Speaker 4: the timing, and you tell the jokes slightly different. Everything
Speaker 4: is so new. And so that's why I think that
Speaker 4: those interview popped is because you have the contrast of
Speaker 4: like a really wild and high stakes conversation and then
Speaker 4: really urgent response of everything being live and happening in
Speaker 4: real time, and then me being so unserious. The comment
Speaker 4: I actually thought really made the show because they were
Speaker 4: so deeply unseerious. But yeah, the comments, the comments were
Speaker 4: beyond I remember. And while the comments were like Io
Speaker 4: and Zach Fox and Quinta, just so many people were
Speaker 4: in the comments. Gabrielle Union, when we were deeply isolated
Speaker 4: because of this indefinite pandemic, we were allowed to come
Speaker 4: together at this appointment of Thursday at eight pm for
Speaker 4: this weird performance of Like Americana.
Speaker 2: I want to take a listen to one of those
Speaker 2: clips with Caroline Callaway.
Speaker 7: Now, I saw on your Instagram that you were promoting
Speaker 7: black authors like Wesley Laurie who wrote They Can't Kill Us,
Speaker 7: and then you Jim crow by Michelle Alexander Austin Schanning.
Speaker 7: Let's fucking god, let me go.
Speaker 4: Now, you're a vaciferous reader. How many of these books
Speaker 4: have you read? Honestly?
Speaker 5: Of the nine books that I recommended on my Instagram,
Speaker 5: I've read four.
Speaker 4: Wow, But I but I've ordered the other five from
Speaker 4: black bookshops.
Speaker 3: So I would like my ally cookie.
Speaker 4: Now there are no cookies in this game.
Speaker 2: We're talking about how like compelling, the live wire act
Speaker 2: of it all, the tightrope when you go to make
Speaker 2: the show at showtime, did you have to rethink how
Speaker 2: you would approach an interview since it wasn't live anymore
Speaker 2: and that it would be pre taped and edited?
Speaker 4: Of course, but I have been doing this for a minute,
Speaker 4: so I had like Aparna and Gary Richardson and Cudie
Speaker 4: Greed and Matt Rogers and all of those interviews prior
Speaker 4: to sort of rely on like, okay, this, what does
Speaker 4: this permutation look like like for me? Like my comedy
Speaker 4: and work build on each other, like they're not silos.
Speaker 4: So what I do in live shows builds on like
Speaker 4: how I would treat an interview, which builds on like
Speaker 4: how I would approach fashion Week, like they all exist
Speaker 4: in conversation because I am a singular being, like there
Speaker 4: aren't duplicates of me. And so that permutation was influenced
Speaker 4: by the work I had done before.
Speaker 2: In two seasons of making the show, It in many
Speaker 2: ways originated from a program that you were making in
Speaker 2: your bedroom in Bushwick. You then took it out of
Speaker 2: your house and into a studio like setting at showtimes,
Speaker 2: that process of writing and acting and hosting and managing
Speaker 2: and making it all happen. How did you handle all that?
Speaker 4: I really looked up to. So I feel like as
Speaker 4: a culture, we don't talk enough about how much of
Speaker 4: a pathfinder Ray is because she really kind of started
Speaker 4: the YouTube to television industrial complex. And when I was
Speaker 4: coming up in New York, before anything had happened, I
Speaker 4: remember really latching onto Awkward Black Girl and the popularity
Speaker 4: of that and how she turned that into the juggernaut
Speaker 4: that is Insecure in her career. And so if you're
Speaker 4: asking me how I prepared for the position of running
Speaker 4: my own television show or writing about running my own
Speaker 4: television show, I think that a lot of that had
Speaker 4: to do with me seizing opportunity on my own, not
Speaker 4: waiting for anyone to come and save me, but really
Speaker 4: being active in my own activation. And so that meant
Speaker 4: like producing like on YouTube Baited and other iterations of
Speaker 4: it that were flops, no one watched it, it cost
Speaker 4: me money that I didn't have, or doing constant live
Speaker 4: shows that sometimes people would go to, but initially no
Speaker 4: one would attend, and then eventually they started to really pop.
