Amy Sedaris is hard to sum up with a single word or occupation, and she'd probably prefer that no one tried. She's an avid cook and crafter, a playwright, a writer, a skilled and often well-costumed comic actress, and a small-scale entrepreneur who runs a tiny, grassroots cupcake-and-cheeseball baking business out of her New York City apartment.
But Sedaris is probably best known for her characters—especially Jerri Blank, the middle-aged former prostitute turned high-school student from Comedy Central's cult series Strangers With Candy, created with longtime collaborators Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert.
Amid her publicity blitz for the Strangers With Candy prequel movie—this was the first of 19 interviews she was doing that day—The A.V. Club talked to Sedaris at length about finally getting the movie to the big screen, her upcoming "hospitality" book, how hard it is to describe a baked potato, and, of course, literal astrology.
The A.V. Club: Would you ever play a pretty character?
Amy Sedaris: If she was ugly and, like, made to be pretty. Like if you got up close and could see pockmarks. It's just more fun for me to play more character-driven things. Like, if it was a pretty girl, then I would find some way to make her ugly. [Laughs.] Because that's just more interesting to me.
AVC: Does it physically hurt to play Jerri Blank?
AS: No. All my muscles are in my face. I have a very muscular face. I'm good with faces. I always have been. I mean, once in a while I'll get a small rash underneath my lower lip if I do it for too long, because of the teeth. But in the movie, I had stitches in my mouth from an operation I had, so it was hard for me to do the face at first, because I was stretching my stitches. So when I watch that prison scene, I'm like, "Aw, fuck!" It's just so painful to watch.
AVC: Did you always want to do a Strangers With Candy movie?
AS: No. Paul, Steve, and I were working on our book Wigfield. When I say the three of us were working on Wigfield, I mean they were working on Wigfield. And we kept coming up with funny Jerri Blank stuff to say, so it would go into a file, and by the end of the book, Paul opened the file and there was all this Blank stuff, and he said, "Oh, it would be so funny to write a movie." That's really how it happened.
AVC: Comedy Central has a reputation for being hard on its series sometimes. Did you find that to be true?
AS: Well, I'll tell you what I like about Comedy Central: the idea that they're not behind the show. I like that because, especially for me, I just want to do it and I don't want to have to push it in someone's face. I think anyone who is a fan of that show had to discover it on their own, because we certainly didn't put it out there. So that's why I like the audience of Strangers With Candy.
Another thing I like about Comedy Central was that it was like an old network to me. You know? I use the example of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I mean, that didn't do too well, but the old networks back then would give a show a shot and keep it going. Comedy Central does that, they'll give you three seasons to prove yourself, where, you know, if Strangers With Candy was on network TV, it would have been gone after the first episode, because we weren't getting the ratings South Park was getting. But we had 30 episodes, and I like that about them.
Right now, I think Comedy Central's audience is mostly young boys. Really, because I looked into thinking about another TV-show idea, and I was thinking of Comedy Central, but I just don't think their audience is right for me.
AVC: You don't think young boys would like your idea?
AS: No, not like 16-, 17-year -olds. Nah. Not the kinda show I wanna do. And I don't think that's really my audience any more. And I don't want to do a show where if it's on a comedy channel, people will say, "Oh, it has to be funny." I'd rather do it somewhere on a loser station nobody watches, and again, somebody can discover it, and you can project if it's funny or if it's serious or whatever. Because half the stuff that's on TV that's serious, I want to laugh at. You know what I mean? And same with books. I don't want you to tell me it's supposed to be funny, because then it has to be funny, it better be funny, and all it can do is disappoint people.
AVC: So you don't like the expectations that come with having to make something labeled as "comedy"?
AS: No. Anywhere in my life, I hate that. Like when people try and put me in a box too, it's like, "Well, I'm not an actress. What, you're going to put me and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the same scene and say I am an actress? I don't think so." And I'm not a comedian. I don't go out there and do stand-up. And if I was a comedian, then damn, I better be funny, you know? I would rather just be a clown and be funny. I would rather just be a clown and make cupcakes.
AVC: Is that how you'd describe yourself, as like a clown?
AS: I'm more of a clown, a tragic clown. Yeah. I just like humor to come out of characters.
AVC: What are your top five most-asked questions?
AS: "Why a movie?" That's a top one. "What took so long to get it out there?" That's big. I think people think that story is going to be more interesting than it is, but none of us really remember it. We're used to it, you know, with all the kind of work that we do. "How'd you get all the celebrities in the film?" "What's the difference between doing a TV show and a movie?" And uh, "How did you come up with the character Jerri Blank?"
AVC: I think I know how you came up with the character.
AS: Yeah. It's called Panama Red, baby. [Laughs.] A book I referenced a lot for Jerri Blank was Is There No Place On Earth For Me? by Susan Sheehan. It's the story of a schizophrenic girl, Sylvia Frumkin, and I probably read it every year. My brother [writer David Sedaris] gave that to me like in the '80s, and it's a life-changing book. And that's a good example of what I think is funny. Like, it's a serious book. This woman Susan Sheehan stays with a schizophrenic girl and just talks about her life. And it's a lot about the health-care system back then, too, about these doctors giving her these drugs, and her weight can go from 100 lbs. to 300 lbs., and she's such a character. It's pages and pages of non sequiturs, like "A fly is a teenage wasp." "I'm the personification of Casper the Friendly Ghost." And I used some of her for Jerri Blank as well.
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