I once was having dinner with an old friend back when I was on SNL. Baby Mama was coming out and I was in the middle of one of those weird press pushes where your face is on taxis and you are doing talk shows all the time. My friend, who was as funny and talented as me but chose not to be an actor, was talking about how he was seeing my face everywhere. He went on and on about how weird that was. He pointed out that people were really starting to know my name and asked me if I “could believe it.” “Yes,” I said. I had worked for over a decade to get to this moment. I hadn’t just dropped my script into someone’s lap on a train. “Can you?” I asked him.
But I was lucky. Your career and your passion don’t always match up. Plenty of talented people don’t have the careers they want. Plenty of untalented people make millions and make movies. There is a difference between determination and talent. Hard work doesn’t always matter. You can be the best at making contacts and going after jobs, but then suddenly you want it too much. Suddenly everybody feels how bad you want it and they don’t want to give it to you. Even at six years old Archie is learning to stop paying attention to the toy he wants. He knows that if he lets on how bad he wants it his four-year-old brother will snatch that shizz up in a hot second. Pretending to not want something can work. Really not caring if you get it takes a lifetime of practice.
I guess the Buddhists would call this idea healthy detachment. Too often we are told to visualize what we want and cut out pictures of it and repeat it like a mantra over and over again. Books and magazines tell us to create vision boards. Late-night commercials remind us that “anything is possible.” Positive affirmations are written on our tea bags. I am introducing a new idea. Try to care less. Practice ambivalence. Learn to let go of wanting it. Treat your career like a bad boyfriend.
Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It’s never going to leave its wife. Your career is fucking other people and everyone knows but you.
Your career will never marry you.
Now, before I extend this metaphor, let me make a distinction between career and creativity. Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you that drives you. That joy that comes when you do something you love. That small voice that tells you, “I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.” That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us feel less alone in the world. Your creativity is not a bad boyfriend. It is a really warm older Hispanic lady who has a beautiful laugh and loves to hug. If you are even a little bit nice to her she will make you feel great and maybe cook you delicious food.
Career is different. Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. Career is something that fools you into thinking you are in control and then takes pleasure in reminding you that you aren’t. Career is the thing that will not fill you up and never make you truly whole. Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.
I was on a panel once with the genius writer David Simon. I think The Wire is the best-written show in recent memory. I have watched each episode of all five seasons twice. For Mother’s Day one year, Aziz Ansari got me a signed and framed picture of Omar Little with the inscription “Amy, You come at the King You Best Not Miss. Omar.”
Next to my children and my blood diamonds this is the only thing I would grab in a fire. A nice young person stood up at the panel and asked David and me how we found the “courage” to do what we do. We both bristled a bit at the idea of our work being “courageous.” We both admitted that we often think about how if everything went away tomorrow we would still have a trade and a skill to depend on. He could go back to reporting, a career he started in, and I could go teach improvisation at the UCB theater or choreograph dance for child pageants. (A path I am interested in pursuing at a later date.) Either way, we both agreed that ambivalence is key to success.
I will say it again. Ambivalence is key.
You have to care about your work but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.
I realize this is extremely difficult. I am not saying I am particularly good at it. I’m like you. Or maybe you’re better at this than I am.
You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, “I made it!” You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other. Our ego is a monster that loves to sit at the head of the table, and I have learned that my ego is just as rude and loud and hungry as everyone else’s. It doesn’t matter how much you get; you are left wanting more. Success is filled with MSG.
Ambivalence can help tame the beast. Remember, your career is a bad boyfriend. It likes it when you don’t depend on it. It will reward you every time you don’t act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you. If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else.
partner in crime
TINA FEY IS MY COMEDY WIFE. I have known her for almost a double decade. We met each other when we were poor and single. Now we are both rich as shit and have husbands all over the world. People think of us as a “comedy team” and I am not quick to correct them. Why wouldn’t I want to connect myself to the fiercest and most talented voice in the comedy world?
I am mistaken for Tina all the time. I recently renewed my license at the DMV and the African American woman asked me to do my Sarah Palin. She was confused and perhaps racist, but it only made me happy. I’m happy that people call me Tina because she is my friend and she happens to be crushing it.
Tina helped me get on Saturday Night Live and asked me to join her on “Update” as one of the first two women coanchors. It was as fun as it looked. We have performed in front of our parents and the whole world, and each time we’ve looked at each other and laughed at what we get to do. Tina reminds me of how far I have come. She knew me when. When we are together I feel strong and powerful. Maybe too powerful. (I tend to show off and run my mouth a little bit.)
We don’t compete against each other, we compete against ourselves.