Speaker 4: Making a name for myself coming up in New York
Speaker 4: as a writer and producer and pop star. And so
Speaker 4: the alignment of me finally having the opportunity to be
Speaker 4: in a studio and work through what that looked like
Speaker 4: came at a time when I, as an artist, was
Speaker 4: really prepared for what exactly I wanted to say. And
Speaker 4: then the challenge is that it's now collaborative, that I
Speaker 4: am no longer the judge jury and executioner, like, there
Speaker 4: are several people involved in making this come to life,
Speaker 4: but I am collaborative, Like I come from an improv space.
Speaker 4: I come from a live show space. So I enjoy
Speaker 4: having the pressure of being like, I don't know, this
Speaker 4: is what I'm thinking. You take it and run with it.
Speaker 4: And I found really great people to collaborate with. So
Speaker 4: to answer your question, how did I prepare for that?
Speaker 4: I mean, every facet of my career has prepared me
Speaker 4: for the next facet of my career. Like, I get
Speaker 4: a lot of questions that are like, what are you
Speaker 4: going to do next? And I'm doing it. I'm working
Speaker 4: through my identity. Yeah, you're like crossing that out. I'm
Speaker 4: working through what my art looks like at every single turn.
Speaker 2: The thing you're talking about is, uh, you had failed
Speaker 2: enough to be prepared to succeed.
Speaker 4: I think yes, And that is a direct quote from
Speaker 4: my book, Right, I had failed enough to be prepared
Speaker 4: to fail again. Life is a series of failures and successes,
Speaker 4: but mostly failure.
Speaker 2: Do you see the show's cancelation as a failure?
Speaker 4: No, not at all. I wish I could say that
Speaker 4: I did. I think I kind of ate.
Speaker 2: I think everyone ate, So you didn't take it personally.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't take it personally. I think I did
Speaker 4: a great job and I think it was a success,
Speaker 4: and I think that people love me.
Speaker 2: Have you looked on Twitter to see the amount of
Speaker 2: people that are outraged that is not coming back?
Speaker 4: No, I know, I don't, but people send me things
Speaker 4: which I actually don't appreciate. When people send me like
Speaker 4: tweets and articles.
Speaker 2: What kind of things do you not want to be said?
Speaker 4: I talk about this in my book James Baldwin, and
Speaker 4: it wasn't Lorraine Hansbury Maya Maya Angelou had this conversation
Speaker 4: about what it means to be a successful artist, and
Speaker 4: they talk about specifically the dangers of getting high on
Speaker 4: your own supply and perceiving yourself as quote necessary or
Speaker 4: as quote a success, and having to constantly chase what
Speaker 4: that success looked like to that group of people at
Speaker 4: that time, and not being really present in your work.
Speaker 4: And so for me, it really helps me to have
Speaker 4: two feet on that ground because I am still alive,
Speaker 4: not dead, and so I must engage with the world
Speaker 4: through art until my last breath. And so for me
Speaker 4: that means that I don't really focus on critical acclaim
Speaker 4: or critical disdain. I focus on how others interpret it,
Speaker 4: and I say, oh, was that intentional or was that unintentional?
Speaker 4: Or interesting that they interpret it that way, And then
Speaker 4: I like shut my computer and like keep going and thinking.
Speaker 2: That passage is really great.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I mean I didn't, I just copied it.
Speaker 2: I know. I'm glad you copied it for people to see,
Speaker 2: because they're talking about if you buy into other people's
Speaker 2: interpretations of you, whether as a success or not, that
Speaker 2: you will you will be someone else's version of yourself.
Speaker 4: I am constantly confronted with others perception of me and
Speaker 4: having to integrate that, like that is constantly being projected
Speaker 4: onto me. What I mean, I find that people have
Speaker 4: an idea of me, whether it's that I'm scary or
Speaker 4: whether it's just that I'm constantly hilarious and sweet, whether
Speaker 4: it's that I am a serious person trademark or an
Speaker 4: un serious person trademark. People have perceptions of me. But
Speaker 4: I like put my fingers in my ear la la
Speaker 4: la la la, and I just have to be grounded
Speaker 4: in who I am to myself because that is the
Speaker 4: only thing that's going to guide me. People have hated
Speaker 4: me in my work before, Like, I know, I've been
Speaker 4: doing this for long enough that no one was looking,
Speaker 4: and then you you pop and then people are like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is what people like about you do that, and
Speaker 4: it's like, well, actually, I got to this journey by
Speaker 4: just having an understanding of myself that Yeah, it's a
Speaker 4: lot too interrograte, it's too it's being perceived.
