01x08 - Sasheer Zamata & Stand-Up Comedy

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[ROCK MUSIC]

JOE QUESADA: Whether it's Spider-Man slinging quips,

Deadpool cracking jokes, or Howard

the Duck satirizing everyday life,

Marvel Comics is no stranger to humor.

Sasheer Zamata, she's no stranger to humor either.

I like talking about race because I like to make

a room feel comfortable.

JOE QUESADA: Sasheer was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live"

and tours the country as a standup comedian.

The thing I love about her comedy

is, she doesn't just tell jokes.

She tells stories.

I go through security even if nothing goes off.

They'll just pulled me aside.

It happens to all Black women because our hair is big

and people are like, I don't know.

I don't know, what is in that.

Tonight I'm going to catch her set.

I might even try my hand at a few jokes.

You know him.

You love him.

From Marvel, Joe Quesada.

JOE QUESADA: I'm Joe Quesada.

I tell stories for a living.

Welcome to "Marvel Storyboards."

["MARVEL STORYBOARDS" THEME MUSIC]

Meet Sasheer

Today I'm meeting Sasheer in Brooklyn

to talk about pulling stories from everyday life,

telling those stories on stage for laughs,

and why it's so important to see yourself

in other people's work.

Hello.

Hey, Sasheer, how are you?

JOE QUESADA: Sasheer's hilarious 2017 comedy

special was titled "Pizza Mind," so I thought we'd start off

with a proper New York slice.

Want to get some pizza?

Let's get some pizza, yeah.

Marvels Storyboards

[INAUDIBLE]

Oh, that looks great.

So right here, buon appetito.

"Pizza Mind," where does the name come from?

It's a pun.

So like I'm giving you a piece of my mind or peace of mind.

Changes everything.

Wait, really?

I thought it was so obvious.

No, I'm totally thrown.

When you're up there, you're telling these great stories.

You know, it's not just like joke, zinger, one-liner,

you're rapping all this around your own experiences.

Ideally, what you're doing is revealing a part of yourself.

And I don't know, yeah, how you can really do

that without telling a story.

Watching the special, you said that both

your parents were nerds.

They're both Trekkies.

Oh.

Or Trekkers--

OK.

--as they were called originally.

So that's some of the original nerds, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my name is from "Star Trek."

Captain Kirk was flirting with this alien princess.

And he gave her a rose.

And she goes, oh, we have something like this

on my planet except it's made out of crystal

and it's called Sasheer.

And my parents were like, got it.

When did you find out that story?

- Pretty early. - Pretty early, right?

So they were proud of this whole thing.

They were proud.

I was embarrassed, yeah.

Do you have a favorite superhero?

I love Spider-Man?

Spider-Man?

Yeah, my dad was really into comics.

He would go every week and take me with him.

I really like the idea that anyone can be

kind of thrust into greatness.

He represents the people, like the average person,

like this could happen to anybody kind of vibe.

He was truly just a kid who was just trying to be a good kid.

What power would you want to have?

I would really love the power to, like, teleport,

you know, snap my fingers and be somewhere else.

Right, I would just be late either way.

I would just wait till the last minute to teleport.

- I know. - I got one more minute.

I can get through this.

It wouldn't help me at all.

So you're on Samantha Bee, "Full Frontal." there's

a bit about Afrofuturism--

Yeah.

--which is brilliant.

I'm very into Afrofuturism.

I have a joke in "Pizza Mind," actually, where I'm like--

Oh, you do about "The Jetsons," you make--

- Yeah. - Oh my god.

It's so important that we see ourselves in the future.

I remember watching the Jetsons and being like,

what happened to us?

It's nice when we see ourselves in the future

like in art that is futuristic.

It's hard to see yourself in a job, in a location,

in some sort of advancement of your life

if you don't see any examples of that before you.

Whoopi Goldberg was on "Star Trek."

And like that was huge to me because I was watching that

being like, cool, we can be in space or we can be funny

or we can be on TV.

Like it's just inspirational to be able to point at yourself

and say, oh, I can relate.

So what did you think of "Black Panther?"

- Loved it. - Yeah.

Really filled something inside of me.

Also wonderful to see all that, that brown skin onscreen.

I love the idea that this awesome technology has been

hidden from the rest of the world

for so long in a place like Wakanda.

The way that a lot of media like shows Africa or communities

where there's a lot of Black or Brown people,

it makes it seem like we don't have all

the resources that you would want,

but that's not always the case.

I would love to eat pizza with you all afternoon long.

But you have a show to do tonight, right?

I do, yes. And you're coming.

I'm coming to your show.

And I'm going to heckle you.

No you will not.

Just a little heckle.

No, I will have you kicked out if you do that.

How do you deal with hecklers? What do you do?

I actually kind of turn into a mom

where I'm just like, do you want to have fun?

