(fun, upbeat music)
- Welcome to Meet Your Nominee.
I'm Marya Gullo, from The Hollywood Reporter,
and I have with me, Sarah Silverman,
the host and executive producer of I Love You, America,
which is nominated for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series.
- Woo-hoo! - Yay!
Okay, so, first and foremost, I wanted to talk a little bit
just about the Emmys in general.
Congratulations, I know you are a veteran of the Emmys.
You've got a couple of wins under your belt,
but how does it feel to be nominated
for I Love You, America?
(Sarah laughs)
- It was actually, it was very,
it meant a lot to us, actually.
It was, you know, I always try to think of it
as just frosting on the cake,
but my partner, Amy Zvi, and I were
a little bit teary and very happy, yeah.
- Do you have any other nominees
that you're really excited about this year?
- Oh my gosh, so many.
Well, so many in my category.
I like, you know, I love Amy Sedaris and Drunk History
and Tracey Ullman and SNL, and so it's like I love the comp.
Oh, who am I, am I forgetting anybody?
I love the company I'm in, I mean it's very strong
and very female, so I was excited about it.
- You've actually hosted some award shows before.
So do you have any advice for Colin Jost and Michael Che?
- Oh, I have no advice for them.
They've got it under control.
Yeah, they're going to be great.
- And last Emmys question,
who would you like to dance with at the after parties?
- Oh, oh god, I'm terrible at this.
(Marya laughs)
That's a good question, anybody.
If I'm in a dance mode,
I'm really just whoever's around me is, like it's good.
- Just grabbin' whoever.
- Yeah, it's hard to get into that dance head.
It's almost like eating cottage cheese, like it's gross,
and you have to push yourself to eat that first bite
and then it's incredibly delicious, but...
I'm really not sure what I meant by that analogy
except that like I get embarrassed to dance,
but then once I'm like the music moves me to, I'm in a zone.
- So dancing is the cottage cheese of life.
- Dancing is the cottage cheese of life.
Yeah, thank you to encapsulate that thought.
(laughing)
- Okay, let's talk a little bit
about I Love You, America.
You are a huge Mr. Rogers fan, he's a huge influence on you.
What about I Love You, America
has been directly influenced by Mr. Rogers?
- Definitely not the comedy, of course,
but hopefully the heart of it.
I mean, I think of it as Mr. Rogers for adults,
and what are we, adults?
We're just children plus time, you know, so I do think it's,
we really need those lessons again.
And I'm not saying I'm the one to bring them,
but I do think that until we see ourselves
in each other, like real change
isn't going to happen on a social level.
And I have very strong opinions, and they can be divisive.
And I'm not trying to soften those,
but I also know that there's
a kind of righteousness porn I see on the internet.
And I try to keep myself, you know, in check on that
'cause I see there's that something very exhilarating
about slamming someone that you know is wrong.
And you're, you know, and you're like,
"I'm right, and you're wrong and fuck you,"
or I don't know what all I can say on this, sorry.
But it doesn't cause change.
It certainly doesn't change minds.
It doesn't get people's porcupine needles down, you know,
or their defenses down, and until that can happen,
nobody's open to change.
It just is like these hard surfaces fighting each other,
and it's really masturbatory.
I mean, and I think there's a difference
between speaking truth to power.
It's kind of, in my mind, I think of it of the difference
between the liars and the lied to,
who are only guilty of believing the liars, you know?
And I see a disparage, a disparity,
between them, and so I...
I think on the show, we're not afraid
to speak truth to power, but for the people
who are just citizens that are the people
who are just people who aren't entities,
who aren't, you know, faceless
or part of this administration...
I do feel a kinship,
even if our ideologies are very different.
I think we're getting our news from such different sources
that our truths are different, you know?
We also live in a time of so much misinformation,
and the internet is this Wild West
that I think both parties haven't assimilated to.
- Mhm. - So I'm talkin'
out of my ass, but I think I'm making a point.
- So you said before that this show is exactly the show
that you wanted to make. - It is my dream show.
- Yeah, so what is it about the format that you love?
- I love that, I love the monologue.
It's where I can really say everything I feel.
I love the family dinners, I love going out
into the country, and it's the scariest part.
I kind of always dread it,
and then I'm always exhilarated by it.
And when you're face to face with people,
it's a very different scenario, and...
The internet isn't real life, and so I think
when you're actually with people, there is a desire
for connection that is human and innate and...
And it doesn't take a lot.
It's, I know, it isn't a "Gotcha" kind of show.
We're not trying to get comedy
out of making people look stupid, you know.
There are other shows that do that really well,
and I enjoy them, but this isn't necessarily that.
It makes finding the comedy much more of a challenge,
but that's exciting to me.
I'm older, and I want that.
I want it to be harder, and it's really interesting.
And it's also, there's no way to really plan for it
except for to read and to understand
as much as you can before going in.
And then, it's just, it's almost like, you know, the best.
I'm not saying that we are the best documentaries,
but the best documentaries are go in with one thing in mind
and are changed by what's happening.
And it ends up becoming whatever it was meant to become,
and I think we get really prepared
and then we just see where it goes.
And you know, that's human nature
is when I'm going to visit someone who maybe is a, you know,
a Trump voter, or you know, I don't know, like any,
whoever we're going to, a very, you know, wealthy family
in Wyoming, ranchers who are Republicans, whatever.
We're about to go, or I'm spending the day
with a pro-life group or an anti-choice group.
And it's human nature to whatever we don't know gets,
our brains fill it in with something else,
preconceived notions, we can't avoid it, that happens.
So to come in with preconceived notions,
and then let that either be proven true
or more often than not, blow up beautifully
in our faces is interesting to me.
And I like being changed, you know?
