Sick In The Head: Conversations About Life And Comedy Part 36

Judd: Do you remember what was in the five minutes?

Roseanne: I made fun of male comics. I was very political.

Judd: Did you talk about being a housewife also?

Roseanne: No, it was radical, feminist politics.

Judd: Did you get any laughs?

Roseanne: The first time, I got killer laughs. And people came up, and they were nice to me. So I couldn't wait to go back the second time, and then I got way over-c.o.c.ky. And I ate it like a dog's death. The indignities.

Judd: What did your husband say when you told him you were going to be a stand-up?

Roseanne: He wanted to be one, too. He helped me write. We'd sit down and we'd write jokes-my sister, too. I'd be sitting in a restaurant with her, and-when I was little my mom used to read this book Fascinating Womanhood. There was a character who would tell you how to get your husband to buy you a blender and s.h.i.+t. And it disgusted me that my mom and her friends were like that, so that's kind of why I became a feminist. But my act was called "How to Be a Domestic G.o.ddess," and me and my sister were eating eggs one day and I was like, f.u.c.k-it just came in my head, one of those things that didn't have nothing to do with me. It's like: domestic G.o.ddess. And I went, Oh f.u.c.k, that's my door. I just tailored it for a while and, you know, they let me on. They liked that act. Because I finally found my voice. I went to every kind of club to work it, too. I had to go to like the Episcopalian church and jazz clubs and punk clubs and biker bars. I remember performing on a punk stage with no mic in the middle of a mosh pit.

Judd: How many years of this before you moved to L.A.?

Roseanne: Five.

Judd: It is interesting, if you watch the arcs of so many comedians. At some point, they just become themselves.

Roseanne: That's exactly it.

Judd: And something amazing happens. Like everyone's looking for their angle, looking for their angle, and then they just-they become powerful.

Roseanne: You synthesize it all. You integrate it-like okay, this part of me wants to say this. This part of me is interested in that. I don't want to be ordinary. I'm willing to do the work. I'm willing to suffer the indignities of comedy. Because I want to be great. I don't want to just be good. I want to be great.

Judd: So how long was it, between moving to L.A. and getting The Tonight Show? It was pretty fast, right?

Roseanne: It was a dream. All these comics were coming to Denver headlining, and I'd open for them. There was a Denver "Laugh Off" thing and it was me and fifteen guys-and I won. Everyone was like, wow. That was a big accomplishment. It was an accomplishment that all the guys were rooting for me, too. That was f.u.c.king mind-blowing after all the s.h.i.+t I had to do. I forgot what you asked me.

Judd: How long until you got on The Tonight Show?

Roseanne: Oh, so everybody goes, "You need to let Mitzi see you at the Comedy Store." And so, you know, I planned it with my husband, the whole thing. I went there on a Monday night. It was like a f.u.c.king dream. Came off the stage after my first five minutes and Mitzi was like, "Go do twenty in the big room."

Judd: Immediately?

Roseanne: All the waitresses told me she had never done that before. So I went in the big room-this is all happening in one night-and I come offstage, and there's George Schlatter. And he's like, "I'm producing a show"-it was Funny Women of Comedy or Funny Gals or some s.h.i.+t-"and it's for NBC and I want you on it." And I'm like, "f.u.c.k, I don't even live here, but yeah, I'll come back." So I came back in a month to rehea.r.s.e for that and a guy comes up to me and he says, "I'm Jim McCawley from The Tonight Show, and I want to put you on Friday night."

Judd: You didn't even know he was in the crowd?

Roseanne: No. You know, with my gruff thing, I was like, "Get in line." And he's like, "No, no, I'm Jim McCawley, and I want you on."

Judd: How did your husband handle your success?

Roseanne: I was really a housewife. And then suddenly, I'm like eighteen weeks on the road without my kids and my husband-he didn't know what to do. He slept in a lot of mornings and they missed school. You know, he's a guy. I came home after like six weeks- Judd: He was working at a post office, right?

