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“We come collectively tonight with a standard aim.”
To the comic Nikki Glaser, this was a fantastic premise seeking a greater punchline.
Over Zoom, three days after nominations for the Golden Globes have been introduced final month, she invited concepts from her workers of 10 writers for the opening monologue that she is going to ship because the host on Sunday. She and the writers have been additionally collectively for a standard aim, discovering one thing funnier than: “To get out of right here earlier than Dax Shepard requested you to do his podcast.”
Glaser, 40, seated cross-legged in black pants on her sofa in West Hollywood, favored the joke however thought it was too wordy. And possibly, she mentioned, it might be harsher. One author, Sean O’Connor, recommended: “Getting out with out having a dialog with Jesse Eisenberg.”
She smiled and mentioned they might assume extra out of the field.
“Leave earlier than Harrison Ford snaps at you.”
“Getting Ted Sarandos’s private quantity.”
“See if they will parlay a Golden Globes win into an look on ‘Hot Ones.’”
Glaser thought of every punchline politely, patiently responding to each one. She described this because the honeymoon interval: Every joke appeared enjoyable and new. She advised the group they have been on tempo to make a fantastic set. When she turned an thought down, she tended to do it with reward. (“Really good thought however …”) The writers’ room slogan might have been: Making imply jokes properly.
Riding excessive after her acclaimed efficiency on the Tom Brady roast was streamed dwell on Netflix in May, Glaser is transitioning from star comedian to go of a comedy operation. “Nikki World,” one author referred to as it.
As she defined, “I used to really feel like I would like a hand in each joke I inform, however I now know that a part of my expertise is curating and realizing what works with my supply.”
I spent near a month in Nikki World, observing how her workforce develops and hones an awards present monologue. Later, she spelled out to me how she anticipated the month earlier than the ceremony to go: She would do the set in golf equipment each night time a number of occasions, shed a couple of tears, get bored along with her jokes, worsen at delivering them, after which a couple of days earlier than the Globes, have a panic assault. “I do know myself,” she mentioned. That prediction wasn’t solely borne out (no tears), however she was shut.
What remained constant all through was Glaser’s cussed dedication to excessive requirements in getting laughs. “We have 5 actually good jokes,” she advised her workers earlier than a slight deepening of her voice and the acquainted pivot of a veteran comedian: “Aim to beat all of them.”
Glaser’s lodestars are Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who collectively hosted the Golden Globes 4 occasions. When in a rut, she binges Fey’s sitcom “30 Rock.”
“Last night time Chris and I acquired in an enormous struggle after which watched Tina and Amy’s monologues once more,” she advised her workers, referring to her producer and boyfriend, Chris Convy, who has been at her aspect all through the method. Their struggle was over whether or not extra individuals would get a reference to “Call Her Daddy” or to Eisenberg.
Glaser suggested her writers to review these monologues and took a second to marvel at Fey’s beginning her 2015 Globes gig by saying: “Welcome, you bunch of despicable, spoiled, minimally gifted brats.”
“That’s the tone I like the place there’s an everyman facet,” she advised her writers. Smiling, she mirrored extra: “I couldn’t go that onerous.”
That may shock some. This is the comic whose Tom Brady roast set was so pointed that it made a quarterback who had taken punishing hits for many years say these photographs damage sufficient that he wouldn’t do it once more. But Glaser, a self-aware veteran of golf equipment, podcasts and late-night speak reveals, is extremely alert not simply to the room but additionally to her place in it. She wouldn’t make the error Jo Koy did internet hosting final 12 months’s Globes when he didn’t take his writers’ recommendation to begin with a self-deprecating introduction, then blamed them for bombing. He acted as if he was performing for his followers versus the celeb crowd and the broader tv viewers.
Glaser mentioned Fey acquired away with that “minimally gifted” insult as a result of it was her third internet hosting task and she or he had been a tv star for 15 years, a showrunner for many of them. She was speaking to friends. Glaser isn’t there — but.
The impediment course of awards present monologues entails navigating two very totally different audiences: the individuals watching at residence and the celebs within the room. Some comics deal with one or the opposite, however Glaser mentioned it was crucial to “break up the distinction.”
She advised a joke about Diddy that killed at a membership however warned the group it won’t work on the Globes. Someone yelled: “Do it!”
“You promise you’ll nonetheless be hollering in your sofa when it dies within the room? I don’t assume you’ll,” she responded, explaining her ideas by telephone the subsequent day. “I don’t know if I’m savvy sufficient to look at a joke that bombs on TV and nonetheless go: That’s nonetheless a very good joke. It’s virtually extra vital that it will get amusing within the room than the substance of the joke itself. I want that weren’t true, however it’s.”
