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s whoever it is She laughed uncomfortably at Taylor Tomlinson's “dead mom” jokes, knowing full well her mother died of cancer when she was eight. (She was telling her friends that her parents were divorced – which they were it was, she claimed on stage, “from Jesus.”) Tomlinson's mom lived to be just 34, a fact that was always on the edge of her daughter's consciousness as a kind of cosmic deadline, pushing her to achieve milestones in her comedy career in one almost horrible pace. “I've done a lot of work on that in therapy, my specific fear of dying at a certain age,” says Tomlinson, a few months after her 30th birthday.
She sits in the lobby of her Manhattan hotel on a Sunday afternoon in January, days before her debut as the only woman to host a late-night TV show. Last year, he had the seventh-highest-grossing comedy tour in the world, selling almost 300,000 tickets for 132 shows – far more dates than the other comedians in the top 10, all of whom are middle-aged. She's already on her third Netflix special, Have it all (which premieres today), and has taken over James Corden's old 12:30am slot. on CBS with the very online variety show After midnight, built around Tomlinson and the rotating panels of comedians who unfurl with memes and other internet trash. (Picking her to host was funny, says executive producer Stephen Colbert: “Taylor is funny. And a great person. And a leader. And a professional. And did I mention she's funny?”) In her spare time, Tomlinson and her screenwriter, Taylor Tetreau, are churning out screenplays — they've sold several, including one based on Tomlinson's life.
“I was afraid I was going to die at 34,” she says with no apparent emotion. “Okay, so I did all the things I wanted to do before then. So I think maybe that's where the fear has eased a little bit. Because I say “Well, I sprinted — and it worked.”
Although she's gotten a huge career boost from TikTok, where she has 2.6 million followers, and what appears to be a steady presence on FYP with millions more, Tomlinson's comedy has a throwback quality. (TikTok's reputation is strange, anyway—young “fans” of the platform tend to approach it without actually knowing its name.) There's an almost impertinent—or at least Johnny Carson-era—tightness to the structures of her set and in her delivery. She attributes some of that polish to getting her start in comedy as a teenager, on a long-abandoned church circuit, along with her family's religiosity. “Starting so young, I felt I had to make the audience feel comfortable,” she says. “Because I felt like people are nervous about me. I didn't want people to expect to be disappointed by someone who was a kid.”
He used to spend hours practicing tiny details — how to greet the audience, how to pick apart the microphone — something he felt was necessary to face audiences of hundreds of people as a high school student. “It was very premature,” he says. “But you had to come into it with a different level of preparation. As opposed to a cool L.A. comic kid who hangs out and smokes weed and then tries out some ideas in a coffee shop. It wasn't the way I started. I just wasn't cool.”
On this level, and many others, Tomlinson feels in common with one of her heroes, Taylor Swift. “I know there's an interview with her where she said, 'I'm not cool or edgy, I work really hard.' I feel that way too. At a certain point, say, “Look, I'm not one of the nice guys.” And I think knowing yourself that way and accepting that and leaning into that is the best way to approach a creative career.”
She was, however, too nervous about the lucrative church circuit, which she combined with standard comedy venues early on. She realized she had to give it up for good after a church fired her when she wrote a fairly mild sex joke. (“I'm a wild animal in bed, I'm much more afraid of you than you are of me.”) In any case, after growing up in a family so religious that her dad forbade her Powerpuff Girls because one character looked like Satan, she didn't even consider herself a Christian. She traces her loss of faith to her mom's death, when everyone around her who promised divine intervention in her illness shifted to telling her that God has a reason for everything. “I didn't like that answer,” Tomlinson says, deadpan, before sharing her realization, at age eight, of what you might call the central joke of the universe: “Anything can happen. You're not special or safe.”
Tomlinson was so sheltered that she had to google “stand-up comedy” to find out what it was after seeing a random comedian in a YouTube clip — she'd never seen anyone be funny on stage who wasn't a youth pastor. She started doing her own stand-up after taking a comedy class with her dad and took to it immediately. “I don't think I felt seen or heard as a kid,” says Tomlinson. “And being seen and heard and understood is a big part of what drew me to comedy.”
