‘I want to show women can be funny — but also sexy, or insecure or depressed’

She’s better known this side of the Atlantic for being Mrs Des Bishop, but Hannah Berner’s tell-it-like-it-is brand of comedy has made her a huge star stateside. The Brooklynite tells Tanya Sweeney about understanding Irish humour, getting her own Netflix special and why she wasn’t afraid to marry a zaddy

It may not be a time-honoured pathway into comedy, but Brooklyn-born Hannah Berner found that life as a competitive tennis player has served her well in her new career. “I played for the University of Wisconsin and it was a very high-pressure sport where you’re alone on the court,” says 32-year-old Berner, via a Zoom at her New York home. “I feel like that with stand-up — you’re out there on your own a lot. And with comedy, you don’t lose, you don’t have to beat anyone. I’ve been working on making this experience more positive, because where tennis was life-or-death, comedy is more, ‘I’m on stage, I’m so happy to be here,’ and I love that I can express myself. And weirdly, I’ve found that I’m not afraid of speaking in front of a lot of people.”

An earlier career in cold-calling sales has also proved handy. “Like tennis, you had to win [in sales], and it was high stakes, so I think I ended up doing well in it. But again, I was crying in the bathroom thinking, ‘I want to do something that’s fun.’ While sales feels like you’re taking from people, comedy is more like you’re giving. It’s more of a fun, connecting, expressive experience.”

Berner has a tough, New York coolness that’s undercut by a generous and loud laugh. Via TikTok and podcasting (she has more than four million followers across various social media platforms), and latterly through her live stand-up shows, she has built up a community of fans who love her tell-it-like-it-is comedy.

“It’s kind of like a female locker room where I get to say things that girls have maybe been afraid to talk about,” Berner says. “Then the boyfriends or the husbands or the guys there feel like they’re learning something new. It feels like I’m on a FaceTime call with my best friends when I’m on stage. My job is to navigate the party. To be the DJ that rallies them up.”

In Berner’s previous comedy shows, topics like abortion and guns were stones not left unturned. Mental health and relationships loom large in her more recent offerings. “Definitely I’ve dealt with my own depression and anxiety-type stuff, and I’m all about kind of finding the humour in it all,” she says.

“When I do it on a comedy stage and I ask, ‘Who has anxiety?’ the whole place goes crazy. It’s a really beautiful moment where we’re all just like, ‘Look, life can be stressful, but let’s forget about it for this hour and let me be a sad clown on stage for a bit.’”

Growing up in New York and attending the University of Wisconsin on a sports scholarship, Berner initially gravitated towards sports broadcasting. “I realised I like being in front of a camera,” she says. “I think that’s a hard thing for especially women to admit, that you want to take up space, that you like attention, that you want to be heard.”

After a move into marketing in her mid-20s, Berner ended up getting a job in a ‘millennial female social media company’ where she began to make sketches. She would meet a lot of comedians in the New York scene, and would often cast them in sketches through work. Eventually, she built a small but dedicated online audience. Social media, Berner says, provided her with the perfect platform to build and develop as a comedy performer in her own right.

“The first show I ever did was to a sold-out, 300-person crowd,” she says. “You’re not really supposed to do it like that — you’re supposed to start in a basement in front of two people, or in the mirror. But in my life in comedy, I’ve never played by the rules, and gone through the traditional steps.

“And I think that, being a woman in comedy, you can’t really play the boys’ game and expect the same results,” Berner adds.

“I just think that comedy is kind of a little bit of a boys’ club. And there are so many hilarious women that tried to get into comedy, but they showed up to bars at midnight and everyone’s drunk and they’re trying to make people laugh and it’s not working, and they’re like, ‘Well, maybe I’m not funny.’ I had cultivated an audience that, by the time I went to the clubs, I did feel really comfortable. And thanks to the sports background, I was kind of used to dealing with the boys.”

Though Berner is a consummate girls’ girl, it’s not hard to see why her husband, fellow comedian Des Bishop, once called their courtship an “intense falling-in-love experience”. The two met during lockdown and Berner acknowledges that their courtship was a little unconventional.

