Nikki Glaser Talks ‘Someday You’ll Die’, New Show ‘Unsettling’, Tom Brady’s Surprise & JD Vance: “I Got To Get Some Cats”
When Nikki Glaser took to the stage to join in The Greatest Roast of All Time: Tom Brady, she made headlines with her close-to-the-bone whip-smart jokes. Then, just days later, she broke viewing records with her comedy special Someday You’ll Die, which has now earned her an Emmy nomination. Now she has a show in the works called Unsettling, written by Jamie Lee, about two childless women who decide to parent together. Here, she mulls over her compulsion to say unspeakable things, explains why she doesn’t want kids and expresses compassion for Tom Brady. Then there are those big awards shows she would love to host…
DEADLINE: You’ve been doing this for 20 years but this one-two punch of The Roast of Tom Brady and then your Max special Someday You’ll Die coming within days of each other has really shot you to household-name fame.
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NIKKI GLASER: It all lined up kind of perfectly, and I wish that I could say that I masterminded it that way because I wish I had that kind of thoughtfulness when it came to my career and planning and doing Taylor Swift Easter egg-type stuff because I admire how she works, but it is just a complete coincidence and sometimes it just works that way. But when you work as much as I do, I think that it’s not even coincidental that things just end up being double-booked like that.
DEADLINE: The show you’re working on now, Unsettling, about two childless women, seems so timely, as does your special. You talk about not having children, and now we have JD Vance referring to “a bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives.”
GLASER: I was like, “I got to get some cats. I want to be the girl this guy hates.” And more of us are doing it. I just read a study. This is in The New York Times. 47% of U.S. adults younger than 50 without children said they were unlikely ever to have children. When asked why, 57% of those people said they simply didn’t want them, which I really like. I’m just like, “I don’t know, because I don’t want them.” It’s just nice that that number is creeping up because I felt, and continue to battle with feeling, like there’s something wrong with me that I don’t want them… I wouldn’t be able to play a ton, I would be extremely bored, I would be resentful, and I would feel guilty all the time for being those other things I mentioned.
DEADLINE: I would want a front row seat with popcorn if you were talking to JD Vance about this. In the meantime, I can’t wait for Unsettling to happen.
GLASER: I just think the concept is so, like you said, timely, but then the script is so funny. I just don’t read scripts this funny that often. Jamie was the original writer and then we worked on it together, and it’s just so punchy. It just feels like a show I would watch, and I’m really selective about comedy. It’s not pandering and it’s not cutesy, and it really is a real representation of female friendship that I felt like, “Oh, the people who wrote this actually have female friends,” because a lot of times I watch stuff and I’m like, “This is not how women talk to each other.”
DEADLINE: Yes. Save us from those sitcoms where the only thing women do to connect is get a bottle of Chardonnay out of the fridge.
GLASER: Or eat ice cream when they’re sad, yeah. Also Sex and the City, I just cannot ever get past, Charlotte and Samantha would hate each other.
DEADLINE: They would never ever be friends.
GLASER: It’s just so funny that that was sold to us as what defines true friendship. I found so many flaws with it.
DEADLINE: You’re on your Alive and Unwell tour right now. How’s it going?
GLASER: It’s great. I love touring. I tour with my best friends. My tour manager and my openers are all my best friends. My boyfriend comes out with me. I get to bring my dog. I look at my schedule and people go, “How can you do that?” I’m just like, “This is just what my life is.” I don’t really know any different and it’s not as exhausting as it seems. It’s actually really fun. And I sleep on planes very easily. I fall asleep before the plane takes off, and I usually wake up when someone’s tapping me on the shoulder because they’re cleaning the plane. I feel a freedom in travel. And then I love hotels. I love just being somewhere one night and I love the process of building a new act. I dumped all the material from the special and I am just rebuilding and writing stuff on the road while also writing stuff on stage. It’s a blast. I love it.
DEADLINE: What did you think of Tom Brady saying his kids’ feelings had been hurt by the roast? I feel like the implication was that you had directly done damage. But you were hired to do the job of roasting him.
GLASER: Yeah. And what did I say about his kids? I guess I said he lost his family?
DEADLINE: You didn’t say anything directly about his kids. You said stuff about his marriage breakdown.
GLASER: Yeah. There was a little bit of backlash. I’m a team player. If someone would’ve said, “Don’t say something,“ I would’ve not said it. And I simply wasn’t told not to say things. And so, I just think that that’s not Tom’s fault. He probably just didn’t think people would go where they went, including me. And so, he didn’t even know that he was supposed to say, “Don’t say those things.”
