Smallscreen News

Sarah Silverman exposed in Playboy interview

By April MacIntyre Mar 17, 2010, 5:31 GMT

Sarah Silverman Fame Pictures, Inc - Santa Monica, CA, USA

TV star Sarah Silverman loves to shock in a laconic way, delivering remarks with a little smile and matter of factness that softens the blow.

“You’re not going to believe this, but [my shrink] eventually had me taking four Xanax four times a day,” says comedian Sarah Silverman in Playboy’s April Interview (issue on newsstands Friday, March 19).

“16 Xanax a day, for a 14-year-old girl. She upped the dose every time. She should be in prison.”

Before her Comedy Central hit show The Sarah Silverman Program, Sarah struggled with depression and bedwetting.

Sarah eventually overcame many hurdles and found the perfect antidote: comedy.  In advance of the release of her book in late April that tells the story of these youthful challenges, titled The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee, Sarah sat down with Playboy to discuss the curse words her father taught her at a young age; her infatuation with Steve Martin; being accused of racist comedy; and why she’s against marriage.

Playboy sent Monsters and Critics selected quotes from the interview:

One her interest in marriage:

“I love going to weddings, and I love it when my friends get married. I’m not against marriage, but it’s just not for me. I’m a vegetarian, but I don’t have a problem if you want a hamburger. Marriage, to me, is like eating meat. I think it’s gross and fu*king crazy… If you’re getting married today, it’s the equivalent of joining a country club that doesn’t allow blacks or Jews.”

On if she thinks love should be legally binding:

“I don’t. But I believe in love! I’d like to find that person. I think Jimmy and I had every intention of spending the rest of our lives with each other. I love love. It’s my top priority. Jimmy will tell you. I’m a good girl.”

On her first romantic encounter with Jimmy Kimmel:

“We were watching Broadway Danny Rose. We were like nose-to-nose for what felt like 40 minutes…then we just started kissing and making out and fooling around. It got all hot and heavy, and I was like, ‘Do you want to go to the bedroom?’ And he’s like [softly], ‘Okay.’ I walked down the hallway and into my bedroom, and I turn around and he’s standing in the doorway, totally naked…I don’t know how he got his clothes off in that amount of time. I’d never seen him naked before, so it was a little bit shocking. I was like [gasps], ‘Oh!’ And he goes, ‘Well, we’re definitely going to do it, right?’

On the Jimmy Kimmel breakup:

“Sometimes loving each other isn’t enough. You have to be responsible for your own happiness. You can’t stay in a relationship because you’re afraid of the unknown. But I will always love him. Sometimes I think maybe we’ll die together in our old age or something.”

On how she met her current boyfriend, Family Guy writer Alex Sulkin:

“I had known him, barely, over the years. He was a writer at The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn, and I remembered him from when I would do that show. Then I started following him on Twitter—get ready, this is a very modern story—and he was so funny. I saw that he followed me, too, which allows you to send messages directly. So I wrote him a note that said, ‘You’re funny.”

On her infatuation with Steve Martin:

"I loved Steve Martin. I didn’t just love him, I was in love with him. On the ceiling in my bedroom where I grew up, where my mom still lives, I wrote ‘I love Steve Martin’ in pencil. It’s still there.”

On whether she ever dates non-comedians:

“Rarely. I’m cursed with being attracted to funny people, and that limits it to f*cking freaks like me.”

On whether or not it’s true she swore as a child to please her father:

“It is. When I was three years old he taught me how to say ‘bitch,’  ‘bastard,’ ‘damn,’ and ‘shit.’ Looking back on it now it’s pretty obvious why I do the sort of comedy I do. As a kid I said swear words to adults, and they laughed wildly. Is it such a surprise I’m a shock comedian today? It makes total sense.”

On her bed-wetting problem:

“I remember going on a camping trip when I was 13 and hiding diapers in the bottom of my sleeping bag. Diapers! I slipped into them in my sleeping bag when everybody else was asleep.”

On her severe depression as a teenager:

“I remember when it first happened. I came back from this camping trip, the one where I hid diapers in my sleeping bag, and it just washed over me like a cloud. It was like a cloud covering the sun. I remember the horror story I told myself over and over again: I’m totally alone in my body. Nobody will ever see through my eyes. I’m just completely alone.”

On growing up in a sexually open family:

“Yeah, we were very open. I grew up with no Jews except for my family, but I think there’s something about Jewish culture that says sex is okay, sex is good. There isn’t a stigma attached to it. They really didn’t shield me from anything. I became sexualized at an early age, although I didn’t have sex until I was 19.”

On whether she was surprised after being fired from Saturday Night Live:

“I was. I didn’t get anything on the show in my first year, but it never occurred to me I wouldn’t be asked back. All the way up to August I was writing sketches, making plans. My manager and agent called me together from Los Angeles, and when they told me I’d been fired, I didn’t believe it. I was like, ‘Awww, come on, guys! That’s not funny!’ I thought they were kidding. I was devastated, and I thought I’d never work again.”   

On her controversial joke on Late Night with Conan O’Brien:

“Originally the joke had the word n*gger in it. The segment producer said that wouldn’t work and suggested using dirty Jew instead. But it wasn’t as hard because I’m Jewish…so then I suggested Ch*nk, because it’s got that hard k, and it’s really racist. It had to be something hard. And the producer said, “No, but you can say ‘sp*c.’” And I was like, “I can’t say ‘Ch*nk,’ but I can say ‘sp*c’?” I decided to go with Ch*nk, because it sounds funnier to me. It’s a joke about saying the worst, most racist word you can think of.”

On being accused of racism by the president of a media watchdog group:

“I immediately wrote this long, thoughtful letter…thinking we could actually have an open conversation. But he was too jazzed about having a fight with me. I made the mistake of going on Politically Incorrect with him. He had 60 people in the audience who hated me, just haaaaated me. And they made me repeat the joke. I was like, ‘Please just replay the clip. If you have me repeat the joke it won’t be funny, and I’m doing it to 60 people who hate me.’ They made me repeat it, and of course it got boos. Jokes need context.”

On what musician is a fan of her racist jokes:

“Oh God, that’s the worst. I had a boyfriend who called it mouth-full-of-blood laughs. It’s when people are laughing at the wrong thing. One time the lead singer of a very popular band from the 1980s—I can’t give you his name—came up to me after a show, and I swear to God, he goes, ‘You’re my favorite comedian. You have the best n*gger jokes.’ I was like, ‘I…I…didn’t mean…” And he turns to his friends and says, ‘She’s got the best n*gger jokes!’ ….I’ll say just this: After that, I stopped believin’.”

On who she would choose to sing the song she wrote:

“I want to get one of those teen pop girls to sing it, like Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus, because it’s about teen angst…If I did it, it’d just be lame. But I think it’d really be cool if people were like, ‘You know that new Miley Cyrus song? The comedian Sarah Silverman wrote it.’ That would be awesome.”

On whether she feels she’s been unfairly typecast:

“I’ve certainly done enough of those types of roles. I’m the girlfriend in a comedy who is mortified by her boyfriend’s hilarious behavior. ‘You need to get a job and straighten up your life!’ I’m done with that. I don’t want to be the glue for bad writing anymore. My spirit can’t take it.”