Glaser faces a showbiz paradox: She should ingratiate herself with the celebs in entrance of her, however the cause she was chosen for the job was that she had brutalized the celebs in entrance of her. “No one goes to do a greater roast set than that,” Conan O’Brien mentioned on his podcast after the Tom Brady occasion.
“I carried out a system for the roast,” Glaser defined, and that course of, Convy mentioned, is her blueprint. She meets every day with an interior circle of writers (O’Connor, Convy, Mike Gibbons and Brian Farange) to go over the set and three or 4 occasions every week with a bigger group of writers. Add a author’s assistant and publicists, and you’ve got a company with the size of a late-night present. “Anyone not doing that’s leaving success on the ground,” she mentioned. “I’m blissful to pay my complete paycheck to do this.”
Her aim now could be greater than killing. It’s to set the stage for future tasks collectively, together with awards reveals. “I need the vacation season to remind me of Golden Globe prep,” she mentioned. “I need the scent of holly and pine to remind me of writing.”
FIVE DAYS LATER, Convy was sitting at the back of the Comedy Cellar in Manhattan, watching Glaser take a look at new jokes about “Wicked.” Coming from doing press with hair styled and make-up on, she regarded rather more put collectively than your typical joke slinger. She held her telephone in a single hand as she went by the set at a fast tempo. “‘Wicked’ proved that we love musicals in regards to the origin story of a villain who wears lots of make-up,” she mentioned, including: “‘Joker 2’ proved that we additionally hate those self same kinds of musicals.”
A smattering of guffaws. Convy typed on his telephone: “Joker 2: Lukewarm.”
Afterward, Glaser sat down with Convy and two writers, and her tone instantly shifted from performative appeal to brass-tacks post-gaming. “The Zendaya joke wants extra,” she mentioned, taking a look at her telephone to remind her of jokes, sighing that the opening nonetheless wasn’t there. An Ozempic joke was higher than the response it obtained, Glaser insisted, blaming the best way she stumbled over a earlier line.
Glaser suggests a brand new solution to go at “Wicked” and the “Joker” sequel earlier than concluding, “It’s not humorous. It’s simply intelligent.”
Her emphasis is on pruning each little bit of extra. Farange, the author, had advised the workers to overwrite premises since you shouldn’t assume audiences know the small print of, say, the “Wicked” press tour. And O’Connor mentioned the writers had advised Glaser that she was well-known sufficient that folks would need to hear her communicate at size on topics, like Chris Rock does. But Glaser’s intuition is the other: To go fast and spare, enable jokes to go over heads so long as there’s a promise of one other one coming quickly after.
While rewatching Fey and Poehler made her take into account extra shout-outs to stars on the ceremony, she fearful that applause breaks would gradual her up. “It wastes time,” she concluded. Transitions are a pet peeve. “I don’t tolerate any info that doesn’t have a punchline connected,” she defined.
This emphasis applies to tangling with the group. “I don’t need to pause and say, ‘Can you imagine I went there?’” she mentioned with vocal fry to her writers. Then she said bluntly: “This ought to be a assured machine.”
Ever alert to the massive image, Convy saved the postgame transferring, asking about what was lacking. “Where are we on ‘Anora’?” he requested the desk, referring to one of many nominated motion pictures.
Looking down at her telephone, Glaser mentioned: “We’re ‘Anora’-ing it.” Convy turned to me and mentioned, “I need that joke off the report.”
ONE WEEK BEFORE THE CEREMONY, Glaser sounded assured, drained and slightly annoyed. She carried out the monologue each night time in December besides Christmas and one different day as a result of illness. “I can’t watch for this to be over,” she mentioned wearily.
The honeymoon was over. Asked if the present set beats the jokes on the writers’ room assembly in early December, she mentioned they have been 70 p.c higher.
The bit about “the frequent aim” was gone, then put again in with a wry punchline in regards to the aim being to get Kamala Harris elected president. But that stepped on one other line, so it was reduce once more. “The jokes are robust,” she mentioned, “however I’m feeling fatigue making an attempt to revive some areas that aren’t clicking.”
Foremost among the many bothersome spots have been the “Wicked” jokes. The “Wicked” and “Joker 2” traces had in some way made their means again in, however in a wholly new type. There have been two punchline choices: one succinct, the opposite verbose. There was a joke about Jeff Goldblum, a star of “Wicked,” not being a very good singer that she favored however that simply couldn’t get amusing. Glaser discovered this so maddening that she had stopped a present on the Ice House in Pasadena, Calif., and requested the group in the event that they knew him (applause) and in the event that they agreed he was a foul singer (extra applause). She conceded defeat.
