Sarah Silverman is a performer who seems custom made to make us laugh, and quite often that laughter is of the nervous variety. In her stand-up act (including those that have been filmed for her specials JESUS IS MAGIC and WE ARE MIRACLES) she takes on the guise of a woman who is both supremely confident and a horrible human being with ideas about the ways of the world to match. She’s far more subtle than your stand-issue shock comic, but the results are often quite the same—stunned silence at what she’s just said, followed by an eruption of giggles (some of them stifled, because, god forbid, you should laugh at something vaguely evil.
Many a comedy nerd first got a glimpse at Silverman from either her many appearances on “Mr. Show” or her brief time on “Saturday Night Live.” The mainstream likely first noticed her as Mike White’s bitchy girlfriend in Richard Linklater’s SCHOOL OF ROCK. From around that same time, I truly loved what she was up to on the series “Greg the Bunny.” After her successful, multi-year run on her own Comedy Central show “The Sarah Silverman Program,” she began to be sought after for bigger film and television roles, in everything from Sarah Polley’s remarkable TAKE THIS WALTZ, THE MUPPETS, and Seth McFarlane’s unremarkable A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST to voice work in WRECK-IT RALPH and “Bob’s Burgers,” as well as recurring roles on “Maron” and “Masters of Sex.”
Her latest work is also her first starring role in a film, and it is about a far from her comedic roots as she could get, which doesn’t mean you still won’t feel aggressively uncomfortable watching it. The film is I SMILE BACK, featuring a groundbreaking performance from Silverman as Laney Brooks, a married mother suffering from overwhelming bouts of clinical depression that she deals with by self medicating and sleeping with random men, putting her relationship with her family is serious jeopardy. Silverman is remarkable in the film, based on the novel by Amy Koppelman, who also co-adapted the screenplay, which Adam Salky directed.
This is the kind of role that makes you reconsider what an actor is capable of, or in Silverman’s case, you might actually realize how much of what she’s done to this point is pure acting. I sat down with her recently in Chicago to talk about the film and digging deep and looking inward to pull out a performance of this magnitude. It should mention that Silverman is currently dating her “Masters of Sex” co-star Michael Sheen, which I only mention because I bring it up at the top of the interview in reference to an interview I did with Sheen a while ago. Please enjoy my talk with Sarah Silverman…
Capone: Before we start, I never ask personal questions and I’m not going to start now, but your boyfriend was one of the first actors I ever interviewed, about 10 years ago, and he did something that was so colossally thoughtful. We talked on on the phone when he was promoting THE QUEEN, and I knew that he had played Tony Blair in a film before that called THE DEAL, which didn’t exist in this country, basically. It was made for British television, no one would have cared about that detailed a look at British politics in this country, probably.
But as a joke in the beginning of the interview, I said, “The first obvious question I have is how the hell do I see THE DEAL?” And he said, “Well, you can come to my house and watch it; I have a copy that they gave me.” At the time, this things wasn’t even available on home video. So we laughed about it and moved on. About a week later, I got a copy of it in the mail. I mean, it was a home-burned bootleg; it was about as illegal as possible, hand-written label on it, and I was like, “Did he send me this?” I never gave him my address or anything. And I’ve never had a chance to thank him for that, but I always wanted to.
Sarah Silverman: [who has had a huge smile on her face the entire time I’m telling this story] Oh, I’ll tell him. It’s funny, we just had that conversation, because do you ever listen to “Doug Loves Movies”?
Capone: Of course.
SS: So he did “Doug Loves Movies” the other night, and it posted so I listened to it. It’s fun to hear him on that show because it’s my world and his world colliding. And you have to bring like a gift for the audience for whoever wins. And he brings a bag of 10 movies that are like his favorite movies. I said, “You are unbelievable with the gifts.” I only bring like a napkin that I touched to my asshole.
[Both laugh]
SS: He’s just like, “I love sharing my favorite films.” He truly loves what he does and he loves film.