Often there is only one other person in the world who understands the very specific thing I am dealing with, and it’s Tina. Well, Tina and Judge Judy, actually, but I only have Tina’s phone number. It is intense to have little kids and a television show and be a woman in general, and I am lucky to have someone to walk through this weird life with.
Tina shows her love for you by writing for you. I can’t tell you how many times she wrote something special and wonderful for me. Most of my memories of her at SNL involve Tina sitting at her computer, working on something for someone else. Tina wrote a lovely chapter about me in her book, and boy have I dined out on that for a while. In an attempt to return the favor, I will honor Tina with an acrostic poem, arguably the laziest form of writing.
i’m so proud of you
ONCE A WOMAN TURNS FORTY SHE HAS TO START DEALING WITH TWO THINGS: YOUNGER MEN TELLING HER THEY ARE PROUD OF HER AND OLDER MEN LETTING HER KNOW THEY WOULD HAVE SEX WITH HER. Both of these things are supposed to be compliments but can often end up making this particular woman angry. I don’t think a man who is fifteen years younger than me should tell me he is proud of me unless he is my sober coach or my time-travel dad. Older men can be sexy and powerful, but when a thrice-divorced entertainment attorney puts his bony hand on my knee, I want to whisper in his ear, “You’re crazy, old man.”
I’m not sure if you have heard abo
ut this new theory that men and women are different, but it’s really starting to catch on. Most of my life has been spent in a room full of men, and I have learned the different ways they communicate. I find that, in general, the amount of sharing men do with each other in one year is about the same as what I share with my female friends while we wait for our cars at the valet. I was once part of an Asssscat show that included a young comedian doing monologues. In one of his stories he briefly mentioned his failed marriage. After the show, the comedian, ten other guys, and I were all hanging out in the greenroom drinking beers. This ratio is not uncommon in comedy. If you’re a woman, you are often the only one, or one of two, in a room full of men. This is certainly the case in most writers’ rooms, except for SNL and Parks and Rec, which both had more women writers than many other shows because Seth Meyers and Mike Schur (the head writers on each of these shows, respectively) are real men who love women. Anyway, back to the greenroom. One guy said to the comedian, “Hey, I didn’t know you used to be married.” The comedian said, “Yeah.” Another guy said, “Huh.” The comedian said, “Yeah.” There was a moment of silence and then the comedian breathed deep and said, “Thanks for letting me talk about it, guys.” He actually felt like he had shared something. This is how men talk to each other. It’s amazing to see up close.
On the other hand, men are sometimes wildly inappropriate in the way they share with women. By a show of hands, how many of you have seen a strange penis on the street? On the subway? At a sleepover? I was once walking with my friend Keri in the middle of the day and some guy asked us for the time. When we looked down at our watches, his dick was in his hands. We giggled and screamed and ran away. We were probably ten. I have been really drunk in high school and had a guy try to fool around with me. I have been called a bitch and a lesbian when I rejected a guy in college. I have locked eyes with various subway masturbators. I have been mugged but not raped, pushed and spit on by someone I knew, and forced to pull over in a road-rage incident where a man stuck his head into my car and told me he was going to “cum in my face.” And I count myself very lucky. That is what “very lucky” feels like. Oof.
Many women, and even some men, have their own version of how they have been lucky or unlucky. It can make it hard not to be on high alert for people using power to manipulate you. Which leads me to this story. I share it because it’s an example of a shady use of power and how I attempted to push back. Also, it is a story that shows no matter where or who you are, it can sometimes be hard to get a creep to stop hugging you.
I was asked to perform at an event honoring someone. I had worked on my bit and was excited to be a part of a special night for this person whom I admire. Usually, leading up to an event you are asked to run your ideas past some producers. I have learned that with these events I need to conserve the amount of real estate I let people take up in my heart and brain. Most people like to talk about things too much and too often, especially producers. When you are dealing with nervous producers hoping for a great show, you can be asked to take on their energy and be responsible for their feelings. I try to combat this by ignoring e-mails and hoping the whole situation just goes away. When that doesn’t work I spend an hour or so getting angry at myself for saying yes to the thing in the first place when I am much too busy! I am so busy! Why won’t people understand that! After I have stomped around a bit more I usually call or e-mail the producer late in the game and speak as vaguely and as quickly as I can.
So I talked to the producers about my speech (briefly; see above) and prepared to head to the event. I was ushered in to do a little rehearsal. It all went well. We went over my bit, and it got a bunch of laughs. The producer was a pleasant older gentleman in his sixties who thanked me for joining and assured me I would be in great hands. I cursed myself for having been so grumpy with the production team.
