BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition February 2019

S
ome comedians train their whole lives
to secure an HBO special, headline a Just
for Laughs festival, host Netflix’s first
late-night comedy talk show, or speak
at the White House Correspondents’
Dinner. Michelle Wolf is not some comedians. In
fact, she never planned to be a comedian at all.
After studying kinesiology in college, Wolf jumped
headfirst into a career on Wall Street despite never
having taken a business course. She started at Bear
Stearns in the summer of 2007, less than a year
before its collapse during the stock market crash of
2008.
“I got a job on Wall Street, mostly because I
was an athlete and I got good grades and those
are people who are competitive and want to win,”
says Wolf. “Around the same time that Bear was
collapsing, some friends came to visit me, and we all
went to a taping of SNL. I’ve always been such a big
fan, so afterwards I googled how people get onto
the show, and most of them started in improv. So I
just signed up for an improv class.”
For someone known for their controversial
speech-turned-roast at 2018’s White House
Correspondents’ Dinner, it might be surprising to
learn that Wolf is not interested in overtly political
comedy. Whether you’re watching her 2017 HBO
special Nice Lady or seeing her at The Comedy Cellar
in New York City, tune into her stand up and you’re
not likely to hear much of a political persuasion: “I
will never do a Trump joke in stand up,” she says.
Her aim at the Correspondents’ Dinner was not just
to roast Trump’s administration, but also to hold the
media accountable for profiting off of publicizing
the policies they claim to staunchly oppose. In 2018,
Wolf became Netflix’s first late-night host on a
weekly program called The Break with Michelle Wolf
(it was the network’s second-ever talk show, after
Chelsea Handler’s self-named, two-season series).
Though she claims not to be interested in analyzing
politics with her humour, many of the topics she
touches on in The Break, such as ICE, women’s
rights, and the epidemic of backlogged, untested
rape kits across the United States, are, decidedly,
highly political. The show is laced with sketches that
are apolitical too, though, like one about a “Too
High Squatty Potty” – a four-foot-tall Squatty Potty
that, quite simply, is too high.
“We just did anything we thought was going to
be fun,” she says. In one episode, there are several
minutes of jokes about crows having sex with dead
crows. “We all wrote, like, so many crow jokes. We
had to do it – they were all funny! We cut probably
five to eight minutes out of that. And I guarantee
you no one else on any late night show was talking
about it. We really just wanted it to be fun, and for
people to maybe not have to think about what’s
happening in the world right now.”
After its 10-episode run, Netflix decided against
renewing The Break. The modern day algorithm
simply wasn’t conducive to the old school latenight
format, especially when you take into account
that most late-night programs are allowed dozens
of episodes to figure out a formula that works for
them.
“I’d like to potentially try it again in the future,
but I’d want to wait until the landscape is less
political,” says Wolf. “Political comedy, what late
night shows are doing, it bores me. It’s all the same.
I feel like right now, a lot of people just want to
hear ‘Trump is bad.’ We already know that! Hearing
it again isn’t going to change anything. I mean, you
can just vote. That’s really all we can do.”
Despite the fact that Netflix has yet to properly
discern an effective method of marketing a talk
show through its
streaming service, The
Break was, ultimately,
not a failure. Watching
the show, it’s plain to see
that the stage is Wolf’s
natural environment.
Even the jokes the
audience doesn’t quite
get are funny, if only
because she’s enjoying herself so
much up there.
Wolf talks modestly of her
days as an athlete. But the title of
athlete doesn’t give her enough
credit. In 2018, Wolf ran her first
ultramarathon – that’s 50 miles
(or 80 kilometres). It took more
than 12 hours. Perseverance and
relentless commitment helped
prepare her for a career on Wall
Street, sure, but it’s also one of
the reasons she attributes to becoming successful in
comedy so quickly.
“Comedy is a marathon, not a sprint,” she says.
“Anyone can be successful for a couple years. But
can you be successful for a couple decades? You’ve
got to be consistent. You can take a day off every
once in a while, but you’re only going to get better if
you’re dedicated to it and you keep pushing yourself
and you try to get back to the point where you’re
uncomfortable. When you feel uncomfortable,
you get better. Part of the reason I think I’ve done
well in comedy is because I’ve applied that training
mentality; most of it is just putting your head
down and doing the work. One of the best things
about stand up is that you create your own success.
You’re always in charge of how many jokes you have
and what your hour looks like – it’s completely
up to you. It’s just having that determination, the
discipline, and putting in the time and effort.”
Discipline doesn’t always take the same form.
Whether it’s running at higher mileage increments
every week or committing yourself to writing one
joke every day, Wolf proves that the process you
take to get there isn’t really what matters, as long as
you get it done.
“I never write the same way,” she says. “If I had
one way that I wrote and I knew it worked all the
time, I’d be thrilled. But sometimes I’ll think of
something when I’m just walking around, or, you
know, staring at a wall. Most people don’t realize
that comedians need a lot of time just to think.
And then you think of something, and you’re like,
‘Oh, now I know what this joke is.’ But it’s endlessly
frustrating that there’s no one way that that works.
The number of times I’ve thought of something
as I was going to sleep and then thought ‘You’re
definitely going to remember this,’ and then not
remembered it in the morning because I did not
write it down – I mean, I’m an idiot for not writing
it down. I’m always like, ‘This is so good! I’ll never
forget this.’ It’s an ego thing at some point.”
JFL NorthWest is quickly approaching, and one of
Wolf’s favourite places in the world is Vancouver’s
sea wall. Try to catch her set, but if not, you’ll surely
be able to catch her mid-run, training for the next
ultramarathon.
“I’m excited to be in Vancouver,” she says. “I had a
great time last time I was there. And I love Canadian
chocolate. You guys have Coffee Crisp! Every time
I’m there… I mean, I’ve eaten so many of them.”
Michelle Wolf performs at the Vogue Theatre on
February 23 as part of JFL NorthWest.
MICHELLE
WOLF
BREAK IT
TILL YOU
MAKE IT
Whether performing stand up or working on Wall
Street, Michelle Wolf takes an athletic approach to
everything she does.
Written by Jordan Yeager
February 2019 17