Capone: Well, it was a remarkable thing to have happen at that stage in my doing interviews.
SS: Aw, I can’t wait to tell him that.
Capone: I actually saw this film at Sundance, so it’s been a while. I mean this in the best possible way, but are you still surprised when someone thinks of you for something that is not necessarily what you might consider in your wheelhouse?
SS: Totally. I’m always surprised, but it’s refreshing, because it’s so odd to be within this creative world where it’s still so rare for somebody to be able to imagine someone in a way they have not already seen them before. I don’t know why that’s so rare, but it’s very rare. It happened with Sarah Polley, who saw me on my show “The Sarah Silverman Program,” where I basically played Bugs Bunny, and she could imagine me as Geraldine, this recovering alcoholic. And with [author] Amy Koppelman, who was driving on the West Side Highway in New York and heard me on Howard Stern talking about depression. So I got really lucky. People are like, “How did you choose this?” In reality, it was an opportunity out of two opportunities I had, and I took both of them.
Capone: Anyone who’s seen TAKE THIS WALTZ or what you’ve done on “Masters of Sex” shouldn’t be as surprised by this. Alright, maybe they won’t be prepared for how dark things get.
SS: This is bleek.
Capone: I know you’ve talked openly about your depression over the years and in your memoir. I just read that Glamour article you wrote about it, which was really beautiful.
SS: Yeah, it was an “As-Told-To” piece. I still haven’t read it. But I think she did a good job, because even my friends are like, “I love that piece you wrote.”
Capone: It’s beautifully written.
SS: I said after that, “I can’t do an As-Told-To thing. It’s too stressful. I’m a writer.” But I heard she did a good job. I don’t know how it works. We just talked and talked, and she put it into a thing.
Capone: But you’ve always been fairly open about your history with depression. Even though Laney acts out differently than you did, were you still able to draw from things you experienced? Were there certain points in her life where you were like, “I reacted differently, but I get what she was going through”?
SS: Yes, completely. My life and Laney’s life are very, very different lives, but from my relationship with depression over the years, I was able to definitely draw from the elements of impulse control and the staggering, paralyzing despair of depression, and then the totally daunting task of living every day life within it. I was able to use myself as a resource. In terms of addiction, I have very good friends who have battled addiction, and are battling addiction who were really kindly open books to me and really good resources for me.
I haven’t battled addiction, but I’m a comedian. I’m surrounded by addiction. I’m familiar with it, and I’ve been on other sides of it. I’ve been on the other side of depression as well in my own family and in my own life. It’s good to have different angles on it to draw from, even while I’m playing one person. The material is really, really all there, and I pretended it was real.
Capone: I know there was a gap between when Amy first called you and when she said, “Hey, this is getting made now.”
SS: Yeah, it was a couple of years.
Capone: When she wrote the script, did she write it knowing it was going to be you and did she cater it to you in any way? Were you able to insert some of your own specific experiences into the character during the writing process?
SS: No, it was a beautiful adaptation from her book. I don’t think she catered it to me. There’s no part of my personal bag of tricks in that. It’s pretty objective. I tried to play it as objectively as possible and, yeah, I didn’t add anything to it particularly. I had a pitch for the ending that they used, which was making the sandwiches at the end. It just felt very full circle, and it’s something her father talked about doing with his new daughter. “I never knew how meaningful making lunch could be for my daughter.” And then also, it was literally the most she could do and least she could do was to make sandwiches for her kids and then leave forever. Just the muscle memory of making lunch is something she was able to do.
Capone: I know when you told Amy you would be a part of this, somewhere in the back of your mind you probably thought “this issn’t going to happen, like a lot of indie films aren’t.”
SS: It didn’t occur to me this movie would be made [laughs].
Capone: But when you found out it was ready to go, how much actual panic set in?
SS: I had a full-body panic attack in a ball on the floor of my bathroom.