There's also the anger that seeps beneath the austerity of Tomlinson's comedy, especially her earlier work. “I think I have less anger now,” he says. “Because I was really lucky. And the more grateful you are, the less angry you are. Plus, mood stabilizers.” In recent years, she hasn't been shy about sharing details about her mental health issues on stage, from anxiety to a relatively recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder. (In her latest tribute, she mused about trying to see the bright side of the latest development: “Am I hot and/or talented enough to be an inspiration?”)
Her jokes about her dad get darker and darker. “If someone called me a whore in bed, I'd say, 'Excuse me, that's what my father calls me,'” she tells her new devotee. On After midnight, jokes that comedians are competing for an impossible prize: “My father's approval.” In fact, Tomlinson and her three siblings have stopped talking to him, though she doesn't want to go into detail.
All of her siblings identify as queer, and Tomlinson, who only dates men, admits in her new dedication that she's starting to have some doubts about her sexuality. Other than that, though, she feels pretty “settled” as she enters her thirties. “Thirty feels like, 'OK, I'm me now,' like everyone told me 30 would be. And I'm happy to report that it is.”
The CBS show is the first time in her life that she's had a real job, which she's still getting used to. “I have a badge,” he says. “I've never been in one [studio] lot with mark. It was just like, “Hey, it's me. Last name is Tomlinson. And they say, “We don't have you in the system.” It also has a writers' room, which looks like pure luxury. “It's so funny to me when everyone says, 'You're so good at reading prompts,'” she says. “And I'm like, 'Great people have written me great jokes that I just have to deliver.' I've written my own hour and a half of material that I have to do from memory. Like, this is awesome! What a sweet concert.”
I think I have less anger now… and the more grateful you are, the less angry you are. Plus, mood stabilizers.
She's wary of overstating her late-night “single woman” status, especially when people act like it's never happened before, or that all previous women have somehow failed in this position. “I mean Chelsea Handler was very popular,” he says. “So, what do you think; Samantha Bee went for seven seasons. I don't understand how everyone says, “Oh, it didn't go well.” I don't think that's true. I struggle with the right balance of saying, “That's really cool.” And also to say, 'Let's not do this kind of thing.'” In any case, After midnight it's not even a talk show, so Tomlinson feels somewhat removed from the conversation.
She was hesitant to take the job until she learned that the show would only tape three days a week, which would leave room for her to continue her relentless tour schedule. “This is never going to be something where I'm going to say, 'I'm not touring anymore,'” he says. “Because the only reason anyone cares about me is that I do stand-up, that I was good at stand-up. And that gave me every opportunity I ever had. And that's what I like more than anything else.”
In addition, a show like After midnight, even if wildly successful, isn't necessarily a decades-long commitment anymore. “I have no idea how long this will last,” says Tomlinson. “I try to predict the future less, because I realized that I can't. And this opportunity that was given to me was something that I was surprised that I really wanted.”
Another obvious direction for a wildly popular young comedian would be a semi-autobiographical sitcom — but Tomlinson had already tried that. When she was in her twenties, a development deal at ABC led to a scripted pilot that the network wouldn't give her a chance to do. “Thank God we didn't,” he says, “because I would have been off the street.” He is more interested in films, although he finds the development process extremely slow.
There is another obvious possibility, though. Holding down the 12:30 a.m. slot, even if it's not a typical talk show, inevitably opens the door for one of the network's hour-earlier shows to someday take over. Tomlinson seems genuinely shocked at the prospect. “I have no idea,” he says. “I haven't thought of any of that.” She pauses, and it's hard not to see a glimmer of possibility in her blue eyes—maybe there are still a few career milestones left to hit. “I really haven't thought about it at all – until you say so.”
Production Credits
Hair By KIKI HEITLOTTER in the THE WALL TEAM. Makeup by AMBER DREADON in the A CONTEXT. Styled by TARA SWENNEN in the WITH A HAWK. Photo courtesy of ALEX WOOD. Photographed at ASTER, HOLLYWOOD.
from our partners at https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/taylor-tomlinson-netflix-special-have-it-all-after-midnight-interview-1234959383/