Right before I walked out onstage for the actual performance, the sound guy made some last-minute adjustments to my microphone. Then I walked out and started my section. My bit went fine. I would give it a B-minus. I’m at the point in my life now where delivering a B-minus performance on a televised show with some of my comedy heroes doesn’t ruin my week. I don’t know if that is the most inspiring or most depressing sentence I have ever typed, but there you have it. But right as I was building to the climax, the lights went down too early and I was cut off from delivering the ending that I was excited about and that had gone so well in rehearsal. At SNL we always wished for bad rehearsals. There was nothing worse than performing live and waiting for the laugh that came in rehearsals, and never getting it. I coined it “phantom laugh syndrome.” A hot dress audience was met with some head shaking because usually there was nowhere to go but down. My hot dress had morphed into me not really delivering and being cut off too early. I semi-stormed offstage and headed right into the path of one of the producers.
“Great job,” he said.
“You guys missed my cue,” I said.
“No one noticed.”
“I did.”
“Relax, it was great.”
“Relax” is a real tough one for me. Another tough one is “smile.” “Smile” doesn’t really work either. Telling me to relax or smile when I’m angry is like bringing a birthday cake into an ape sanctuary. You’re just asking to get your nose and genitals bitten off.
“This is the part where you apologize to me,” I said, getting angry. “You guys screwed up and this is where you make me feel better about it.”
I like to use this tactic on people. It can work. When someone is being rude, abusing their power, or not respecting you, just call them out in a really obvious way. Say, “I can’t understand why you are being rude because you are the concierge and this is the part of the evening where the concierge helps me.” Act like they are an actor who has forgotten what part they are playing. It brings the attention back to them and gives you a minute to calm down so you don’t do something silly like burst into tears or break their stupid fucking glasses. Not that there is anything wrong with crying. It was Marlo Thomas and the Free to Be . . . You and Me gang who reminded us that “crying gets the sad out.” It’s just that sometimes anger should just stay anger and tears can change anger to something else. However, if you do start crying in an argument and someone asks why, you can always say, “I’m just crying because of how wrong you are.”
So, I tell this producer to apologize to me and he kind of slinks away like “Yeesh, she’s a handful.” Luckily, that doesn’t bother me the way it used to. That kind of feeling would have been hard to hold in my heart and stomach when I was in my twenties. It was hard to feel like somebody didn’t like me. It felt like such a failure. I don’t care as much now. It’s really great. It’s like I can finally eat spicy food without the gut ache later, or something similar. I have a stomach for other people not stomaching me. Or at least I am working on it.
I stomped upstairs and felt angry for about five minutes, and then I watched the anger travel through my body like a wave and leave. Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won’t rain forever. You just have to sit down and watch it pour outside and then peek your head out when it looks dry. I had all but gotten over the whole thing when I heard a gentle knocking on my dressing room door.
“Amy, can I talk to you?”
“He’s coming to apologize,” I thought. I instantly decided I was not upset. Not only that, I decided I was going to let him off the hook easy. I just wanted to go watch the rest of the show and have a drink and celebrate, so I opened the door with relaxed shoulders and a genuine smile of reconciliation. He came in and sat down without asking if that was okay with me. I noticed this.
“We have a problem.”
“Oh?”
“Your audio wasn’t good. Your mic wasn’t working correctly.”
“Oh.”
So now I realized not only was he not coming to apologize, he was there to deliver more bad news. I practiced a few things I have learned from my thera
pist and other badass business bitches. I sat back. Actually, I leaned back. I thought about my second book, which will be a bestseller coauthored with Sheryl Sandberg titled Lean Back. I uncrossed my legs and I made eye contact. I immediately decided this was not my problem, and the relief of that decision spread across my chest like hot cocoa. Too often we women try to tackle chaos that is not ours to fix.
“Well, that is disappointing,” I said.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
I practiced another new thing I’ve learned. I just sat there quietly. It was so hard. I once sat next to Christopher Walken as we were rehearsing a sketch for SNL. I had tried small talk with him a few times, and he was extremely pleasant, but I just felt like I was bothering him. So as an experiment I tried to just sit next to him and be quiet. It was excruciating. I think I lasted for three minutes and then I had to pretend to read a bag of chips. Not talking can be hard for me. But I tried it.
“Hmm,” I said. (I know, I know, I was technically talking.)
“Would you do it again? Without an audience? So we could make sure we have it for the broadcast?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, quietly but firmly.
“Well, I just don’t know what to do,” he said.
I sat in silence. I’m doing good so far, right?
“Maybe I can do ADR if you need it,” I said. ADR is recording audio over a taped piece. Notice what I am doing? I am starting to offer ways to fix it even though a minute ago I felt great reminding myself it wasn’t my problem to fix.
“That would be great,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to do it again, just so we can be sure we have it?”