Speaker 2: Is that your review of the show?
Speaker 4: Yeah, being perceived?
Speaker 2: Great, we'll put that on the the Apple reviews. Leeway says,
Speaker 2: I only have two things. Okay, sure, you know how
Speaker 2: you saw Colbert as a as a template for the
Speaker 2: kind of work you wanted to make. When you see
Speaker 2: other comics, do you think they're using you as a
Speaker 2: kind of template now? Because there's another show on Netflix
Speaker 2: called Not So Awkward Ohhh that genuinely replicated your set, Like,
Speaker 2: are these homages to you or would you use a
Speaker 2: less charitable word.
Speaker 4: I don't think anyone has made it until they've made
Speaker 4: it to Bollywood one, and I can't speak to them
Speaker 4: being homages or not. That's like a question for the
Speaker 4: individuals who you feel my work influences. My comedy exists
Speaker 4: in ara that goes before me right, like Zach Gallifanakis, Colbert,
Speaker 4: like Eric Andre, Nathan Fielder, Pasasha Baron Cohen like you
Speaker 4: can see their work in my work, and Oprah Winfrey
Speaker 4: like you can see their influences. And I mean, what
Speaker 4: artists is worth their salt if they are not moving
Speaker 4: art in any direction for the better, for the worst.
Speaker 4: And so part of my job is to create and
Speaker 4: create something new, and if that inspires a multitude or
Speaker 4: an individual, I am fortunate.
Speaker 2: That's a very polite answer. Why are you laughing at?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm laughing because I think this is.
Speaker 2: Funny, the whole podcast.
Speaker 4: No, specifically, where we were and where we're going? What's
Speaker 4: your next question?
Speaker 2: You know where we're going is where we're wondering where
Speaker 2: you're going to go?
Speaker 4: Where you're going? And where are you going? And where
Speaker 4: have you been? Have you read that short story by Joyce.
Speaker 2: Carol Oatez I have a long time ago impactful. She's
Speaker 2: a talented writer. But if Colbert was a template for you,
Speaker 2: he stopped doing the Colbert Report and went to another format,
Speaker 2: the doing the late night show. And so I guess
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, is there a new template that you're following,
Speaker 2: is there something else you want to do now? Or
Speaker 2: do you do you see his path as a something
Speaker 2: that you want to follow, Like would you leave a
Speaker 2: character that you created behind to do a late night
Speaker 2: talk show like him? Is that something you're thinking about?
Speaker 4: I think that the world has changed so much in
Speaker 4: a year, in two years and five and ten, So
Speaker 4: I think that what my heroes have done is not duplicatable.
Speaker 4: Is that a word duplic cannot not be duplicated. It
Speaker 4: cannot be duplicated simply because they hit their moment at
Speaker 4: that moment, in that moment cannot be copied, Like George
Speaker 4: Bush is such an icon and you will never have
Speaker 4: that icon in the White House again. He served two
Speaker 4: terms And so I am not trying to repeat the
Speaker 4: successes of others, but I use their work as an
Speaker 4: influence for me and thinking, okay, this is a reference point,
Speaker 4: like how do I want to adjust? I really don't
Speaker 4: know what's next. I promise that I will always do
Speaker 4: interviews in some capacity in my lifetime. I have a
Speaker 4: bunch of unreleased interviews like in my heart, my hard
Speaker 4: drive somewhere that I will work and release at my leisure.
Speaker 4: But or maybe I'll never release them.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I read somewhere that Beyonce has like ten thousand hours
Speaker 4: of songs, right, So that's part of being an artist.
Speaker 4: Not to compare myself to Beyonce, but that that to me,
Speaker 4: I find out so much more so impressive to think
Speaker 4: that this brilliant songstress has a lifetime of work that
Speaker 4: we may never see, and that's part of her process.
Speaker 4: My process. I don't know where what's going to happen,
Speaker 4: but I'm going to meet every moment as prepared as
Speaker 4: I can be. But we'll see TVD.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, you did an interview with Amy Poehler's
Speaker 2: Smart Girl Oh Yeah website. Here's what you said when
Speaker 2: they asked you about your dream job.
Speaker 4: Okay, what's your dream job? To be a television host.
