She declared she was quitting comedy over the trauma unearthed in her Netflix sensation Nanette.
Hannah Gadsbydidnt expect to be talking about what comes next.
Silliness was the main motivator, she says.
Photo Illustration by Braulio Amado for EW; Photo by Sophy Holland
She has some experience in this department.
Truncating traumatic life moments for the sake of comedy had become unbearable hence the pledge to quit.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How are you doing?
Ali Goldstein/NETFLIX
Hows your dog, Douglas?
HANNAH GADSBY:Im fine.
I like being alone.
Alan Moyle
Douglas is struggling a little he had to have a procedure.
Hes fine, but very confused.
Where do you start with creating a show?
Every show is different and forged under different circumstances.
ForDouglasone of the main motivators of process was, How do you follow up a show likeNanette?
Silliness was the main motivator.
I wantDouglasto be silly.
You make a deliberate choice in the first section of the special to tell usexactlywhats going to happen.
How did you arrive at that structure?
It wasnt always going to be structured in that way.
But embedded was the idea that I would Ill call themcall forwards.
I make jokes that don’t make sense until much later in the show.
They dont make sense.
Im making a show that really is for streaming because [theyre more like] Easter eggs.
But [inDouglas] I reversed it again and started doing call forwards.
Repeating words became funnier because they got bigger and better joke context.
Also, its following a basic structure of a fugue.
It gave me something to hang all my material on, structurally.
I had great fun with the structure on this.
Its fun for people to know it.
Thats just me being a great nerd.
Its not integral to the show to understand the structure, but I enjoy it.
Do you think of a show as having a thesis statement?
Im a festival comic I put together long shows.
I have my whole career.
It requires a different building of peaks and troughs.
Im not saying its better, its just different.
Taking 15 minutes and building an hour is not my skill set.
Were justputting together the trailerand its hard to find two or three minutes to pull out.
That’s why I like touring the show.Its constantly evolving.
Im trying to make something.
There are very few spaces left that you would jump off if you enjoy it.
If you dont like it, its not going to work on you.
There arent really any close-up audience shots inDouglas, and very few inNanette.
I dont watch a lot of [comedy specials], to be honest.
I always intend to but I also don’t want to start sounding like other comics.
I watch bits and pieces to get a sense of what they look like.
I personally get really annoyed when a comedian says something and it cuts to someone laughing.
If Im laughing, its kind of okay.
But if I’m not laughing, its shaming me.
So I understand why it’s done.
You never saw the audience inNanette, because I didn’t want people to know how to react.
I didnt want them to look at the people in the room and take their lead.
You needed people to [think], I have to work out how I feel about that.
Ive taken that intoDouglas.
There are some audience shots I acknowledge their existence.
Its a different medium than just doing a live show.
Theres a joke inNanetteabout seeing your first Pride celebration and wondering, Where are all the quiet gays?
InDouglas, your sensitivity to noise has a different context your diagnosis on the autism spectrum.
There was a point where I was going to talk about autism inNanetteand I thought it was too much.
There are a lot of queer people on the spectrum and that part resonated a lot.
Also the way that people see queer pride it does tend to minimize the quiet gays.
Ive never been to [the Australian Pride celebration] Mardi Gras.
I could not think of anything worse than Mardi Gras for me personally.
Its socializing for a start en masse!
With lots of color and shouting noises and late nights!
I just honestly dont understand.
But then, stand-up comedy is a really difficult and impossible environment for me to be in.
I perform better when I dont travel on the same day, because traveling is really exhausting.
Being diagnosed helped me understand how I could be more proactive in buffering myself.
InDouglasyou have a bit where you analyze each of theHarry Potterhouses and personality types.
Where would you be sorted?
Im probably Hufflepuff, because theyre on the margins.
I really identify with the margins.
Theyre there, its important theyre there.
People reference them every now and again.
But they dont participate.
They rarely change the narrative.
And also its a soft word:Huffffffle-puffff.
Too many Ss in Slytherin.
The S would trigger sensitivity.
Gryffindor too much action, always in the center and that would make me feel queasy.
Ravenclaw seems to be much too ambitious.
Ive thought about it.
How did you choose Karen as the holder of all these handfuls?
In my mind the Karens are the closest to the patriarchy, you know.
Theyre the ones who are going to get closest to the balls and cup them.
Hannah Gadsby: Douglasis now streaming on Netflix.
For more fromEntertainment Weeklys celebration of LGBTQ pop culture,order the June issue now.