Do you realize that you're ruining

everyone else's experience? - You just shame them?

I kind of shame them, yeah.

And it works.

JOE QUESADA: Great, let's go.

SASHEER ZAMATA: All right, let's do it.

Do you find that certain jokes work differently depending

on the club or the region?

There will be times where I'm in different cities

and I'll notice they aren't down to talk about race

or gender stuff or whatever.

But, yeah, I try not to adjust my set too much in advance

because that is me.

If you came to my show, you came to see me.

And this is what I do.

Right.

Interview

So thrilled for this next lady.

Please put your hands together for Sasheer Zamata!

[CHEERING]

Hello everyone.

Weird to be back in New York.

I've just-- I'm just here for a couple days.

And I'm like passing through my old neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

And I'm like, so much has changed.

Like I feel one of those like crotchety old New Yorkers.

They're like, "Ah, back in my day,

that Apple store used to be an artisanal mustard shop."

I was in therapy years ago, but I stopped seeing my therapist

because we got in a fight.

I think I get confused.

She was just this older woman who was yelling at me.

And I was like, "Mommy?"

I went to a restaurant recently.

I asked the waitress if they had any pineapple there.

And the waitress goes, we have real apple.

And my world imploded.

Thank you very much.

[APPLAUSE]

Bravo.

[CLAPPING]

I did it.

That was awesome.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for coming and watching.

I appreciate it.

That set was amazing. I mean--

Thank you very much.

--you had the place cracking up, going nuts.

As you're composing this set, do you have the joke

and then try to formulate that story?

Or do you have a story and you're like, I could punch

this up with a couple of jokes.

The latter, I usually have a story.

And then I try to find what's funny about it.

Like the therapy stuff is very real.

I did get in a fight with my old therapist.

It was very traumatic.

That is crazy.

I tried to find the parts that were the most extreme

and find a way to make it funny.

Do you think you could teach somebody to be funny?

Or do you think you have to be inherently funny?

You know, I think anyone can be funny.

You just have to like break down a bunch of walls.

So you think I could be funny?

- I think so. - You think so?

- I think we can try. - Really?

OK. - Yeah.

- Let me know what you think. - Great.

- All right, here we go. - OK, wait, let's do this right.

- OK. - I'll introduce you.

[DRUMROLL] You know him.

You love him, Joe Quesada!

[CLAPPING]

Thank you.

Woo!

Thank you.

Love you, thank you.

Um, so what does Spider-Man do for a living?

What?

He's a web designer.

[BA-DUM-CHH]

Do you know what it is?

The mic is too low.

Oh, sure.

That's the problem.

You know when Spider-Man gets into trouble, right,

and he's-- he calls the Avengers,

you know how he reaches them?

World wide web.

You know you already have a great job.

I do. I do.

Just stick to that.

I really do.

Yeah, I have no business being up here.

So that was much harder than I thought it would ever be.

Do you use comedy as a way of becoming someone else?

I don't knwo if I'm becoming someone else,

but I might be revealing more of myself.

I feel like I'm taking a mask off.

Do you collaborate a lot?

I do, yeah, I mean, with standup, it's kind of like I'll

just say ideas that I'm working on to other friends

and then they'll pitch on it or just

be like, "Oh, yeah, it's a funny idea,

what if it went this way?"

Not dissimilar to what we do at Marvel as well.

We're constantly collaborating on these stories.

When people do come up with ideas at Marvel,

is it like, I have a fully-fleshed

character and story?

Or do they come in and they're like, I have a character,

I don't know where they live or what their world is

and like other people pile on?

Three to four times a year, we have

a huge writer's conference where all our top writers come in.

And they pitch their sort of germ of an idea.

And then everybody just sort of jumps in and starts,

you know, how about this, how about that, how about this.

And they form that bigger idea.

And then those stories-- because, you know,

it's one big shared universe.

Those stories feed somebody else's story.

And then they connect and it becomes

this soap opera that it is. SASHEER ZAMATA: That's cool.

JOE QUESADA: Yeah.

What advice would you give to young comedians?

Know that you're going to fail for a while.

You just kind of like write a lot and go up on stage a lot.

It's a lot of rejection.

But then eventually, it starts changing.

And you start writing things you feel more comfortable with

and connecting to the audience in a new way.

And there's no like fast track to that.

You tell stories on stage.

What is the ultimate story that you want people to walk

away with about yourself?

I think the theme of my comedy is truth.

I really value it.

Everything I do comes from a place of honesty.

So I hope that people are receiving that.

Thank you so much for having me at your show--

Thank you.

--for being our guest and for making me

feel terrible about my comedy.

My comedy--

You'll get there.

--my comedy stylings, right?

Sasheer taught me that whether it's

standup comics or comic books, the best material

makes the best stories.

And the best material comes from everyday life.