Berlant simply lets it flow
Call her silly or arty, but there’s little doubt the actress and comic is flat-out funny.
When critics discuss Kate Berlant’s comedy, they use terms typically saved for high art: avant-garde, surrealist, postmodern, experimental. But Berlant says she prefers the term “silly.”
“I’m such a ham,” Berlant says. “I literally make faces and cross my eyes onstage.”
The confusion over the 31-year-old’s work makes sense as her life is a paradox. While Berlant grew up in a heady, artistic household — her mother is a Dadaist actor, and her father is painter and sculptor Tony Berlant — she fell in love with comedy watching Jim Carrey movies. She earned a degree in the cultural anthropology of comedy from New York University, yet she jokes about stealing makeup.
The intellectual and lowbrow sides of Berlant’s life come together in her comedy, and no matter how you describe her humor — avant-garde wackiness? — there’s no denying that Berlant is funny. She wouldn’t be getting so much work if she wasn’t. On top of her 2016 episode of Netflix’s “The Characters” (still available to stream), her Vimeo series “555” with writ-
ing partner John Early and her appearances on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” she’s racked up 40 acting credits, from her start on “Lizzie McGuire” to a prominent role in Boots Riley’s Oakland-based sci-fi film, “Sorry to Bother You.”
Berlant spoke to The Chronicle ahead of two local shows — her first appearances in the Bay Area since last year’s Clusterfest comedy festival. Q: I was surprised to learn you started comedy as a teenager. Do you remember any of your early jokes? A: It’s true! I did standup for the first time at my high school when I was 17, and it’s such a brutal reality realizing that I’ve been doing it that long: I’m 62 next Wednesday! But when I was starting, I was doing hyper-constructed oneliners. They didn’t make sense, but they were scripted, whereas now I rely on improvisation and free association. Making stuff up.
I remember one of my jokes was “I’m going to invent a machine called the Impastanator, and it’s a machine that makes pasta — or is it pasta?” Q: You had a joke that good when you were that young? You were definitely going places. A: I feel lucky that I did start young because that world of open mikes and everything is so brutalizing that the older you get and the more dignity you collect, the harder it becomes to subject yourself to that. Q: On your bio, you describe yourself as an actor first. Do you see yourself more as an actor than a comic? A: Well, my lawyers wrote my bio. Just kidding.
When I was younger, I wanted to be an actor and I came about doing stand-up through school plays and being the class clown. And I identify as a comedian first, but my stand-up is kind of like someone acting like a stand-up. They’re generally intertwined. Q: What do you remember from your first acting gig as a teen on the show “Lizzie McGuire”? A: Well, I famously had my big line, “Hey Lizzie, very cool pants,” and my second line was brutally cut, so it was an early lesson in the realities of Hollywood.
Hilary Duff was just an angel — she truly was. And I had my hair up. The Lizzie McGuire era of costuming was very iconic at the time, and I remembered they did my hair up, so I slept in it and wore it to school the next day like an insufferable snob. I mean, I wanted everyone to know! But it didn’t catapult me to fame like I wanted it to. Q: I see a lot about your dad, but I see little about your mom, who was a professional actor for years. Did she help you at all with your acting? A: My mom is the most dramatic person I’ve ever met. She’s a thespian from another time. She did performance art in the ’70s and was one of these muses for a French Dadaist named Guy de Cointet. In the last 10 years, there was a resurgence of interest in his work and she did some touring throughout Europe with these productions. They were super funny.
I was somewhat resistant to acting because of her history with it, though she didn’t really do TV and movies. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, though she apparently had a small
role in “Police Academy 4” but was cut out. I think her shoulder is still in it? But she’s always been nothing but supportive. And I think I’ve done what kids tend to do with their parents, which is inherit their mannerisms and vocal tics. I’m definitely the way I am because of her. Q: Your episode of “The Characters” on Netflix is a hilarious take on the modern art world. Having grown up in that world with your famous artist dad, how much of that show came from real experiences? A: When I made that special, it was never my intention to “turn the art world upside down.”
My dad and his friends always seemed like normal people. They were artists and that made their lives exotic in some way, but my dad wears jeans and watches Harry Potter movies or whatever’s on TV as he works. He’s not an insufferable, pretentious, high-minded person.
In fact, at a young age I remember him pointing out to me the people that were poseurs, the people that would show up to art galleries and openings dressed a certain way, presenting themselves as “the divine artist” — “I’m a real artist and I’m wearing a birdcage on my head.” So my dad did instill in me a suspicion for those people. He showed me that they were clearly funny and projecting too much by insisting on their artist-ness. Q: Your comedy is often described as avant-garde and surrealist. How do you feel about these terms? A: The crisis of categorization, am I right? I prefer terms like silly.
You could say I belong to the avant-garde tradition in that I revile the status quo, but I hope that what I do is broad. Ideally I would hope someone would walk away and say, “That was silly and fun.” Q: How was it when you began developing your streamof-consciousness style? A: I actually liked doing open mikes that weren’t just for comedy. There’d be music people and poets . ... I really liked that because expectations couldn’t be lower. Also, it felt cool to be mixed in with other performers instead of being presented in direct opposition with other comedians.
So that’s where I started freeassociating and doing streamof-consciousness stuff, where I’d be trying to see what could happen. Q: Did it feel natural right away? A: It kind of did. I also realized I have a fairly high pain tolerance. I feel like there have been shows in the past where another comedian would come off saying, “Well, that did not go well.” And I’d come off and be like, “They loved it!”
But I want to be clear: I wake up in the middle of the night with crippling self-doubt just like the next person, OK?