Funny Lady Getting a Handle on Chelsea Handler
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She’s beautiful, she’s absolutely hilarious, and she makes late night worth staying up for. She’s stand-up comedian Chelsea Handler, irreverent star of E!’s Chelsea, Lately, airing weeknights at 11:30pm.
Chelsea has previously starred in Oxygen's Girls Behaving Badly, and The Chelsea Handler Show on E!, co-starred in such independent films as Steamroom and National Lampoon's Cattle Call, and appeared on Reno 911!, My Wife and Kids, The Bernie Mac Show and The Practice. She’s also a regular commentator for E! Entertainment, VH1, MSNBC's Scarborough Country, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
If that’s not enough, she’s even had the nerve to chronicle her short-term wild adventures between the sheets in My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands. Her second book, Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea is out.
Salon City’s Steven Casciola sat down with Chelsea to talk about comedy, beauty, and going green. He still cracks up just thinking about it.
Steve Casciola: You exude a sort of sexual power at the same time as you're funny. Is this something you've always had going for you?
Chelsea Handler: I don't know. I really don't think of myself as sexy. I think of myself as a tomboy, so any time I hear that, it's very funny to me. Actually, I don't hear it very often. I mean, people say, "Oh, what's it like to be an attractive comic?" but I don't have people telling me that I'm sexy all the time, so I really don't think of myself as sexy. In my mind, Steve I'm kind of a mess. I'm all over the place.
SC: Were you a tomboy growing up?
CH: Yeah. I mean, I'm still kind of like a tomboy. I've always kind of had a guy point of view. I've always felt more like a dude than like a girl. I've never been a girly-girl. I mean, now I like clothes and purses and stuff because I've grown into it, but I've never really been into all that stuff. When I was dating, I was always the guy in the relationship. I wasn't into talking about my feelings. And, I always dated guys who were more like women, and I was always the guy, so…
SC: I love your show; I can't turn away from the screen. Are you conscious of that power you have? Do you acquire that doing live comedy?
CH: No. I think that's so subjective. I think there are certain people that probably love the show and feel that way, and I'm sure there are certain people that can't even look at me. You know, that's what comedians do. Either you love them or you hate them, and so I love that you feel that way, but I'm sure there are plenty of people that are, like, "Oh, my God, she's so annoying. I can't even look at her for one second."
SC: You seem to be a breath of fresh air in a world that got stuck in this post-9/11 malaise. How do you develop your material? Where does it originate?
CH: I've always been very self-deprecating and made fun of the people who put themselves out there. But I don't like to go after somebody who doesn't deserve it. This whole politically correct thing is so hard, and it's gotten so out of control. Everybody's so sensitive, and what we need the most is to be able to make fun of ourselves, to laugh at ourselves. I mean, it's a joke, the fact that we pay this much attention to the Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohans of the world, and if we can't make fun of ourselves for doing it, then we're just doing it—which is way worse.
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SC: This issue is about beauty and Wall Street—two dynamic energies that have a lot in common, and yet are also on opposite sides. Money and beauty are both powerful. How are you in front of the corporate titans of the Hollywood scene? Are you the same way in the boardroom?
CH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I act the same way, no matter who I'm talking to. I never try and pretend I'm somebody that I'm not. I think I think that's just a waste of everybody's time. I think people are much more responsive to a person who's embracing who they are than pretending they're somebody else.
You know, I wrote a book about one-night stands and people are, like, "How could you do that?" Because that's who I am, and I'm making fun of myself! And then the book was a huge success because people related to the fact that I was talking about all the embarrassing things in my life. I think it sets other people at ease when they feel like they're dealing with a normal person who's not trying to pretend they're somebody they're not.
SC: Speaking of the book, which I loved, what’s it like to be transparent like that? Does that come natural for you? Or is that something you must do?
CH: At that time I was reading Jenna Jameson’s, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, and all these books that were seriously talking about sex. And I'm thinking, “This is absurd. Who cares?” We need to be laughing at this. When you're in your twenties, and sometimes when you're in your thirties, you have one-night stands and embarrassing situations. And I thought, “This is so stupid. I have to write a book and make fun of it.” I mean, everything's humiliating, but if you give it a week it usually makes a good story. Give it two weeks and you'll be telling your girlfriends and everyone will be laughing. So I just decided to do that. I mean, I never really thought I'd write a book in my life! My brothers and sisters are all professionals, so the fact that I wrote a book and got published was a joke in my family…like, this is getting ridiculous now!
