Taylor Tomlinson’s therapist probably shouldn’t watch her latest stand-up special on Netflix.
That’s because, in the hour-long set Look At You (available to stream on Netflix now), Tomlinson does exactly what her professional mental health advisor told her not to: she airs out her dark, dirty-minded laundry for laughs.
“Your therapist always says that. Like, ‘Hey, maybe keep some of this private, just for us,’” Tomlinson tells UPROXX, recalling the session she had before the special aired. “And you’re like, ‘Yeah, for sure.’ And then you process it for like a month or two and then you’re like, ‘I thought of something funny about it. I’ve got to try it.’”
Medical degrees aside, we’d argue hearing Tomlinson riff on everything from her mom’s untimely passing to being ghosted by a suicide hotline operator is, actually, therapeutic. It’s certainly funny – sometimes even painfully relatable, which is what’s always made Tomlinson’s comedy so compelling.
In 2020, the then-25-year-old was offering up sharp, insightful commentary on surviving a Quarter-Life Crisis in her first Netflix special. Now, two years later, her comedy’s grown. Her material is a bit more morbid, sure, but it’s also refined, armed with the kind of self-reflection and ability to package the pain and heartbreak of life into quippy punchlines and sarcastic one-liners that comedians twice her age are still struggling to perfect.
We chatted with Tomlinson about her new special, focusing her storytelling on her own mental health journey, and the science behind making six minutes’ worth of dead mom jokes work on-stage.
You got your start in the Christian comedy circuit. I feel like I should’ve known there was a Christina comedy circuit.
Oh, there’s no reason you should know that. I grew up really religious and I didn’t know. I only found out because I took a standup class in high school from a church comedian.
What was the turning point, then? The moment you realized you wanted to do a different kind of comedy?
[It was] very gradual. I was probably 22 when I started going, “I feel pretty confident that I don’t subscribe to this belief system anymore. And I don’t want to be dishonest about being a Christian or something.” Because I think if you do those shows, you’re telling those venues that’s what you are and what you believe. And I just wasn’t that person anymore. I wanted to talk about other things.
Right. Like d*cks. You can’t really joke about d*ck at the pew pit.
[laughs] No, they don’t like it. It’s so strange. You can’t even be like, ‘God made d*cks.’ He did, but we don’t mention that
You dive into the topic of mental health more than you’ve done before. Why did now feel like the right time for that?
It was just what was happening in my life. It wasn’t something I was holding onto necessarily. The jokes about losing a parent really young… that had been a subject that I had touched on before and didn’t feel I was mature enough as a performer to really get into it and sell it and make it funny. I hadn’t dealt with it enough. A lot of times you talk about something, and you haven’t dealt with it enough to make it funny and people can sense that. But as far as the mental health stuff, that was stuff I was experiencing in real-time and that’s just how I write — coming from a place of what’s actually happening to me. It was just like, “This is what I’ve got. This is who I am right now.’”
Comedians are natural storytellers, but I think we forget that the stories you guys are telling are from your own life and they can be really painful and you’re just really good at repackaging them for laughs. Is that process therapeutic for you, or is it draining?
It was pretty draining, to be honest. As soon as we filmed the special, I started switching in newer jokes and the first ones I dropped were the ones about my mom and the suicidal thoughts bit because I was like, “Okay, doing this every single night, it’s just a lot.” It’s a lot of yourself to put out there to strangers. Touring is also just exhausting on its own. So, I think emotionally and physically, I was a little drained and exhausted. I think this next one, this next hour of material will hopefully be a lot lighter. Hopefully relatable and whatnot, but not so heavy.
I used to think that if you were doing jokes on stage, it meant you were fine with whatever happened. But then you get back into actual therapy and you’re like, “Oh no, that’s not really true. It’s just you trying to make it seem better.”
Was there a joke you were surprised by the reaction to in this special?
I worked really hard to get that suicide hotline joke to work. I don’t remember how soon after I started doing that joke, but I did need some distance between it for sure. Because I think the first couple of times I tried it, it was like too fresh or something.
You hadn’t fully processed it yet?
That was my personal experience. I remember waiting for them to call me back. And they didn’t and that genuinely made me laugh. It did weirdly help. If I hadn’t had a super dark sense of humor, that would not have been helpful, but I do. So, I was like, this is objectively very, very funny
But I think I was surprised that I got it to work. Because for a while I was like, “I think it’s funny, but it’s not going to work.” And I felt that way about a lot of stuff. I felt that way about the mom stuff for a while where I was like, “This just might not work, but I think I can get it there.” That’s why you run stuff into the ground on tour in a bunch of different cities so that you can know for a fact that it’s going to work with most people.
Are you intentional about where you place jokes within the hour? Are you sandwiching the heavier stuff in between lighter jokes?
Yeah, I definitely did that with that six-minute chunk of dead mom jokes. It’s like, if you really look at it, it’s not six minutes about my dead mom. There are d*ck jokes in there and the Taylor Swift joke. There’s other stuff that was strategically placed in there to help it. There’s the whole sit-down thing I do where I’m like, “It’s not going to feel long because I’ve cushioned it.” I remember that took a while to get people to laugh at because it is so morbid. But the second half of that joke basically started out as save lines to make up for this heavy thing that I really wanted to say.
Some of your peers have talked about how you’re really good at living your life and narrating it almost simultaneously. Are you constantly measuring your experiences for potential material?
Yeah, I think your brain just works like that as a comedian. This is probably unhealthy, but when you’re doing things, there’s a little part of your brain going, “Is this something?” Which is probably not the best way to be present. So, whenever you are truly present, it’s beautiful and a miracle. But yeah, I think that I’m still working on that balance of trying to live my life and have things to say.
Are there other comedians whose work feels similar to yours that you admire?
Yeah, [Tig] Notaro doing that set about having cancer. That was when I was, I don’t know, 18? I thought that was so cool. And that’s such a raw set too. I don’t think it was planned. But mental health is much less taboo now to talk about. Everybody’s obsessed with Bo Burnham’s Inside. People who didn’t even think they had struggles with mental health, I think the pandemic… If it didn’t reveal to you that you had work to do on yourself or certain aspects of your mental health that could use some support, I think you at least became more empathetic towards people who do have mental health issues normally, because everybody was anxious and depressed. Some people for the first time in their life.
The goal of storytelling is to make someone feel something. Is that goal the same for comedy? Or is it more about making you confront the things you’re already feeling?
I guess you could say it’s to confront the things you’re already feeling because you’re trying to say things that are relatable to people. Even if it’s not confronting some difficult feeling they have, if it’s just like, “Oh my God, that’s how I feel too.” But then also, there are comedians who change the way people think about stuff. So, I think it just really depends on your material. Because sometimes you’ll do a set that skews one way thematically and then you’ll do one that’s completely different. My goal to have my next hour be a lot lighter is a good example of that. The next hour you’re like, “Okay, this is what I want to talk about and this is who I want it to resonate with. And this is what I want to spend my time going on about it and finding out what’s already funny to people and all that.”
But I think all anybody really wants is for people to think it’s funny and laugh.
Taylor Tomlinson’s ‘Look At You’ comedy special is available to stream now on Netflix.