This season, the interviews I did,
which is the other element of the show, I mean,
every interview kind of fundamentally changed me,
like to the core.
And you know, I talked to Father Gregory Boyle,
a Jesuit priest in East LA, who said, "If we don't,"
I'm going to bastardize this, but basically,
"If we don't make friends with our wounds,
"we will be tempted to despise the wounded."
I mean, that's something I think about
all the time, you know, isn't that far out?
Like whoa, I see microcosms and macrocosms
of that in my own life and in the world all the time,
or Christian Picciolini, who was a skinhead,
a Nazi, for many years and now helps people get out
of hate groups and is this amazing man, who said,
"Find someone who doesn't deserve your compassion
and give it to them," because that's what happened to him.
And of course, hopefully, there isn't anyone
who doesn't deserve your compassion, and also,
what I've learned is that people go towards love.
So you see people go kind of into dark places,
or what I might perceive as dark places
and other people don't.
It's because they found love there.
They found acceptance there, you know, so the more we...
It's a hard, there's nuance,
and I know nobody likes nuance right now.
And it makes it hard to write type out headlines
that people will click on, but...
It's always, you know,
do you want to have compassion for a Nazi?
Fuck no, they're fuckin' racists, whatever.
Then, you go, "Well, one person showed this guy compassion
"without sacrificing anything, himself."
A man of, a black man, who came
into his white power record store every day
and bought out a whole section of like white power records
and did nothing but kind of love,
like didn't say anything, just showed him love
and it changed him completely, 180 degrees.
Now, he was, there must've been something
inside him all along.
- Yeah, it sounds like you really enjoy the challenge
of connecting with people, whether that's through humor
or through compassion. - Yeah.
- Well, what are some of the most hilarious moments
that you had in season one?
- Oh my gosh, you know one field piece
that doesn't follow kind of template of the show,
but I really wanted to do is I get my glasses
from this guy at Jack's Eyewear.
It's this hole in the wall that Reggie Watt,
my friend, Reggie Watts and I will have
like stone-y brunches, and we always go to this one cafe.
And we walked around, we found it.
And we both, you know, we both wear glasses,
and it's just has, this guy is kind of an idiot savant.
I think we just called those savants now, sorry.
(Marya laughs)
With glasses, but is this, dare I say, fringe right-wing,
you know, just "Breitbart is the gospel," guy.
And he...
He recognized me right away,
and it was like the first time I ever walked in.
He just went right at me,
but there's this underlying feeling.
We fight like cats and dogs about politics
and just go for the jugular, and it's just vitriol.
But underneath it, there is some sort of,
he loves me, I feel it.
And even in the piece, I go,
and we just scream each other the whole time,
but I'm also trying on glasses.
And it's really how it is whenever I go in, and I said,
"This is crazy, we should shoot this," because it's,
and he was so exactly how he is when, I mean,
there was nothing different.
The cameras, you know, there's like Heisenberg Principle
that like the cameras kind of change the reality
just by virtue of them being there,
and it wasn't for some reason,
like it was just so how it always is.
But we hate each other, but at the same time,
and I say this at the end of the piece,
it's like if he was sick, would I bring him soup?
(scoffs) Maybe, probably.
- So here's a hypothetical situation.
What would a crossover episode look like
between I Love America and Who Is America,
Sacha Baron Cohen's show? - Well, it's, you know,
it's very funny because Sacha and I are very close,
and we're very good friends.
And we call each other brother and sister, you know?
We just, ever since we met, we've been like siblings,
and we e-mailed a lot
around his show coming out and everything.
And I saw a couple versions of it before it came out.
I just, I think it's just beyond brilliant,
and we were laughing because they're kind of
like the same show on total opposite spectrums, you know?
And to me, like the thing
that it has in common is the truth.
I mean, he may be in a costume and prosthetics,
but what he's exposing is what is the truth, you know?
People, you know, look, I do on camera interviews
all the time, and so do all of these politicians,
and when someone says, "Will you look down the barrel
"of the camera and say blah, blah, blah,"
you know, this script.
I look at it and then sometimes, I will,
and often times, I go, "Absolutely not.
"That isn't, I don't agree with what that is."
Those people chose to say what they said.
There is no trickery in that.
He's pretending to be someone else, but if that person
was a real person, they still did what they did, you know?
Have I said things that I regret or that don't hold up
or you know, is comedy evergreen?
Most certainly not, and we talk a lot about that
in this next season that I'm excited about.
I like being able to call myself out,
and I've got plenty to do that with.
I've grown and changed in so many ways,
and all I can do is be changed by things and...
And live my life forever that way, you know?
And I love people who can be changed,
and that's the theme of the interview part
is the interview segment is people
who have been changed, which is everyone,
but that's kind of what we like to focus on.
And also, how do you wash your asshole,
which is like another thing we like to ask everyone
to eventually just show everyone has their own style
but everybody doesn't.
I mean, not everybody, I come from comedians.
- Well, last question to you, Sarah.
At the end of season one, you met up
with Jesus at a coffee shop. - Mhm.
- What is season two going to look like?
- There is going to be a lot more of that kind of stuff,
seeing Jesus at a sandwich shop.
That was a sketch we did with, where I basically bumped
into Jesus, played by Fred Armisen
at a Quiznos, Quizzys, and...
It's such a fun way to explore kind of the big questions.
If anything, I think like the time we're living in right now
is very, at it's best, it's causing existential crisis
for all of us, and I think that ultimately
that's a good thing. - Mhm.
After about a year to contemplate,
have you noticed the difference in, you know,
are we more divisive than other?
- In a lot of ways, yes, but...
I remain hopeful.
- Sarah Silverman, thank you so much for being here,
and we'll see you at Emmys night.
- [Sarah] Thanks.
(whooshing)