SC: I think you're the only female stand-up comedian who has her own late-night TV show, right? What’s that like?
CH: There are a lot of female comics that are doing really well lately, and it's great. We're all really different, you know, so that's fun, and, yeah, I guess I'm the only one who has a late-night show. I really never thought of it like that when I was promoting it. When it first came out, people were saying, "Well, how do you feel competing against Leno and Letterman?" I never felt like I was competing against them at all. I feel like E!'s audience is so different than that audience, plus it's a half-hour show. It's a different format. I can't believe I have to go to a job every day and all these people are on staff, working for me. It's kind of surreal.
SC: The people we talked to that watch your show, they feel you walk the edge a little bit more freely. That's what people love about you. How do you walk the edge like that?
CH: I don't know. I don't want to be mean but, you know, Britney Spears is ridiculous, so she's pretty much an open-door policy. But here's the obvious thing. Somebody like Denise Richards, let's call her out on the fact that she's a complete disaster. She's constantly trying to be in the press. Those types of people are targets for me. At the same time, I don't want to make fun of their children, you know what I mean? They are mothers. That's the only thing that I can explain in walking the line. I feel like I say the things that a lot of people are thinking. I talk to my girlfriends about all this stuff, and I really use that as kind of a Geiger counter of what everybody feels. If there's six of us and we all have the same feeling about somebody, then that's the consensus, you know? And if there's six of us, and three of us think one thing and three of us think another thing, then that's a great thing to bring up, too. Then you can have somebody who has a completely opposite take on it.
The important thing, though, is the talk show. I never wanted it to be a serious show. Like, an interview with a porn star is going to be just as interesting—or even more interesting—than an interview with somebody like Nicole Kidman. So with that kind of freedom, they kind of made it really easy to have a fun show.
SC: This is our Wall Street issue, but we’re also exploring the environmental side of it. Are you into green? Are you ecologically-minded? Do you care about the state of the world?
CH: Yeah. I probably don't do as much as I could, but I definitely make an effort to recycle, and to use my air conditioning less. I buy all the greens—the toilet paper and cleaning products and all that stuff—but I don't have a hybrid or anything.
SC: You're not going to get a Smart Car?
CH: I have a sports car right now. I haven't bought a hybrid yet, but I would never in a million years get an SUV, so I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm not doing everything I can, but I make some effort when I can. And I could do more.
SC: Do you have any special beauty secrets that make you look as good as you do on TV?
CH: Yeah, my makeup artist, Rachel Houghton. She's amazing, she's hilarious, and she's really good at her job. I don't do anything. She does everything. And if I'm not on TV, you'll rarely see me with makeup on.
CH: Well, it can get so unhealthy and so dry from all the stuff they put in it, so when I'm not working I just put it up in a little pony tail or bun.
SC: The future is really bright for you. Are you happy about what you're doing?
CH: Oh, yeah, I'm happier than I've ever been! As silly as my job is, it is kind of hard. I mean, it's long hours, and there's a lot of people that work for me, so I try and go to work every day in a really good mood and in a happy place and treat everybody well. I don't ever want to be one of those people that would yell at somebody—well, except for the legal team at E!—but we have a really good time. We laugh a lot, and have a lot of fun. I can't imagine working somewhere where I'd have a better time. Certainly not at, like, a law office or something.
SC: What’s your advice for somebody who wants to be the next Chelsea Handler?
CH: You gotta just do it. You gotta just crawl along. I did standup for ten years, and you have to just keep going after whatever it is you're going after, because there are a million other girls that are going after it, too.
I moved to L.A. when I was 19, and I started waiting tables. I waited tables till I was 26, and it was awful. I hated waiting tables! It made me crazy 'cause I thought, “Am I ever gonna get a break? Am I ever gonna be able to do what I love to do?” And I did, and I am. I got one break, and then I got another break, and then I got this, and then I got that. But because there are so many people doing it already, if you're just thinking about it, you're not going to get anywhere.