Roseanne: No, he had quit. He quit after I started to tour. So I went and got the kids. They lived with me in a one-room apartment on Laurel Canyon Boulevard. I'd bring them to the Comedy Store and they'd just have to sit up there. It was hard.

Judd: How old were they at the time?

Roseanne: They were all under twelve.

Judd: So the two older ones kind of know what's happening?

Roseanne: Yeah, it affected them. I wasn't there to crack down on them as much. So they went wild. We all f.u.c.king went wild. You know, it's just so consuming, it's eighteen hours a day, and you turn to your husband or your sisters or family to help you but n.o.body can do it as well as the mom. So it's just suffering guilt every f.u.c.king minute until you've got to do drugs to handle the disappointment that you're causing your kids.

Judd: It's the aspect of show business that most people don't think about-the circus aspect of it. Whenever I see some famous person get married to another famous person, my first thought is, How can that work?

Roseanne: I know exactly how it works. You just talk on the phone and they're living in a world that doesn't exist like you do. I just always tried to stay in as much as I possibly could. It was really hard because, you know-you don't want to work, but you don't know when you're going to get your next job.

Judd: It could all end tomorrow.

Roseanne: And everybody's like, "You're f.u.c.king rich," but they don't get it. They don't get that you have to f.u.c.king do it. It's not about if you're rich or not. Because it's what you love. You have to do it because that's the only thing you know how to do.

Judd: And it keeps you sane, but it also creates all- Roseanne: All the problems. But then it's so worth it when you're getting those laughs. It's like, This is what I do, what I love. It's the whole f.u.c.king reason I'm alive.

Judd: Was it possible to have balance when you were doing the TV show?

Roseanne: No.

Judd: So when you were working, you were so split off-you focused on the work so intensely that you couldn't be present in the other parts of your life?

Roseanne: Correct.

Judd: It's funny because I used to scream at everybody at the beginning of my career. I'd get really emotional. I'd project all my issues about my parents and safety onto the executives so every conversation where they gave a note was life or death and they tried to destroy me. You don't love me. You don't get me. And so it was really hard. It took me a very, a very long time to understand that I need to find people that understand, who like what I do, who get what I do. I need to find people who I respect so I can respect them, and they'll like being respected so they'll respect me and that's like a marriage. But early in my career, you'd get bad notes from someone who didn't appreciate what you were doing, and you would resist them. I would fight and we would always get canceled. But you had a different situation because your show was so successful that that battle of wills never ended-or was it resolved in some way?

Roseanne: Once the show was number one, it was like, "Don't ever come down here again, motherf.u.c.kers. Don't f.u.c.king come down here." I felt shut down when they'd come and stand there. I'd be like, "n.o.body with a suit is allowed on this stage." They're just judging and you feel the weight of them. They're looking for a flaw. They're waiting to hurt you.

Judd: How much of that, in retrospect, was bad management or treating talent like a piece of meat or a commodity?

Roseanne: It was treating talent with contempt-and it wasn't just me. It was just the way it was then. I'm glad to see people are taking more control of their product these days, but back then it was like, whoa, they just, they didn't respect talent. They had to humiliate and belittle people who had talent.

Judd: That's how they controlled things.

Roseanne: It's a pimp mentality.

Judd: How did you take control of your show?

