This week, we’re highlighting 24 talented writers and performers for Vulture’s annual list “The Comedians You Should and Will Know.” Our goal is to introduce a wider audience to the talent that has the comedy community and industry buzzing. (You can read more about our methodology at the link above.) We asked the comedians on the list to answer a series of questions about their work, performing, goals for the future, and more. Next up is Courtney Pauroso.
Tell us a story from your childhood that you think might explain why you ended up becoming a comedian.
As a child, I was convinced I was going to be a beautiful award-winning dramatic actress, and I’m not sure it occurred to me that I was funny, which is crazy considering I wore a medical eyepatch for all of kindergarten. I was kind of shy, but I always loved putting on elaborate shows that no one asked for, so that tracks. I think I took myself pretty seriously and only later in life realized that I was a natural fool.
I remember the first real play I ever did when I was maybe 8 years old. I got to play a loud bad dirty kid from “the wrong side of the tracks,” which felt very fun to me since I was actually a quiet, well-behaved good girl with nice parents who took me to community-theater rehearsals. Before the show, I went outside and rubbed real dirt on my face to complete my transformation — very method of me — and when I got onstage, I felt explosive. It was thrilling. I think performing has always felt like an outlet for me to conjure the louder, darker, wilder, more obnoxious parts of myself so that in my real life I can just be kind of nice and normal. I mean, not that normal, but yeah.
If you were immortalized as a cartoon character, what would your outfit be?
I basically designed my Vanessa 5000 costume (seven-inch thigh-high Pleasers, vinyl black bikini with light-up nipples, long platinum wig) to be my dream cartoon-character-superhero alter ego. I used to live by Jumbo’s Clown Room and am so inspired by the performers there. I was too chicken to ever audition, but I arguably wrote that whole one-woman show as an excuse to dress up in my little costume and walk around with my butt out — for art. So Vanessa 5000 would be my Superman look, and my Clark Kent look would probably be a crop top and a baseball hat over unbrushed hair.
What’s your proudest moment/achievement of your comedy career so far?
I’m pretty proud that I got to tape a special of my show Vanessa 5000 for Dropout, which will be out in October. And I’m thrilled that I was able to get the rights to cover “Fake Plastic Trees” for one of the show’s pivotal moments. I wrote a personal letter that began “Dear Mr. Yorke and the members of Radiohead” explaining why I couldn’t do the show without their song, and apparently it worked! Everyone at Dropout worked really hard to get it to the right people and make it happen. I’m very grateful.
Which comedian’s career trajectory would you most like to follow?
It’s hard to say. I’ve been dying to sell out for 16 years, but so far no one will let me, so I might have to keep making weird niche arty clown theater until I’m an old hag, which honestly sounds fun too. I’d love to get paid a lot of money one day, though — I hear it’s great! And I think I’m a smart lady who is easy to work with and that I’d be a real asset to any cast, writers’ room, lucrative commercial campaign, you name it.
But at this point in my life, I’d be very satisfied if my trajectory was just “funny weird mom who sometimes makes cool things or acts in cool things but pretty much gets to hang out with her kids a lot.” And I can totally see myself being a goofy old-lady actress someday. Like, “We need a goofy old lady who will make out with a dog and won’t complain about it.” “Oh, let’s get Courtney Pauroso, she’ll do anything.”
Of course, there’s still a part of me that wants to be huge. But life is long. I want to keep surprising people. I’d love to make my own indie movie. I’d love to work with Mike White. I’d be stoked to act in a dramatic film role someday and also in a Taco Bell commercial where I have zero lines but make enough money to qualify for SAG health insurance. I’ll follow the open doors and see what happens.
Tell us everything about your worst show ever. (This can involve venue, audience, other acts on the lineup, anything!)
About ten years ago, my friend Casey put me on the lineup for his backyard show Super Tight in San Diego during Comic-Con. I hadn’t really figured out yet how to perform on a lineup after being a Groundlings performer, and I was super-nervous because a lot of “cool” people were there and I was intimidated by stand-ups. They have such a different vibe from the fellow theater kids I was used to performing with. I went up right after Brody Stevens (who obviously crushed) with a magician’s-assistant act where the premise is the magician didn’t show up, so I’m just dancing around and smiling and pointing enthusiastically at things that aren’t happening like an idiot.
