Quick Silverman

Sarah Silverman calls from her L.A. apartment, apparently while in stages of undress. The comic plays with self-exposure in her Comedy Central series The Sarah Silverman Program, in which stand-up Sarah plays blithely offensive Sarah and her real-life (older) sister Laura plays her (younger) sister Laura. The third season premieres Thursday 4.

How’s your day going?
It’s crazy. I’m redoing my apartment. And then I’m doing…uh, I’m really busy and popular, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Very busy, very popular.

Redoing it yourself?
I’ve enlisted help. Crazy Israelis, in fact. There’s a crazy Israeli in my apartment who I barely know watching me!

In the third season premiere, your character learns she was born with a penis and a vagina. Your fantasy?
It just seems like, wouldn’t it be funny to start a rumor about yourself that is not only untrue but totally unflattering? But that wasn’t a fantasy. I wish I was girlier. I know I’m a handsome woman at best.

But people often say you’re girlish: You say raunchy things but girlishly.
Oh, yeah, that is true. That’s so annoying—not annoying, but I don’t know that I would read that and go, “Oh, how very endearing.” When I hear my own voice, I cringe. It’s so nasal. I want to have one of those Madonna transformations.

The penis is a recent theme: On the Critics’ Choice Awards, you told Adam Lambert you love penis.
That was cute, right? That was more a mirroring of Adam Lambert’s plight—where he was supersexual with the guy on the AMAs. If that was two girls, no one would think twice. Sandra Bullock kisses Meryl Streep, and it’s adorable.

A couple of serious questions now.
Oh, my God. Sagittarius.

With your brand of humor and that of comedians like Lisa Lampanelli and Sacha Baron Cohen, there’s the question of whether it perpetuates or parodies stereotypes.
Certainly the way it’s intended with me is almost always—or always—I’m the idiot, you know?

So the idea that a racial slur is a racial slur regardless of intent?
That’s crazy. Context is everything.

What offends you?
Fat jokes about women bum me out. White America makes it very clear that fat women are to be mocked and they don’t deserve love.

Couldn’t you say something similar about other marginalized groups?
I feel like [fat women are] defenseless, but also just any joke where the intention is mean. It’s not making fun of yourself in your prejudice or racism; it’s making fun of someone for something that they probably are not superpsyched about. That makes me sad. I know people assume my humor is mean, but I don’t see it that way at all.

Your sister Susan wrote that, as a toddler, you’d perform vulgarities.
Ever since I was three, my dad taught me swears and he thought it was funny. I would swear in front of grown-ups, and they would freak out and laugh. It’s like shock humor, and I just became addicted to it since I was three because I got such a positive reaction from it.

Doesn’t shock humor eventually just stop shocking?
Well, exactly. You have to change and grow. Before I had an audience, it was this challenge: People would walk out or they would laugh. Stand-up wise, I’m starting over. I did Jesus Is Magic and I toured with it and milked it for all it was worth, but that material is dead.

Have you visited Susan and her family on the kibbutz in Israel?
[Groans] I’m the only one who hasn’t! No, I’ve never been to Israel. I’m a total asshole. I know I should and I’m a huge pussy and I just get scared…. Don’t look at me, I’m changing!

Sorry?
That crazy Israeli guy I told you about.

What’s on your nightstand?
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. It’s just the most romantic book I’ve ever read. I just read it over and over. I’m a romantic. I love love.

I wouldn’t guess that of you.
Oh, you don’t know me at all! What kind of asshole doesn’t love love?

Do you have love in your life now?
Yeah.

Can you tell me more?
I mean, his name is Gerard Butler. No, we’ve just been going out for a while, but he’s awesome and he’s cute as a button. He writes for Family Guy—not Seth MacFarlane. He’s from, like, less than an hour away from my hometown, so we grew up with the same local TV. He’s a Boston guy. I like that.

So suck on that, Jimmy Kimmel.
[Laughs] Jimmy’s fine. He’s got a girlfriend. We’re fine. He’s a good guy.

The Sarah Silverman Program’s third season premieres Thursday 4 at 9:30pm on Comedy Central.

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