Speaker 4: I look up to Oprah. A late night host would
Speaker 4: be amazing. If I could break through that barrier for
Speaker 4: late night television, it would be a self actualization beyond anything.
Speaker 4: I'm even getting emotional talking about it. Everything I've ever
Speaker 4: wanted or dreamed of, interacting with politicians and business people,
Speaker 4: writing comedy about it, That's what I would love to do.
Speaker 4: I want to interact with interesting people and make brilliant things.
Speaker 4: I think that's still true. I want to interact with
Speaker 4: interesting people and make brilliant things as far as my
Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like I did that job. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: So how do you continue to expand? What happens after
Speaker 4: you make the iPhone?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: What happens? I had a lot of impatience when I
Speaker 4: was coming up. I would always think, why isn't it
Speaker 4: breaking through for me? When is it going to be
Speaker 4: my turn? And then I feel like everything happened so organically,
Speaker 4: and I'm so grateful for having the grace and the
Speaker 4: time to learn and to grow with the universe. And
Speaker 4: so similarly, I am going to let go of my
Speaker 4: need to constantly control the outcome of things and just
Speaker 4: receive whatever the universe offers me.
Speaker 2: Well with that, I thank you for somewhat letting go
Speaker 2: of the interview interviewee back and forth. You mostly let
Speaker 2: go of your hosting duties.
Speaker 4: Thank you for me I people, I actually get this
Speaker 4: a lot as a comment on podcasts, But I thought
Speaker 4: podcasts were a conversation. Absolutely, yeah, and so I appreciate
Speaker 4: going back and forth because I expand as you expand,
Speaker 4: isn't the universe constantly expanding it is.
Speaker 2: Look at one of your references here the way. Thank
Speaker 2: you for what you say being.
Speaker 4: Perceived, I hate being perceived.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate you indulging me and everyone listening.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having this was such an experience on
Speaker 4: the expansion anytime.
Speaker 2: Bye bye, great and that's our show. If you enjoyed
Speaker 2: today's episode, be sure to leave us five stars on Spotify, Apple,
Speaker 2: wherever you do your listening. As I said in the interstitial,
Speaker 2: if you want to go above and beyond, leaving a
Speaker 2: review on Apple, sharing the program on social media. All
Speaker 2: of it is still even in twenty twenty three. The
Speaker 2: best way for new listeners to find the podcast to
Speaker 2: give a special thanks this week to the teams at
Speaker 2: a m p R Group, Abrams Books, and of course
Speaker 2: our guest ze Way. To order her new book or
Speaker 2: to find her upcoming tour dates, be sure to visit
Speaker 2: her website at zway dot com. If you'd like to
Speaker 2: hear other episodes with great performers, I'd recommend Tessa Thompson, Pedro,
Speaker 2: Pascal Quintin, Brunson, Natasha Leone, Tom Hanks, fran Leibowitz, and
Speaker 2: Oscar Isaac to hear those and more Pushkin Podcasts listen
Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen.
Speaker 2: You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at
Speaker 2: talk easypod. If you want to join our mailing list,
Speaker 2: drop me a line at SF at talk easypond dot com.
Speaker 2: That's SF at talk easypond dot com. You can also
Speaker 2: purchase one of our mugs at Come and Cream or Navy,
Speaker 2: or our vinyl record with fran Leibowitz at talk easypond
Speaker 2: dot com slash Shop. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer is Nick sa Bravo. Our associate producer
Speaker 2: is Caitlin Dryden. Today's talk was edited by Caitlyn Dryden
Speaker 2: and mixed by Andrew Vastola. Our music is by Dylan Peck.
Speaker 2: Our illustrations are by Christian Chenoy. Video and graphics by
Speaker 2: Ian Chang, Derek Gaberzak, Ian Jones and Ethan Seneca. Photographs
Speaker 2: today are by Julius chu House. I want to thank
Speaker 2: our team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond, Julia Barton, John Snars,
Speaker 2: Kerrie Brody, Heather Fane, Eric Sandler, Jordan McMillan, Cura Posey,
Speaker 2: Tara Machado, Jason Gambrell, Justine Lang, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 2: I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for listening to Talk Easy.
Speaker 2: I'll see you back here next week with another episode.
Speaker 2: Until then, stay safe and so long.