How Iliza Shlesinger Defies Expectations With ‘Tall Energy’ and Comedy Math
Questioning the status quo has long helped the performer navigate her career as a woman in stand-up.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images for Bob Woodruff Fo
Iliza Shlesinger is sick of people’s expectations.
Speaking on this week’s episode of the The Daily Beast Podcast, the comedian shared insight into how women in entertainment are so often held to unrealistic standards. Someone once called her difficult because she asked them to pronounce her last name correctly, she told co-hosts Samantha Bee and Joanna Coles.
People are even upset by her height.
“People are endlessly disappointed that I’m not taller. Perhaps I give off a tall energy,” she joked. “But then I feel bad, I’m like ‘I’m sorry.‘”
Shlesinger said that you’re “deemed all of these things” if you’re a woman doing a job on your own terms.
“As a strong, intelligent woman who is not a bitch, you just want to get it done,” she said. “But a regular person might look at that and be like ‘well, she wasn’t smiling one hundred percent‘...‘she didn’t say please.‘”
Shlesinger started her entertainment journey early. In 2008 she became the first and youngest (at 25) female winner of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Nearly two decades later and she’s well, still standing. And standing on business.
Over that time, she explained, she’s learned there really is a “metaphysical math” to comedy— the “almost mathematical art to inflection and intonation and the way that you’re speaking and to whom you’re speaking. Like knowing your audience and when to make certain jokes and not... to ride the energy waves.”
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To hear more about Shlesinger’s trials and tribulations—but also her big wins and best punchlines—as a woman in comedy, listen to this week’s episode in full.
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