MovieGuide

The Sarah Silverman interview

One of America’s most talented and perceptive comedians, Sarah Silverman began her career as a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live before making an even wider mark with her hugely popular stand-up shows. In 2007, e Sarah Silverman Program debuted to great acclaim on Comedy Central. In 2013, her HBO special, Sarah Silverman: We are Miracles, scooped a Primetime Emmy award. Her current TV series, I Love You, America, is a web-based late-night talk show that casts a cold but hilarious eye on Trump’s America. e 48-year-old performer has appeared in a host of movies and TV shows, notably Take is Waltz (2011), I Smile Back (2015) and this week’s new Disney-Pixar animation release, Ralph Breaks e Internet, in which she reprises the role of hotshot girl racer, Vanellope von Schweetz. Sitting in a Dublin hotel room, she is one of the few people today not moaning about the wet weather. “ e sun is not my friend,” she says. “I like it cloudy!”

at certainly happened quickly because Vanellope started out as a freckled redhead! She got black hair, then it was in a ponytail and then she had thick eyebrows. I just loved it. As we’re recording, there are little cameras in the recesses of the studio. e animators are watching and working o your movements and weird quirks. It’s so far out to see it on screen. A er I declared on Twitter that Vanellope is Jewish, Disney didn’t say anything so it’s canon now. I made sure there were a few ‘Oys’ in there this time around. You guys say ‘Oi’, we say ‘Oy’ for ‘Oy vey’, but I’m still not sure what that means.

Was it an ‘Oy vey’ moment when you realised you had your own Disney princess song to belt out this time around?

Hahaha! at was de nitely a good ‘Oy Vey’ moment. It was amazing. I’m a huge fan of Alan Menken [who wrote her song A Place Called Slaughter Race]. Apart from all those Disney classics, he wrote my favourite-ever musical, e Little Shop of Horrors.

Recording it was insane. It was with a huge orchestra. I haven’t seen this kind of recording outside of old-time musicals and singing the song was so beautiful, too. It turns the whole concept of the Disney princess song on its ear. It was such a kick.

So are you available for musical theatre work on Broadway now?

Yes, I am available for musical theatre work on Broadway now. Let’s just put it out there!

Was there much improv between yourself and John C. Reilly in recording the movie, or was it all carved in stone?

It wasn’t too much carved in stone. e original script was brilliant and it got more and more layered as we went along. When we were recording it, they encouraged us to be loose. e most surprising thing for me about working with Disney was how much freedom they gave us. John and I record together and we are able to improvise and be loose. en the animators take it away and animate it. Sometimes, they will gure out something new in the process so we will come back and re-record some pieces. It’s such a collaborative process.

It’s surprising that Disney was happy to subvert the time-honoured idea of the Disney princess. Did you have any hand in that?

It’s so funny and really rather edgy, but I can’t take any credit for it. It was brilliantly written and always there on the page. at’s one sequence that wasn’t improvised. All the original princesses are involved and it’s so funny. I love how game Disney was to really re ect the theme of how we see ourselves and where we pin our worth. Is it out there on faceless people we don’t know, spewing vitriol? Or does it come from inside? We have to learn that it must come from inside. As much as we love the early Disney princesses, they have tropes that we understand now as problematic – they’re very white with unattainable waists and they tend to be damsels in distress waiting for a big strong man to save

them. Now here’s this Disney princess who is a little Jewish girl in comfortable clothes and with an attainable waist.

Speaking of feeling good, this year you deliver a big Disney princess number on screen and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Your cup runneth over…

I know! I loved getting the star on the Walk of Fame: it lled my heart. Friends came out to support me and my family was there. And my star is right next to [children’s TV entertainer] Mr Rogers, my hero. I am very happy about it but I mustn’t pin my worth on it. I’m glad it came now that I’m a grown woman and understand these things.

When you started your career, did you have goals in terms of stand-up, TV or movies?

I have to say, I never stopped and thought of the future when I was starting out. I knew I wanted to be a comic. I knew I wanted to be an actor. And I just did it. I loved being a struggling comic and I’ve loved not being a struggling comic. But I never think about what’s going to happen, say, ve years from now. Looking back, my career is very eclectic because I’m always just seeing what comes my way at any given time.

You have made quite an impression in serious roles for lms such as I Smile Back (2015) and Battle of the Sexes (2017): would you like to do more straight drama?

Again, there’s no plan, but I do love acting. Right now, I don’t have much time for it because I do this show [ I Love You America] which I love doing and which I need to be doing right now. But I don’t want to forget about acting and I would like to do something serious again; though I Smile Back is about as serious as I want to get!

What I love about your show is that you set out to step outside your bubble and meet people who wouldn’t necessarily share your views or concerns, nor you theirs…

at’s just it. We all live in a bubble, whether it’s a liberal bubble or a Republican bubble. When I know I’m going to have dinner with a very conservative, Republican family, for example, you can’t help but have preconceived notions on the way there. When our brain doesn’t know something, it lls in the blanks with what we do know. at’s why fear is such a manipulative thing. It’s always exciting to bust those open and have some of our preconceptions proven right and some proven wrong. My ideals are strong and my convictions are strong and I’m very opinionated, but I do try to be always open to be challenged. Mostly when we leave, we have not changed each other politically, but now I love these people, who are Republicans! How is that possible, but it is! ere is a mechanism in my country to create chaos and to turn ourselves on each other. e only way to combat that is to come together.

Final question, Sarah, what would nineyear-old Sarah Silverman have made of nine-year-old Vanellope von Schweez?

ey’re actually not so di erent. Playing Vanellope, I have so much love for her because it’s like getting to play your inner child. I wasn’t so dissimilar as a nine-year-old: I had a lot of moxy, too. I think they would get along together very well!