Capone: What was that?
SS: Pure terror. And it was a great moment looking back because I was like, “I can’t do this. What if I blow it?” And then I did realize, that’s where Laney lives, in that fear of What If? “What if I ruin my kids?” So I was like, “Oh, maybe I can do this.” But it was an interesting revelation, because that’s where it made me learn more about Laney, which is that she exists in the horror stories we tell ourselves, “What if I never write another joke? What if I never fall in love again?” All those things. She lives in that anxiety of, “What if I ruin my kids? What if I abandon them? What if I’m passing down my tainted genes onto them?” And when you live like that, there’s no room for anything else. And I talked about it in my last special without realizeing it. When you are self deprecating or when you have self loathing, you think it’s modesty, but it’s not. It’s self obsession. There’s no room for anything else.
Capone: As part of your persona on stage and in your specials, you do play this person who is very self obsessed, and I feel like someone like Laney is a different version of that.
SS: That is such a great connection.
Capone: Was it just a matter of adjusting the mirror slightly?
SS: It’s so true. I did think about this way back. It’s interesting, because in comedy, I love playing arrogant, ignorant, self consumed. That’s my favorite. That’s another thing I said in the last special is, there are people who, if they were a few degrees more onto themselves, would fucking kill themselves. And Laney is like that—a couple more degrees onto herself—and it’s gone from comedy to deep drama.
Capone: When you’re deciding to do roles that are not comedic, is fear a motivating factor for you? Does that work for you?
SS: For my bravest self, yes. But the truth is, I convinced myself “It’ll be heavy between action and cut, but then we can do bits and have fun and laugh. There’s no reason why a heavy movie can’t be a fun movie to make.” I was totally wrong. I had to get all my feelings and emotions to the surface, and they’re very tightly packed and compartmentalized, so it’s not easy for me, and then they just sit on my lap in between scenes, because I don’t have easy access to them. I was like a toddler who didn’t know what to do with her feelings, so it wasn’t that way, and I’m so glad it wasn’t. I’m so glad I didn’t know it wouldn’t be fun, because I would have totally pussied out of it. I would have weaseled out of it, because I’m a spoiled brat who wants my whole life to be fun at every moment. And I’m so glad I didn’t because it was an amazing experience, and there are other things besides fun that are wildly satisfying.
Capone: Was Laney tough to shed when all said and done?
SS: Yes. I cannot believe what an actor from “Inside the Actor’s Studio” I’ve become.
Capone: And you just shot an episode of that, which is hilarious.
SS: Yes! I can’t believe it.
Capone: I can’t wait to see that.
SS: Hilarious. It was crazy. But yeah, all the things I used to roll my eyes about, like talking about actors being generous. The two actors I worked with were so generous to me. It took like three weeks and was like shedding a low-grade flu that never goes away. It really was.
Capone: The scenes with you and Josh [Charles, who plays her husband] are sometimes really tough to watch. What do you learn about acting from observing him and working with him? What are you able to take with you?
SS: He’s a beautiful actor. It was moving to work with someone who was not just looking out for himself but looking out for me and making sure I had the space I needed and what I needed. It was like, “Hey, come into this club. You’re going to be great. The water’s fine.” It was lovely having someone like a cheerleader acting partner who was just rooting for me so much. It’s such a team sport. It’s different from standup, obviously.
Capone: I want to ask about your Sundance experience. What was going on in your head the day the film premiered?
SS: I had no idea how it would be received. I never though I’d be someone who went to Sundance. That’s always felt like something other people did. But it was cool. It was the first time I saw the movie. The second time I saw the movie, I feel like I was the most objective. The first time was, of course, we have our own way we cognitively distort our own selves, and then also it was nostalgic like, “That’s the day we did blah, blah, blah.” So the second time was more like I could watch it as a whole piece.
Capone: Best of luck with this. It was really great to meet you.
SS: You too. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to tell Michael about you.