But for some reason, my music stopped about 30 seconds in, so the intentionally awkward bit turned into an actually awkward bit, and everyone was just kind of staring at me in silence like Okayyy … I wanted to puke and die. Brandon Wardell went on right after and lightly roasted me, and I held a petty little grudge about it for a while, but in retrospect, he had no choice but to acknowledge my bomb to save the vibe of the show. We ended up working together a few years later, and now we’re actually really good friends. Love ya, Brandon.
What have you learned about your own joke-writing process that you didn’t know when you started?
I spent my first years in comedy in the Groundlings Sunday Company, where I learned to write sketch. I’m really grateful I have that background, because even when you’re “writing” clown, it’s important to be able to find structure. But in sketch, you’re writing the jokes ahead of time, and then you pitch your sketch and get notes and memorize the lines and do the show and that’s that. Writing a clown show is totally different. For me, the early process involves workshop shows, where I go onstage with just a loose plan that instantly falls apart, which puts me in a position where I’m stuck up onstage flopping around with my dick out, so to speak, and I’m forced to desperately try things in the moment to get the audience back. But I’ve discovered some of my best “jokes” in these moments of desperation, and they were things I never could have planned or thought of had I not been truly suffering. Sometimes when you surrender to the unknown and let yourself flail, you are rewarded with happy accidents.
What’s the biggest financial hurdle you’ve encountered since becoming a comedian?
My entire artistic career has been a financial disaster. It’s all been a pattern of taking big risks, betting on myself, then barely paying myself back. Oops. What doesn’t help is that my “comedy” involves self-producing shows that are full of costumes and props, and that during the workshopping process, I often try out ideas that I quickly abandon, but in the moment it’s like, I need to go buy five yards of blue fabric, 25 toy guitars, a Marie Antoinette wig, and a $900 portable dance pole now so I can try my bad idea tonight. And then my bad idea doesn’t work and I just have that shit taking up space in my apartment. This is why I recommend becoming a stand-up, not a glorified prop comic.
At the end of the movie 8 Mile, Eminem’s character, B-Rabbit, starts his final battle rap by dissing himself so the person he’s battling has nothing left to attack. How would you roast yourself so the other person would have nothing to say?
I AM white, I AM a fucking bum, I DO overly rely on cheap tricks like taking out my tits and ass because I’m a desperate undignified hack who can’t write a normal joke. And YEAH I hope people are buying it as PERFORMANCE ART. Clown is GAY. In the BAD way. P.S. I’m LAZY and WHINY and I CAN’T RAP.
When it comes to your comedy opinions — about material, performing, audience, trends you want to kill/revive, the industry, etc. — what hill will you die on?
My director/co-deviser/co-conspirator/collaborator/artistic doula/lifelong friend Corey Podell is the best secret weapon in the biz. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Corey Podell in their life.
What is the best comedy advice, and then the worst comedy advice, you’ve ever received?
This isn’t exactly advice, but one time years ago, I was feeling down about my prospects and was whining to my clown mentor about being old and broke and doomed, and he just rolled his eyes and said, “Whatever dude. You’re a failed actress. Who gives a shit. Just own it, it’s cool.” I cracked up and snapped out of it, and I’ll never forget it. It was the best thing anyone could have said to me in that moment, because even though it was kind of brutal to hear that out loud, it was also so freeing. Like, Yeah, who gives a shit, it is cool.
Being a “failed” actress is what has allowed me to be a “successful” clown. I never would have pushed myself to keep making things if I had gotten everything I wanted early on in my life. And I find that when I can access that place of Yep, I’m a huge fucking loser, oh well, my work is bolder and dumber and more exciting because I remember I have nothing to lose. At the end of the day, I’m a doomed idiot, but so is every single person in my audience. Being a doomed idiot is the human condition. So I might as well run around the theater completely naked in a blackout making demonic noises while I shine a flashlight on my pussy for one second at a time, because it’s really fun and everyone loves it and we’re all going to die.
Worst advice was in 2008 when an acting teacher told me to get side-swept bangs. They weren’t for me.
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