Before we spoke, she had been on a 30-minute name devoted to pitching “Wicked” bits. She had a brand new opening joke she was pleased with, a fast one about Ozempic. But as the printed grew nearer and components have been trimmed, points aside from whether or not a line was humorous cropped up. Did she have too many jokes about being sexy? (Maybe.) Was the viewpoint on a number of the riskier jokes clear sufficient? She had simply rewatched a Steve Martin Oscar monologue and was impressed with how he had shoehorned so many names in. Did she must put extra stars in?
“Once we strip away my little jokes, like, am I doing a very good job of setting the stage for what an vital night time that is?” she requested. “And are we actually honoring these individuals and celebrating what this night time is all about?”
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON ON NEW YEAR’S DAY, after acting at 4 golf equipment the night time earlier than, Glaser sounded totally different than I had heard earlier than. She had been slicing chunks of the set and now there have been “circulate points.” The set wasn’t “singing,” she advised me by telephone. The similar day, the author Sean O’Connor, who accompanies her to her units, advised me that New Year’s Eve crowds get drunker and worse because it will get nearer to midnight.
Glaser was talking quicker and with extra doubt than she had allowed beforehand, alternating between anxiousness and defensive bluster. She was nonetheless questioning the viewpoint of some jokes. She was nonetheless going backwards and forwards in regards to the sexual jokes, counting the variety of references to her being sexy, feeling there have been too many, however now pondering she’s good at them, so it’s the proper quantity. And the “Wicked” jokes have been nonetheless fluid. Glaser was including to issues to obsess over. “Do we’ve too many jokes about pedophiles?” she questioned.
This wasn’t precisely the panic assault she had predicted. But Glaser mentioned she had carried out the jokes at golf equipment so typically (91 occasions earlier than the ceremony) that she might not inform in the event that they have been humorous. How might she? She knew each shock coming. She likened her relationship along with her materials to a wedding the place she’s not gaga anymore. The jokes have been dependable, certain, however a political one which all the time kills not too long ago bombed. That rattled her. “Maybe it bums individuals out,” she mentioned, sounding confused.
Then she mentioned possibly it was simply that the gig appeared like such an enormous deal, then virtually as if making an attempt to repair that, she contradicted herself, saying it wasn’t.
She had watched awards present monologues that had been forgotten, she mentioned, then added that she had standup dates lined up for subsequent 12 months, virtually as if she had labored previous the catastrophizing section into the moving-on one. Glaser then mentioned one thing that took me without warning: “There’s no means I’m going to bomb. There’s simply no means.”
Her set had killed so many occasions. She had put within the hours of labor. And from the primary writers’ assembly to the comedy golf equipment to each interview, Glaser had projected full confidence. But now she was permitting doubt to creep in. She imagined what would occur if she bombed. What if onerous work didn’t repay? Glaser mentioned she believes in manifesting so was uncomfortable with this line of thought. She doesn’t like to think about failure. Days away from her debut at a serious awards present, she sounded extra susceptible human than assured machine. At some level, speaking to her stopped feeling like an interview and extra like eavesdropping as Glaser let her interior voice spiral.
“The worst factor that would occur is that if I faint or have some sort of stroke,” she mentioned. “Those are my greatest worries, however the materials is there. There’s nothing within the set that I really feel is so offensive that it could tarnish any sort of alternatives or relationships with individuals. Not to say that I’m not going there or doing stuff that received’t make some headlines, however it’s simply, I simply really feel, I simply really feel assured.”
Confidence is a humorous factor. It can change not solely night time to nighttime, however second to second. When Glaser acquired in bother with hers, she returned to Fey and Poehler. When she watched their monologues, she observed the dedication, even to the silliest, most tossed-off-seeming thought. She mentioned she thought her jokes have been pretty much as good as those of their monologues. “What’s missing proper now that they’d was the consolation, the arrogance within the efficiency,” she mentioned.
What reassures her, she mentioned, is identical disaster that occurred earlier than the roast. She grew bored with her personal jokes. Just doing it for actual, the efficiency, saved her. “You need to pretend it at first slightly bit,” she mentioned of her enthusiasm for acquainted punchlines.
Glaser in contrast the sensation of the efficiency, the ultimate time you inform acquainted jokes, to the final time you speak to a boyfriend after a breakup. “Even although you might be bored with them, you get one thing again in that final goodbye since you are so within the second,” she mentioned, including with a hopeful lilt in her voice. “It’ll really feel new once more.”