“We got engaged before we even experienced being in a restaurant together,” Berner says. “We’ve been married for two years, but we’re still kind of learning about each other.” The pair knew of each other through New York’s comedy circuit, although had never really met. “I saw him do comedy at the Comedy Cellar in New York City years ago, and I was like, ‘That guy’s so funny and handsome,’ but he was talking about Ireland on stage a lot,” Berner says. “I’m like, ‘This guy lives in Ireland, I guess I’m not gonna marry that guy.’ Seven years later, I get into comedy, and we were both quarantining out in Long Island. I think he that I was there from [an Instagram] post.” Bishop soon slid into her DMs. “We just got coffee, and the rest was history.” After meeting during Covid, Bishop also famously appeared on an episode of season five of Summer House, the Bravo reality show that Berner was a recurring cast member on. Dating in New York City preCovid and pre-Bishop, Berner says, was its own ‘crazy’ beast. “You can meet someone one day, and then the next day meet someone else that you like,” she says. “Everyone’s very busy, and there’s just so many people. We’re all very career-oriented. I feel like, in New York City, there’s a lot of, ‘Sorry, I’ve a meeting, sorry I’m busy.’

“That’s why [the pandemic lockdown] was so beautiful because there was nothing else to do but try and connect with people. If Covid had never happened, [Bishop] would have been in Ireland, so we probably would have never met. There were some positives to the darkness for sure.”

After the singular start to their relationship, Berner and Bishop eventually wed in May 2022 at the Hamptons.

“It was like a unique time for everyone,” Berner adds of the earliest days of their courtship. “Like ‘the world is ending, we’re trying to find someone’. We’ve definitely calmed down now, and we’re not as, you know, public about every single emotion.”

The pair now work together on a podcast, Berner Phone, during which listeners call in with everything from pet peeves to dilemmas. “I’m just lucky that my husband happens to be a hilarious comedian,” Berner says. “We just talk and create content together, which has been really fun. One thing that really connects us is loving to laugh together.”

Berner has written in the US media about their age gap (she is 32, Bishop is 48). One headline in Elle magazine reads: “Why I Chose to Marry a Zaddy — And You Should, Too”. (‘Zaddy’ is slang for an older attractive man.) Berner finds the attention around the age gap amusing.

“I’m 32, like I’m not a 20-year-old who doesn’t know what’s going on,” she says. “I think, in your 20s, you don’t really know what you want. I think, as a woman, when you’re in your 30s, you want to be with a guy who has matured. His brain is fully formed. He understands who he is, he can handle a woman who is confident in herself. And I think I’m lucky that I found that guy. He’s experienced a lot in his own life.”

Bishop and Berner have been to Ireland a handful of times together; a native New Yorker, Bishop moved from Queens to Ireland in his midteens in 1990 (including a few years at a boarding school in Wexford). He moved back to the US in 2010, although remains ‘claimed’ as an Irish comedian.

“He’s actually put me on stage before to open up for him, just to get a little taste of [Ireland],” says Berner. “I think the Irish humour, as he calls it ‘the craic’, ‘I have good craic’, or whatever way you say it. You guys have such an amazing, self-deprecating sense of humour, and I love the energy.”

In the run-up to Berner’s two Vicar Street shows, Bishop plans to show off more of his old Dublin haunts to Berner and her parents, who are flying in for the week.

“Ireland was his everything for so long. The first time we visited together, he brought me to Daddy’s Café in Rialto and had the best coffee and best bread and butter ever and I was like, ‘I want to stay here forever,’” she says.

The Vicar Street dates come hot on the heels of news that Berner has just taped her first ever Netflix Comedy Special, a massive and often career-making endorsement for any comedian. She has been building on that by auditioning for acting roles.

“That’s a whole different monster,” Berner says. “I have so much respect for actors now, because there’s so much work happening that the rest of us don’t see.

“It was almost to the point that I couldn’t wrap my head around it at first,” Berner says of the Netflix special, noting that she initially came onto the streamer’s radar thanks to the Canadian comedy giants Just for Laughs.

“I’m also really excited because Netflix, to be a woman and be seen by a bigger audience, is really cool. When I was growing up, I was fortunate enough to see people like Chelsea Handler, Ali Wong and Amy Schumer do it first.”

As to what Netflix viewers can expect? “I want to show that women can be funny, but we can also be sexy, or insecure or depressed, or confident,” Berner says. “We are so multifaceted, and the internet has allowed me to be my authentic self. Because sometimes the industry will try to typecast you early on where you’re the ugly friend or you’re the slutty one. I could kind of be anything and all of those things. A lot of women can relate to that.”

‘I’m just lucky my husband happens to be a hilarious comedian. We just talk and create content together, which has been really fun’

Hannah Berner will be live at Vicar Street, Dublin, on May 28 and 29. Tickets are available at ticketmaster.ie