Iliza Shlesinger
speaker
495 appearances
4 recordings
3 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Apr 2025
Iliza Shlesinger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Yeah, I guess. Yes. Not I guess. Yes. But I just knew in my bones that this was the direction I was going in. So the awful people just sort of fell by the wayside. It's not to say it wasn't painful or it didn't hurt or that didn't give me pause when someone was weird or creepy.
But I also became a headlining comedian so young that the time in which most women are dealing with guys not booking them or harassment and stuff, I was already headlining. So you couldn't tell me nothing because what are you going to hold over my head that I can't do your bar show? Okay, I'm in St. Louis this weekend doing the thing that you wanted to do.
So I had that in a way that I wish a lot of women could have. So I never had to deal with a lot of that guff.
I think people are threatened by anyone doing something that they love and doing it well. So, you know, you can always look back and think about men or women. I'm not going to absolve women of this, you know, and their shitty attitude toward you. But it's not, it wasn't, I'm not so special that it's reserved just for me. You know, we all get bitter.
We all look at someone that has something that we want and hopefully don't take it out on them. But I think that's a very human thing and that's what artists go through. I think that's just what people go through. And so, yeah, I mean, it's there, but if you just stay focused,
I always tell comics, like, if you look back or anyone in any sort of art, look back at the people who were awful to you or whatever, and however they atone or they find God or they accidentally get a waitress pregnant and now they have a family they have to deal with, whatever, most of those people are not still doing it.
All the people that you thought were these like spiritually insurmountable, horrible people in your way, like don't exist 10 years later. And so I, for whatever that's worth to people.
I mean, look, I know I'm a very good stand-up comic. And I know that I can always do stand-up comedy. But I think there is no there there. You know, as soon as your goal is to do theaters, you're doing theaters. And then you want bigger theaters. Then you do the bigger theaters. And then you're like, you always want something more.
So the sooner, and I can't say that I'm great at this, the sooner you can like recalibrate to realize like it's just this fast roller coaster that never doesn't make you nauseous. You know, I'm always gonna... I don't see myself. They're just stand up specials. You know, there's no Oscar there. There's no Emmy there.
There's I am always I wake up thinking about all the things that I failed at and not in a self-deprecating way. Like, I don't have a bad self-esteem, but I'm constantly thinking about all of the things that I haven't got that I desperately want.
No, it's not funny. It's like the first thing in my, and it's the last few years, like I wake up and you're like, I just think about all the things that I don't have. And I think about the moment that maybe I could have had them. And especially lately, I've been thinking about all the things that I've done wrong and doing my best to like, well, in this, like, how do we recalibrate this?
How do we... You know, how do we not repeat the same mistakes or how do we get better at writing or get better at listening or just whatever you may have been dinged for. Or you could have been dinged for just the fact that you showed up and had nothing to do with you. But I'm just always trying to always grow mentally and as an artist.
You struggle treating it as learning or you struggle in doing so?
No, I'm not Jewish, but Cubans have some of that. Sure, sure. You're Catholic.
It's the same thing. It's the same. I guess there's... I'm not a depressed person, but there's definitely moments of that wallowing and they come out of nowhere. And all of a sudden you're at a party and you're just like thinking about the last time you were at a party like this and how the person you wanted to talk to was shitty to you.
And you're like, well, that's because you're like nobody and nobody's gonna like... And it is a voice that you have to, I'm learning to like just change the channel because it isn't productive. And I'm learning that like the people around me don't necessarily want to hear that, whether it comes out as anger or tears or something.
And so I'm always trying to remind myself like you feel really bad right now. but you won't in 10 minutes. So try not to explode your life by like texting, like just go do a set or something. I always feel as a comic, like your salvation lies on the other side of that hour. You know, you always feel better or that 15 minutes or whatever, that will always make you feel better.
Cause that's doing the best thing in the world.
I'm reticent to say got better because I don't, I think it's something that I'm only truly grappling with now in an intellectual way versus like avoidance or anger. So I don't know. But one thing I did, this is like, I do not deserve any flowers for this. Like this morning, I was like, I have a problem with Instagram and it's making it worse for social reasons.
Not even like about looking at other actors or something like that. I don't care about that. Like I'll watch anyone's good movie. But I was like, this is rewiring my brain in a way that is not conducive to intellectual thought or looking at problem solving or drawing your own conclusions. And so I called my social media person. I was like, I need you to change the password.
Showing 341–360 of 495 · page 18 of 25
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