I imagine he wasn’t prepared, but I did feel bad. I don’t like being mean when it’s not allowed. I love roasts because it is allowed, and I’m like, “OK, I can really do whatever I want because I’m not offending anyone because everyone signed up for this and they’re literally asking for it.” I can be like, “Well, you asked for it. Look at the way you were dressed.” I have that scapegoat in it, but I did feel bad. I didn’t read any of the articles that came out about it because I didn’t want to feel sad and sorry for what I did, and I thought, maybe I should write to him. And I’m like, it’s not even going to get to him. No one’s going to let me write to him. He’s not going to see some statement I put out. He was up there and was allowed to do the same thing that I was allowed to do, and he could have gone to the same places that I went to, and so I just felt it was a fair game.
DEADLINE: It’s all in the title. It’s a roast.
GLASER: Yeah. It really is, but I really have had some moments of like, “Wow, why do I find that it’s OK to say these things just because someone signed up for it or asked?” There have been moments where I’ve looked back on what I’ve said, and out of context, I’m like, “That seems really cruel and really out of line, and is this a good thing for the world to be putting out there this kind of negativity?” I just did what I was asked. Tom is participating in a sport where people are injured in ways where their lives are ruined, literally ruined. And I’m watching all these documentaries about football because I’m just trying to appreciate it more because now I’m kind of in this sports world and I’m getting asked to do sports things and I really want to appreciate it on a new level because of my involvement in the roast and reading about Tom and what it took for him to get to where he is. But I’m like, these guys beat each other up so bad and a guy will be on the ground injured and all the medics are rushing out and the team member that just slammed him to the ground just walks away. They move on very quickly from things. And so, I think it’s a very similar thing.
DEADLINE: That’s an interesting parallel.
GLASER: I think that it was an interesting backlash, but I really didn’t read any of it because I really am a sensitive person and I don’t like hurting people’s feelings.
DEADLINE: You said sorry a bunch of times during the roast.
GLASER: Yeah. I had practiced that roast a million times and I had never said sorry once in the practice of it, that was not a part of like, “Oh, I’m going to just apologize throughout this and this will make me more likeable.” I just started doing it because it was what I felt in the moment.
DEADLINE: Because he was there in the room, because you were looking at him. That’s different.
GLASER: That too. I felt bad. I don’t want to run into him again. I feel bad.
DEADLINE: Something that really interests me is why certain people like to look under the emotional rocks in life. They go after the thing no one wants to see, like, “Let’s drag that into the light. Let’s talk about that.” When did you become aware of that in yourself?
As early as I can remember, I was clocking things that I would either talk to my friends about and they would not notice it, or it wouldn’t bother them, these kind of injustices that I would witness or just hypocrisies that would happen all over.
I think growing up in a house and in a family where alcohol was consumed a lot… In most alcoholic families, no one talks about what’s going on, but when kids are witnessing a parent or a family member who’s drunk, you go, “What the hell? What’s happening? This person who’s usually articulate and in charge of me is not functioning properly anymore and they definitely changed, and I don’t like it, but I can’t put my finger on what it is, and when I ask about it later on, everyone acts like it didn’t happen.” I think that was the root of it.
I just have always been extra sensitive to how people are feeling, or what’s going on, and if I’m safe. And I think that’s also a product of being in a family that likes to drink and just feeling like I’m on my own, like I’ve got to figure this out… But yeah, I remember just always saying really weird things and having my parents say, “Don’t ask that person that again,” or, “Why did you say that?” A lot of, “Why do you think that way?” Less of, “Wow, you’re so funny,” and more like, “That’s weird.”
DEADLINE: It seems like the next step for you would be to host some awards shows. What do you think?
GLASER: Thank you. That is a goal. After doing the roast, which was the scariest thing because it’s live and it’s in a bigger theater than I’ve ever performed in, and it’s about football and I don’t even know football. That was such a scary thing to do. And now I have a system in place of, I can tackle any hard task. And also, I’m not scared to maybe upset a couple people if I’m overall creating a product that most people enjoy.
I’d want to please the network, but I’d also be bingeing Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes.
DEADLINE: You’ve said in the past if you could do clean comedy, you would, but it’s not where you’re at. But what if you were asked you to host the Oscars, could you keep it clean?
GLASER: Yeah, I like proving people wrong and I like clean comedy… I like being told you can’t do something. I’ve done this a lot. I’ve done The Tonight Show. I’ve done, I think, four sets on different shows, and you’ve got to be clean on those, and I’ve found ways to do that. That was early on in my career when I was even filthier, so I definitely know I could do it.
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