Roseanne: I'd be standing there during the filming, crying. I got a woman manager after every f.u.c.king guy would say the same s.h.i.+t: "Shut up and take it, you're getting paid." So I got, like, Diane Keaton's manager, and she was very well connected with Freddie Field and people like that, so she had power. And she was like, "Your star is in tears on this comedy. Do you even notice that at all?" She hooked me up with the lawyer Barry Hirsch. And I told him, "I've got to get off. I'm going to die. I've got to quit." There was one big day on set where I was sitting on the bed and the director and the producer were like, "Say the line as written." And I was like, "I'm not going to say the line as written," because Barry Hirsch had told me you can say, "I'd like a new line, please." It's a Guild thing. They were like, "You're not going to get it." But then their lawyers would tell them, "You can't force somebody to say a line." So Barry gave me the language to say, "I'd like a line change, please." And it ended up they made me do it for six hours, and then they came back with some legal s.h.i.+t on the loudspeaker with the cameras on. And then that s.h.i.+t gets back to the network and they're like, "Look what a pain in the a.s.s she is. She needs to go." So they asked all the cast if they'd do the show without me, and John Goodman said no. If he had said yes like a lot of other f.u.c.king people in show business, I would have been off there in a heartbeat. And I was like, f.u.c.k that. I made it for this? All this way to have my f.u.c.king act stolen and be beaten down and disrespected?

Judd: And then it aired and the ratings were- Roseanne: Number one. It premiered at number three, and then it took Cosby. I think it was because I had done The Tonight Show and I had done so well there and people wanted to see it. It went to three first and then it took Cosby and then that was it.

Judd: Then you had the moment where you're like, "Okay, now here's how we're going to do it."

Roseanne: It was that voice that I always have with me. I said, "Either he goes...," and they knew. So they go, "Well, he'll go, but he's not going until [episode] thirteen." So that was seven more or something. And I'm like, Oh, how am I going to f.u.c.king make it through that? And it was tough, but that voice came in and it's like, Make a list of everybody who you're going to fire the minute that you're at fourteen. So I did. I hung it on my door. I still have it. I said, "These people will not be here next year," and it was big so whoever walked by would see it. And they were all gone the next year, including the network president. So it was sheer will and hate and bitterness. And because it was about my kids, and I looked at it like a mom looks at it, you know. It was a fight. My husband at the time told me, "Shut up and take it. You're never going to get this chance again. Shut your f.u.c.king mouth and just do it." And I'm like, the only other person I knew then were comics and Tom Arnold, you know. And Tom was like, "f.u.c.k them." I wanted to hear that. So I ended up getting with him and everything. I unleashed him.

Judd: How do you look back at that time-because, creatively, those first Tom years were really strong.

Roseanne: I think we had three really good years before that, too.

Judd: He came on at the end of season four?

Roseanne: The end of season three. And everyone hated him so he didn't-it was like season four that we got the comics on instead of TV writers. I always wanted that. I loved funny people over story people. It was about the jokes and I like jokes. Jokes were the only reason we were ever on that long.

Judd: How many good Tom years were there?

Roseanne: Zero good years.

Judd: Was it just bats.h.i.+t crazy the whole time?

Roseanne: A living h.e.l.l. Unf.u.c.kingbelievable living h.e.l.l. Like I didn't have enough troubles? Now I've got a drug addict running around my f.u.c.king house? You know, then I'm getting a divorce and kids are in my house. Just not f.u.c.king good at all. But at work, it was fun. Because it was like, I want this, let's try this, let's try that. It was like, Let's f.u.c.king take this down. I want gays on the air. I wanted a teenage girl who was negative like I was.

Judd: What are the parts of the show that you look back at with the most pride?

Roseanne: From the first battle, it seemed like-I felt like Wonder Woman battling back the n.a.z.is or whatever, it was kind of like that. It was Halloween and they wouldn't let me do a show on Halloween. Because they said the Bible Belt doesn't like Halloween; they think it's witches and s.h.i.+t. So I'm like, "Well, then I'm a witch. And I want Halloween." I just, I couldn't stand people saying what the f.u.c.k I could do. The next thing was an unemployed husband. They didn't like that, either. They didn't like smart-mouthed Darlene. They didn't like Darlene. And you know, so Darlene was a big one for me because I'm Darlene. I was Darlene! That's who I was, you know.

Judd: Did you feel like it was an honest depiction of working-cla.s.s America?

