Jenifer Lewis.
-♪ ♪ -(cheering and applause)
(cheering roars)
-Mwah! -Mwah.
Hey!
(cheering continues)
(laughs)
Howdy, howdy, howdy, handsome!
Oh.
Oh, my God! Don't think I'm not gonna flirt.
(laughter)
I am ready, ready.
-I wore this. Look it. I just... -(laughing)
I wore skin.
(whooping)
-Ms. Jenifer Lewis, welcome back to The Daily Show. -Yes, baby.
-How are you? -Thank you, pumpkin. I am-- Wow.
I am on a whirlwind book tour.
-(cheering) -Guys-- No, no, no.
I am having the time of my life.
Baby, you know this is what I do.
I love the audience, the live audiences.
(cheering and applause)
You don't-- you don't just do it.
You do it well.
-(chuckles) -You know, I-I was-- I was reading through
your résumé, I was-- I was like, "This is insane."
You are a part
of America's entertainment culture.
I mean, everything. 400 different episodes of TV shows.
And, you-you know, you have, what,
there's, like, almost 70 movies that you've been in.
Four Broadway shows.
You've been on-- you've been in animated shows.
-You-You've been everywhere. -I'm doing 15 animations
-right now. And-- Wait, wait, wait. -15?! -(cheering)
And 15 different voices.
(cheering and applause)
-Crazy. -Wow.
-Crazy. Yeah. -Wow.
And so it feels very belated,
but have I to say congratulations
on getting your star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
-Oh. -(cheering)
-Thank you. -What a moment.
Yeah, it was you, uh...
It was un... It was just...
It was a glorious day.
It, uh, that's the only word can I use for it.
I was, I was so happy to be in my skin,
to accept something that wonderful,
to become part of that cultural treasure
that is, you know, my name sto...
my name carved in marble.
-I'm like, "Hey!" -(laughter)
All right, uh, you know what was important about that day
is I told the audience when I accepted
that it wasn't my work on camera and on stage.
-It was the work off stage. -Mm.
-I'm bipolar, I went and took care of myself, -Mm.
my-my-my soul,
and-and the disease itself, the disorder itself.
I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor.
I never thought I'd run around quoting the constitution.
But we all have a right to pursue happiness!
-(cheering) -I love that.
-Wow, I love that. -Yes.
And I tell people, Baby, baby, wait.
You, you don't think you're going to get somewhere
and be happy.
You got to be happy on your way to happy.
'Cause you can't... No, really.
You know, we think we're going to get somewhere.
Look, baby girl, you take yourself with you.
If you're depressed at home,
you're gonna be depressed at work.
If you're depressed at work, you're gonna be depressed
when you have sex.
Well, I wasn't, I'm sorry.
(laughter)
-The book is all about that. -Yes.
Obviously you were on the show,
and we-we-we enjoyed your memoir,
which did exceptionally well,
and this, this is a different type of book.
I-I loved it because the memoir was your journey.
The memoir was-was a linear storytelling
of how you came to be the legend that we know and love,
but Walking in My Joy-- I love that-- In These Streets
is a series of essays that, I-I feel like, gives us an insight
into the things that inspire you to be joyful every single day.
Absolutely.
Um, I, I live on purpose.
I write it down.
Journaling is one of the greatest tools
to pulling one's self together, to gather your thoughts.
You know, we think the same thoughts every day,
over and over, we go to bed the same way,
we eat sometimes the same food.
Come on, guys, when we get out there in the streets,
especially after COVID, we have to be more kind to each other.
More kind-- I say it that way.
I could say "kinder," but more kind.
-Mm. -There's a difference.
We have to be patient with one another.
You know, th-there are new workers.
The world has changed.
The world is also in mourning.
I just left Cambodia.
I went down to Angkor Wat.
Jesus, go if you can, darling.
(chuckles) Oh, my God,
I've never seen anything like it in my life.
I mean, it's stunning.
And I'm not gonna tell you what it is. Look it up.
(laughter)
And I went on to Agra, India and saw the Taj Mahal.
-Wow. Wow. -I went to Petra, uh,
to, uh, uh, Jordan, the hills of Moses,
and I saw the-the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
Baby, I went around the world. Uzbekistan in Central Asia.
But listen, when I go to these places,
I don't just go see the touristy sites.
I tell my god, "Baby, take me to the trenches."
-I want to see the people. -Mm.
What's going on.
I went to South Africa.
-I saw where Mandela stayed for 27 years. -Mm.
And when I got back home, I said, "Hey, little Jenny Lewis.
"You owe.
Time to give it back."
Trevor, I got everything I wanted.
I did. I got fame, I got fortune.
-I love this. I love this. -(applause and cheering)
-Listen, listen. -You...
Listen. I got joy. I got joy.
But listen here. That fortune I'm talking about--
-don't ask me for no money. -(laughter)
Don't ask me for shit.
(laughs) You got to love me.
You have some of the best... I can see now. I can see now
how the book comes to be because
you have these stories in the book.
I mean, you talk about traveling,
-coming face-to-face with a water buffalo in Africa. -Baby.
You talk about one of the craziest moments
I've ever heard of somebody having in an airport
where the SWAT basically gets called
because somebody said you had a gun when you didn't.
-Dumbass Nancy the piano player. -(laughter)
I'm on my way to Nevada Springs,
or Spring's Beauty, Nevada to do a concert in the '80s.
We're walking through the gangway.
We're joking around-- me and my piano player, right?
She gets up to the door. Oh, my God.
She looks at the stewardess because we'd been laughing,
and I might have said way back there,
"Girl, I'll kill you if you don't stop."
You know, way, way, way. So we're laughing and laughing.
She gets down there,
and says to the stewardess,
(laughing): "Careful. She's got a gun."
Dumb-ass Nancy!
They took that bitch to jail.
I said, "What?"
Oh, they-they took us both off the plane, though,
but I hadn't done anything.
Honey, they put our hands up and searched us.
I told that cop, I said, "A little to the left, baby.
Oh, yes, a little to the left."
And then they put her in handcuffs.
I said, "Wait a minute, that's my piano player!
Who the (bleep) gonna play for me in Nevada?"
And the only reason she got out was I still had
a New York address, and they let her out.
They knew sh-- they knew she didn't have a gun.
They used it as, uh, practice
-Wow, really? -in ca-in ca-- Yeah, they knew that girl--
I didn't have a gun and they knew we were just kids.
We were in our 20s, for God's sake.
Nobody have a (bleep) gun.
And they knew it, but they used it as a drill.
-I mean, they stormed through the back of the plane, -Wow.
Baby, there were SWAT teams, tanks.
I was like, "Damn!
For little old me?"
Baby, it-- No, so don't joke at the airport.
I know you know it now. That was-that was
before 9/11, honey. You say that shit now, it's over.
Hey. Take your ass out.
Every single story in the book is like this.
Thank you so much for joining me on the show.
-I love you. I love you. -Always great having you.
Thank you.
It's like a private show. Thank you.
Walking in my Joy is available now.
Jenifer Lewis, everybody.