Cho's planned TPAC engagement has been canceled — but read our interview with the legendary comic anyway.
Margaret Cho is a ’90s girl. She was a regular on The Arsenio Hall Show. She opened for Jerry Seinfeld. She was the angsty, combat-boot-wearing star of All-American Girl, an ABC sitcom that ran from 1994 to 1995. She’s been a writer, an actress, a musician and a podcaster — in short, she’s been a comedian for more than 30 years.
In September, Cho kicked off the fall portion of her Live & Livid tour, which stops in Nashville on Oct. 6. We caught up with her recently to discuss comedy, drag bans, the SAG-AFTRA strike and hot chicken.
I feel like you’re akin to a drag mom with all of your comedy kids: Ali Wong, Bowen Yang, Joel Kim Booster, Atsuko Okatsuka. How does it feel to be the one who opened the door?
It’s my greatest achievement. The fact that I'm able to say, “Oh, they followed me into this,” is the best thing, because they're such a gift to the world. I also rely on them for future employment. They're my meal ticket into the nicest, fanciest assisted living I can afford.
I heard you on the Las Culturistas podcast talking about Monique and her influence on the title of your company, Clownery Productions. Can you explain the Monique quote and how you decided to name your company after it?
I'm a huge fan of VH1’s reality programming. Charm School is the aggregate of all of the shows. It's a reality show headed up by Monique, who's a huge influence on me and somebody I admire. Somebody spit on somebody, they got eliminated, and Monique said, “Well, that's what happens when you do clownery. The clown comes back to bite you.” It's such a funny quote. My production company is called Clownery because sometimes the clown does bite back.
Your current tour is called Live & Livid. What kinds of things are you livid about?
I want drag queens to be able to live and not be in fear of being attacked, or these situations where you see literal Nazis going to protest drag story hour. It's traumatic for the kids who are going to just get read to. Now they're in the middle of basically an insurrection. If you really cared about children, you would get rid of guns.
I’ve heard you say stand-up is a channel for your activism. Do you think talking about this in your act shows the rest of us how to fight for the things we care about?
It gives you some sense that somebody's doing something. That we can laugh about it. Laughing about things is helpful in trying to metabolize the emotions around it. That's hopefully what I'm able to do. The solution is talking about it and talking about it with a nuanced view.
How is the strike affecting you?
I'm out there picketing, protesting, protesting the studios. I come from a strong labor union family. My grandfather was a labor union leader. So there's a lot of family history around this. It's also changed the way I'm looking at my life, because I was supposed to do several different films and television shows and I can't because we don't know what's going on. Everything's in flux.
A lot of actors live paycheck to paycheck. I am greatly supplemented by stand-up comedy, which has always been my main gig, but it's challenging for a lot of people.
Is there anything about Nashville crowds you find different?
I was just there for Leslie Jordan’s memorial. There is a sense of respect and reverence for country music, but also a rebel spirit. It's progressive. It's a place that I've always loved doing shows at, and I've made music there. I bought guitars — amazing guitars — at Gruhn.
It's the best place to make music. There's no better engineers, no better producers, no better place to get a band together. You can't get any better players than in Nashville. It's incredible. The ability of people down there that play, you don't get that anywhere else.
Is there anything you're looking forward to while you're here?
Hot chicken. I keep thinking I can eat hotter, hotter, hotter, hotter, but I'm only up to medium. I'm pretty wimpy. I like to eat spicy food, but something about the vinegary-ness of the hot chicken. I can only handle medium, but I'm gonna go up.
Where do you get hot chicken?
I like Hattie B’s, but I'm a fan of Prince’s. Prince’s is the best.