Roseanne: I liked that it was like, This s.h.i.+t sucks. That was real to me. And also, I wanted to show a different kind of love that wasn't that phony bulls.h.i.+t love. It was love through bad things. I was on a f.u.c.king mission for sure. I felt like the Messiah and Wonder Woman all rolled up into one. I felt like Robin Hood. I felt like Jesus. Plus, I had a killer cast that could make anything. I had great writers. Christ, I'll never get that again. It was like the real golden age, another golden age of television. Today they want no part of anything having to do with cla.s.s on TV. No part.

Judd: Why do you think that is?

Roseanne: Because it's too true.

Judd: I think the paradox of being a comedian is you become a comedian because, on some level, you're so insecure that you need people's approval. And then you put yourself in a position where you can get an enormous amount of disapproval but it's worth the risk because- Roseanne: The d.a.m.n indignity.

Judd: I'm going to risk making a movie and maybe the world will tell me they hate me. Like, I want some love but I might get some hate. And there are certain people who are like totally fine with that. But there's craziness in it, too.

Roseanne: Well, I think you've got to get like that.

Judd: Is that healthy or is it also detached in some way?

Roseanne: All of it is just too hard. But when you're doing it-I remember I asked my rabbi that once. I said, "Does this s.h.i.+t ever stop? You know, the crazy?" And he said, "It stops when you're doing it." And I thought, Well, Christ, isn't that right?

SANDRA BERNHARD.

(1983).

Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy came out when I was fifteen, in early 1983, and it quickly became a formative movie of my childhood-and my adulthood, too, for that matter. As a kid, I was so fascinated by the stories about the making of it, especially the ones about how this young unknown woman, Sandra Bernhard, had improvised the majority of her part and, in doing so, put the great Jerry Lewis in many situations and moments that he had not been in before. That blew my mind. I interviewed Sandra not long after the movie came out, when she was on the cusp of a new, more mainstream kind of stardom. I had seen her on Letterman-she was a regular guest in the early eighties-and her appearances were always electric and surprising and, in terms of comedic personality, groundbreaking. There was never anyone like Sandra then, and now that I think about it, there's never been anyone like her since.

Judd Apatow: Okay, here we go. So how has your life changed since The King of Comedy?

Sandra Bernhard: In my career? Well, probably the most important thing that has changed is that I can get interviews for things. People are interested in finding other films for me.

Judd: Is that what you've been doing, reading scripts?

Sandra: Yeah, reading scripts and developing things of my own.

Judd: And now you're getting stand-up jobs everywhere?

Sandra: Yeah, but I'm not going to be doing comedy clubs anymore. I'm doing more musically, developing my act more as a whole package, as opposed to just comedy.

Judd: Do you get recognized on the street?

Sandra: A lot. I've always been looked at because I have one of those kinds of faces-people think they know me. But now, it's like they do. So it's kind of neat.

Judd: What do they say?

Sandra: Oh, well, most people are just incredibly supportive, and say, "G.o.d, I loved you in the film, it was a wonderful performance." You know, lots of good.

Judd: How did you get that part?

Sandra: I auditioned for it out in L.A., along with lots of other actresses. And then I met De Niro and Scorsese over a period of two months.

Judd: Were they intimidating?

Sandra: No, because I really wasn't that into their films at the time. I walked in just sort of, "Oh, hi." Real casual.

Judd: How about Jerry Lewis?

Sandra: He was more intimidating than they were.

Judd: What do you think about him? I mean he used to be such a crazy young guy, and now he's, like, an old man.

Sandra: He's a crazy old man. He's not that old, first of all. I mean, he's pretty much the same. People don't really ever change that much, you know. They slow down a little bit. But he's still totally crazy.

Judd: And did they let you improvise on this movie?

Sandra: Most of my part was improvised.

Judd: Like whole scenes?

Sandra: Yeah. A lot of what I did in the movie I improvised before I went on my auditions.

Judd: Didn't they cut a lot of stuff you did?