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Culture Stage

Sarah Silverman

SARAH SILVERMAN GALA with SILVERMAN, LOUIS CK, DAVID CROSS, ARJ BARKER, TODD GLASS and JOHN MULANEY at Massey Hall (178 Victoria), July 17 at 7 and 9:30 pm. $45.50-$85.50. 416-872-4255, 416-872-1111, ticketmaster.ca, hahaha.com/toronto.


Midway through my phone interview with Sarah Silverman, she drops the N-word in reference to Chris Rock. Or at least I think she does – listen to the tape of our conversation and you’ll understand.

Download associated audio clip.

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“Holy shit,” I’m thinking, “is this another Michael Richards moment? Should I alert TMZ?” Good thing I call her on it.

“Me? What?” she gasps. “Thank god you asked. I said New York.” Not the N-word.

The fact that one of the brashest comics working today, one who routinely skewers racial, religious and sexual stereotypes in her stand-up act and TV series, is so appalled reveals a ton about the woman behind the persona.

Onstage or on camera she’s fearless, with that cocky half-turned-up smile making her nasty irony that much funnier: take my act or shove it, people.

In person… how to put it? She’s kinda nice. Her voice goes all high and regretful when we talk about the thing that’s not to be talked about – her breakup with talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

“Yeah, it sucks,” she says about being in the public eye. “Ahhh. I’m not nuts talking about it. We were together for a long time. I’ve never had a breakup that people knew about – people I don’t know. It’s embarrassing and awful. We were good together – I don’t know,” she trails off.

Like many comics, Silverman’s not a laugh a minute and doesn’t like to know too much about where her material comes from.

Still, she’s at a fascinating career crossroads, which is why those who love cutting-edge comedy will be packing out her two Massey Hall shows at Just For Laughs.

Wasted for years in supporting film roles (see School Of Rock), she burst onto the radar with her gutsy appearance in the comedy doc The Aristocrats, where she accused broadcaster Joe Franklin of sexually abusing her. Talk of a lawsuit followed.

Download associated audio clip.

Then she solidified her fan base with her cult TV series, along the way building cred with well-timed hosting gigs on the MTV Movie Awards and – oh yeah – a little YouTube video called I’m Fucking Matt Damon, which her then-boyfriend Kimmel one-upped with his star-studded Ben Affleck vid.

The thing is, now audience expectations are way higher than they were a few years ago.

“The bulk of my career has involved going out to an audience who isn’t expecting me and doesn’t know who I am and either blowing it, pissing them off or winning them over,” she says from her home in L.A., where, despite work on her series’ third season, she still hits the stand-up clubs when she can.

“Now people go to see me. Part of me wants to give them what they expect, and part of me feels like I’d be disappointing them if I give them what they expect. Another part feels like I don’t want to have to plot out or second guess an audience because I’ve never done that before. So it’s a weird quandary.”

Then she hauls out the kind of metaphor we love her for.

“It’s like playing a pickup game of basketball at the Y,” she says. “You have to prove yourself so much because you’re a girl, but you get kind of a boner from that. It’s exciting – it brings out the best in you.”

Who but Silverman could so offhandedly refer to herself as a chick with a dick?

“A lot of the things that might be funny in stand-up might be things that in the regular world are considered Asperger’s,” she says. “It doesn’t occur to me to curb things. Not much grosses me out. I grew up in a household where vagina was just as not-gross as penis.”

This segues into a story about a recent heated discussion with her show’s standards-and-practices rep about using the term “labia.”

“It’s such a technical term,” she says. “We can say penis till the cows come home, and I just don’t want to be part of this machine that gives women shame over this stuff. It’s like Republicans trying to make ‘liberal’ a dirty word.”

Silverman’s fans know she’s got a, er, boner for dirty words, but also that her humour has a streak of social awareness.

Consider her appearance in a YouTube video pretending to be a doctor to visit military-ravaged Burma, or, during the presidential election, her plea to Jewish kids to boycott visiting their Florida grandparents if they didn’t agree to vote for Obama.

“I wanted to do something to help the campaign, but I figured that anyone who’s going to see me was already voting for Obama,” she says. “And then when the [Great Schlep] people presented this idea to me that elderly Jews in Florida weren’t going to vote for him but 100 per cent of their grandkids were, I was like, ‘Wow, I think this is something I could actually help with.'”

The line between Silverman’s life and her comedy can blur. She’s been candid about her depression and her history of bed-wetting (which went on until she was 16), but although she’s got a classic joke about abortions, she’s never had one.

“I’m so naive in a lot of ways,” she says. “It never occurred to me that people would assume I’ve had abortions. Not that there’s anything wrong with having one. It’s a real jumbalaya of truths and lies.”

Here’s one truth, though: she does want to adopt – and, hell, if that means being a single mom, so be it.

Really? Isn’t celebrity adoption a bit of a cliché? Something she’d spoof on her own TV show?

“I don’t care, I’m not basing my happiness on what people think,” she says. “People go, ‘Oh, Madonna’s adopting, or Mia Farrow’s adopting!’ It’s fucking beautiful! It’s a weird thing to look down on adoption. I have two nephews who are adopted. It’s a big part of my family’s life.

“I’m not ready now. But someday, when I’m ready. I want to do it when it’s all I want in the world.”

Additional audio clips:

On her early SNL gig:

Download associated audio clip.

On whether there’s a double standard for female and male comics:

Download associated audio clip.

On taking second-fiddle girlfriend roles in Hollywood movies:

Download associated audio clip.

glenns@nowtoronto.com

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