Iliza Shlesinger was living in Los Angeles when she became the first woman to win the NBC reality competition Last Comic Standing. A girly-girl with a foul mouth, she has a rare ability to speak frankly about women’s lives without alienating male audiences. I learned about Shlesinger from a guy friend, and it was my brother who took me to see her in Grand Prairie when she played the Texas Trust CU Theatre in 2021.
They loved her because she’s funny, but that affection deepened when they learned she was from Dallas. She went to the Greenhill School. “Class of 2001,” she tells me on the phone from LA. “Go Hornets.” Her dad and stepmom lived in North Dallas until recently, when they moved to Argyle, and she came of age competing on the swim and lacrosse teams. “What I lack in skill, I make up for in aggression,” she says.
On Oct. 17 and 18, she’s appearing in Dallas at the Majestic Theatre on the heels of her new comedy special, A Different Animal, her first on Amazon Prime after half a dozen on Netflix. Once a binge-drinking elder millennial, to name-check one classic routine, the 42-year-old is now a wife and mom, but her sly observational comedy still alternates from chill stoner vibe to a hyper physical schtick that manages to skewer both male and female absurdities.
She’s become one of my favorite comics, and I was grateful she made time for me one morning so we could chat about her hometown, how motherhood and Oct. 7 changed her and why it’s time for women to retire the word “patriarchy.”
You’re from Dallas, but you don’t fit the stereotype, which is a nice way of puncturing it.
When I tell people I’m from Texas, they’re like, Oh my God, I love Austin. I always say Dallas and Austin are like sisters. Dallas is older, she got married, she went to SMU and lives in a big house, and she might have a Klonopin addiction. Austin is the younger sister who’s barefoot and married a musician, and everyone always brings up Austin. It’s like a real “Marcia Marcia Marcia” situation. But I love Dallas! I love to visit and see what new corporate restaurant has opened off Belt Line.
I’ve been trying to figure out which part of your personality is Dallas, and I think it’s the combination of girliness and toughness.
“No matter how dark the low lights in my hair get, I’m keeping it blond,” says Dallas-raised comedian Iliza Shlesinger, photographed in 2019.
Marteen Deboer / Courtesy Photo
I think about that, too. Growing up you play a sport, and I think back to sweating in the heat, and there’s a let’s-get-it-done attitude. I also carry my head pretty high, and there’s this very Texas quality where you walk into any room smiling like you’re running for mayor. But the most Texas thing about me is that no matter how dark the lowlights in my hair get, I’m keeping it blond.
You used to joke about drinking too much, and now you’re joking about “mom brain” and squeezing a baby’s tushy. What do you want people to know about being a mother?
Nothing. If you’re not a mother, chances are you aren’t interested, which I totally understand, in the way I don’t want to hear a man talk about his fantasy draft. But if you are a mom, what you’re doing is impossible, and it is the most beautifully, painfully exquisite experience. I keep trying to get my bearings, but it’s a roller coaster that doesn’t end. You gotta strap in and strap on, ‘cause it’s wild.
I do have to say I was nervous about it. It’s such an indictment on me as a comedian that because I took a step in my evolution I worried I would lose my ability to call ’em like I see ’em. It’s somehow not bad to be 50 and still talking about the same experiences? But we have a problem with being angry at women — when they don’t have kids, when they do have kids. So people are going to be upset that you’re a woman from the get-go. But with the mom material, I’ve never had a customer complaint.
I watched your new special on Amazon Prime, A Different Animal, and I want to thank you for trying to put the nail in the coffin on the word “patriarchy.”
I’m just so over it. We need to focus less on the language that condemns what you perceive as the opposition and focus on ourselves. I work in standup comedy. It’s a boy’s club. I focus on the jokes. I never focus on why I’m not getting things because of my gender. Hard work and talent pay off.
I think that’s very Texan.
Get it done! Sometimes there are forces working against you, but Texans are good at pushing back. I moved to LA, and I didn’t have money, and I didn’t have family there. I paid to keep that hair blond, and OK, sometimes I went a little too light. Now that I’m a mom, I’ve got honey highlights.
In 2023, you wrote a story for The Hollywood Reporter about antisemitism after Oct. 7. Had you spoken much about being Jewish before that? I can’t remember it being part of your act.
I have a fairly nonpolitical routine. I don’t want anybody of any gender or orientation to feel preached to, so I never felt compelled to talk about being Jewish. Oct. 7 happened, and everybody I’d stood up for was not standing up with me. So I wrote something I didn’t think was a big deal, but somehow people weren’t getting the memo that it wasn’t OK to enact violence against civilians just living their lives.
I think any time you stand up for yourself, things are going to get deliberately misconstrued. You want Jewish people to feel safe, so that gets twisted into you want people dying in a war. No. There are a lot of people whose mission is to create chaos.
But I spend most of the year traveling, and most people are normal and good. We want to live our lives and have our families, pray how we want to pray, love how we want to love, and it’s a violent minority making things difficult. I have not given up on this country. I’m still fighting for it.
Well, I’ve always liked that you’re from Dallas. You may have moved away, but I still think of you as one of us.
There’s part of me that is still one of you. And it’s from the scalp up.
