Hannah Gadsby on making it big, their pre-show routine & forgetting about straight people

Hannah Gadsby has never been afraid to explore uncomfortable topics. The cunning comic took the world by surprise with their first major standup special, Nanette, and we haven’t stopped laughing since.

Six years later, Gadsby is back with a new Off-Broadway show WOOF!, which runs through October 27 at the Abrons Arts Center. While Gadsby’s exhibits their familiar self-deprecating humor throughout the special, they talk about how they’re struggling to grapple with a myriad of existential topics, such as fame and their father’s passing.

With WOOF! in full swing, Queerty recently caught up with Gadsby to talk about the disorientating aspects of fame, their late father’s favorite pastime, and their sacred pre-show routine…

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We’re all awfully anxious right now, aren’t we? The one thing I can’t stop thinking about today is … 

AI, and loneliness, and how they feed each other. And how we’re playing jenga with the world’s resources. And answering questions about my own show, apparently. Maybe a better question is: what isn’t making me anxious these days? Dogs? Yeah, dogs. Woof! 

I give US politics a gentle bit of sass in my new show. As an Australian currently touring the United States on the cusp of a presidential election, my biggest takeaway is … 

You know, we do this whole thing really differently in Australia. Maybe better? Yeah, I’m gonna say better. Our election cycles only last 6 weeks, we vote for a party, not a person, so you are only considering policies rather than personalities, there are strict spending caps on campaigns – it’s all very contained, demure even. Elections really feel like a circus here…of course the donkeys and elephants probably don’t help. Don’t get me wrong, politics are messed up at home, too. But at least voting is made simple and we often have a sausage sizzle at the polling booth.

Fame is a great distorter. When I first achieved more wide-ranging success, I … 

I bought my parents a house. It’s a small house, in a small city – we picked it mostly for the ample hand rails and lack of stairs. But I do like to say it now and again, because it’s probably one of the only things in the center of a venn diagram between me and proper Hollywood rags-to-riches celebrities.

My dad was always jealous of my mum for getting more airtime in my shows. The one thing you should know about my father is that … 

The closest thing my dad had to a passionate pastime was finding solutions to the kind of problems that other people don’t think of as problems at all. His favourite instruction was to ‘always peel the fat end of the carrot first. Because, when you peel the second half of the carrot you’ll always be holding onto the end you just peeled, which is slippery, because you’ve just peeled it, but if you peel the pointy end first, when you turn it round to peel the fat end, you won’t be able to get a good grip, because you’ve only got the tip to hold, and the tip is now slippery, because you’ve just peeled it. That’s why you should always peel the fat end of the carrot first.’

Dad would impart this instruction so often, and so passionately that I really wanted to believe he was passing on actual wisdom, like a wax-on karate kid vegetable-based metaphor on how to live life.  But deep down, I always knew that Dad just didn’t want anybody to struggle with carrots, because it annoyed him to watch someone do it the wrong way, especially if they didn’t even know it was a problem. 

Before a performance, I always … 

Listen to a nostalgic song in my dressing room. Gets me in the vibe. For a while it was ‘Electric Blue’ by Icehouse. Right now it’s Martika…who is Martika? I also write out my set list. Because I’m a professional. 

I’ll never forget one of my first attempts at performing live … 

The first time I went on stage for a filmed performance – it was very early in my career, in the national finals of a comedy competition – I went up for my set and got spooked by the camera on a jib. It swooped by me as I entered the stage and I fully jumped. The audience roared, which I took as a win – a big huge laugh before I even got to the microphone. ‘Startle’ has always been the strongest of my reflexes. 

The queer storyteller everyone should be paying attention to right now … 

Cole Escola. Their play, Oh, Mary!,  is running on Broadway right now and I cannot wait to see it!

The queerest thing about me … 

Is how I forget about straight people existing. Heterosexual relationships – are we still doing that? No, just kidding. To quote the great comedian, and my compatriot, Zoë Coombs Marr, some of my best dads are straight.

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