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Sarah
Silverman is the not only one of the funniest comics working
today, she is also one of the most fearless. She constantly subverts expectations, alternately surprising, delighting and shocking her audiences. She uses her fresh good looks and her adorable squeaky-voiced delivery in ways that become almost confrontational -- challenging the listener with shocking material; she squeezes laughs out of uncomfortable moments when the audience tries to reconcile her innocent presentation with her outrageous statements and creates laughter in ways that no other comic is trying today.
Most stand-ups fear silence, confusion, and ambiguity, but Sarah uses those reactions to shape her routines and sharpen
her punchlines. It's not only great comedy, it's important social discourse in the tradition of Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.
As Michael MacCambridge wrote in GQ Magazine, "The assumption for years has been that gorgeous women don't need stand-up, don't need to work out their demons with a microphone on the naked stage. But here stands Silverman--all raven hair, swan's neck, intense eyes and slangy, self-possessed physicality--and almost as one, the audience leans forward, raptly attentive . . . A few years after a new breed of candid female rockers revolutionized the vocabulary of pop music, the 28-year-old Silverman stands poised to do the same thing to stand-up comedy." In 1993, Silverman was hired as a featured writer-performer on Saturday Night Live. But almost immediately she had trouble with the NBC censors. Her first routine was a commentary slot on "Weekend Update" in which she spoke about the twenty-four-hour waiting period some states were requiring prior to an abortion. She said: "Quite frankly, I think it's a good law. I was going to get an abortion the other day. I totally wanted an abortion.... And it turns out I was just thirsty."
After her stint on SNL, she returned to stand-up
comedy, and acted in a couple of episodes of Seinfeld
as Kramer's girlfriend. Then she got a featured role on The
Larry Sanders Show, playing a comedy writer whose jokes
kept getting cut because of a male head writer who thought weren't
funny. After that, she was a cast member on Mr. Show.
She also appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman, Politically Incorrect, The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn, Dr. Katz (Laura Silverman, Sarah's sister, plays Dr Katz' receptionist.), and Star Trek Voyager. Sarah's films include There’s Something About Mary, Bullworth, What Planet Are You From, and The Bachelor.
COT:
Was the character you played on Larry Sanders related
at all to your actual writing experience on Saturday Night
Live?
SILVERMAN: I think that was the original idea, but, no, not really. COT: What's your favorite pizza? SILVERMAN: Crispy--with mushrooms and peppers. And candy. And your mother. COT: Where would you like to see the entertainment business located, instead of Los Angeles and New York? SILVERMAN: Massachusetts.
SILVERMAN: The one about your mother. COT: What's your next project? SILVERMAN: The Farrelly brothers' Say It Isn't So, Heartbreakers, and the Ivan Reitman movie, Evolution. COT: Is the casting couch still alive in Hollywood? SILVERMAN: I don't know. I can't seem to get anyone to blow me.
COT: How bad / good is it?
SILVERMAN: Hurts so good. COT: What's in your medicine cabinet? SILVERMAN: Zoloft, Alesse, tylenol pm, exederin pm, bobby pins, benadryl, your mother's vibrator. COT: Who's your favorite comic? SILVERMAN: Todd Glass, Steve Martin (on talk shows), Garry Shandling, and, your mother. COT: Ever had cybersex? SILVERMAN: I was cyber-raped. All I could do was revert into my mind and "go away" to another webpage. Want more Sarah? http://www.sportshollywood.com/asksilverman.html. Interview by Rodney Lee Conover. He denies that his mother would ever own a vibrator.
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