{"id":37841,"date":"2021-10-14T18:06:49","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T18:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=37841"},"modified":"2021-10-14T18:28:55","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T18:28:55","slug":"phoebe-robinson-sorry-harriet-tubman-hbo-max-interview","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/phoebe-robinson-sorry-harriet-tubman-hbo-max-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoebe Robinson on Her New Stand-Up Special and Building an Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Phoebe
Phoebe Robinson (Photo: Mindy Tucker\/HBO Max)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In her latest book, Please Don\u2019t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes<\/em>, Phoebe Robinson insists that 2020 was supposed to be her year<\/em>. Well, we all know how that turned out. But the comedian, author, actor, podcaster, producer and publisher is certainly making up for lost time in 2021. Along with the new collection of essays (her third since 2016), there was her Comedy Central show Doing the Most with Phoebe Robinson<\/em> on which she explored random skills and hobbies like archery and parenting with celebrity guests like Gabrielle Union<\/a> and Kevin Bacon. She also launched Tiny Reparations Books<\/a>, a publishing imprint dedicated to diverse authors. And late last month Freeform announced<\/a> that she will executive producer, write and star in a series based on her second book Everything Is Trash, But It\u2019s Okay<\/em>.<\/p>\n

On top of all that, there\u2019s her first-ever solo stand-up special, I\u2019m Sorry, Harriet Tubman<\/em>, for HBO Max. In the hour-long set, Robinson gives us a crash course in what it was like quarantining with her British boyfriend and why Michelle Obama was responsible for the greatest night of her life. \u00a0On a recent Zoom call, GRAZIA<\/em> chatted with Robinson about returning to stand-up after a pandemic-induced break, building her Tiny Reparations empire, and why she\u2019s never doing a ropes course with Kevin Bacon ever again.<\/p>\n

So, wait, why do you owe Harriet Tubman an apology? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s just because of, you know, the subject matter of the special. I talk about dating my boyfriend and our sex life. So, I\u2019m just going, Harriet, I don\u2019t know if it was worth it for you to be so good at navigation if this is what I\u2019m doing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is your first-ever solo stand-up special. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s something you\u2019ve been kind of dreaming about since you started comedy. How does the reality compare to what you envisioned when you were starting out? <\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so exciting. I\u2019ve been doing stand-up for 13 years, and my goals were to do a set on Letterman<\/em>, but I think I started too late to do that; to have a half-hour Comedy Central special — didn\u2019t get that. And then to have a one-hour HBO special. And, you know, I\u2019m in the same category as Bill Burr, Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho and all those folks. So, it feels surreal and it feels really exciting and I\u2019m just sort of like, I did it! I can\u2019t believe I did it<\/em>!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Phoebe Robinson (Photo: Mindy Tucker\/HBO Max)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What was it like getting back onstage and doing comedy in front of an audience again after, what, 18 months?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I stopped doing stand-up around the end of February 2020. And then, my run-up tour to the special started June of this year. So, what\u2019s that? Like 15 months? That\u2019s a significant amount of time, and I think up until that point, the longest I\u2019d ever gone without doing stand-up was, like, over Christmas holidays. So, maybe two weeks. So, I didn\u2019t realize until I had the time off just how much I needed a break from the hustle and grind of 13 years of doing stand-up. And when I got back to it, it was just really nice because everyone was excited to leave their houses again and have fun. I think everyone is just in the mood to laugh and have a good time. I think I came back to audiences that were phenomenal and really game. I think a lot of comics are the same, we lucked out to have a community that was so amped to have fun again.<\/p>\n

I guess every stand-up set is a time capsule of that moment in which it was performed. But with a special like this, obviously it will live on. When you were putting together your set for Harriet Tubman<\/em>, how did you think about balancing speaking to this very specific<\/em> 2021 moment and performing jokes that would stand the test of time? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I started working on this set\u2026probably in 2018, because I was supposed to originally shoot the special in 2020 at the Vic Theater. And, obviously, COVID made that not happen. So, I had been working on the set for a while between Doing the Most<\/em> and working on other projects. So, for me, the special was never something that was going to be born out of COVID. I just wanted to have sort of evergreen material. And, of course, coming out of quarantine, I wanted to just update it a little bit and make sure that there\u2019s some stuff that feels still timely, but is not too tied to the COVID of it all.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve also just published your third book. I\u2019m curious about your writing process. How do you decide which subjects and jokes are right for an essay and which go into a stand-up set? <\/strong><\/p>\n

With stand-up, you\u2019re just more aware of the rhythm. You want to make sure there are enough beats where people are laughing every 20 seconds or whatever your standard is for however many laughs you want. Whereas with a book, it\u2019s just sort of like, Can I dig deep and go off on tangents and play with levels and emotions? <\/em>So, that really determines what goes where.<\/p>\n

\"<i>Please
Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes<\/i> (Image: courtesy of Penguin Random House)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So much of the press around your new book is about you being a boss. But the chapter of the book about your Tiny Reparations empire makes it seem like you\u2019re a little ambivalent about the role. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s necessarily that I\u2019m ambivalent about it. But I think there\u2019s just two sides of me. One side is really hard-working, has a strong work ethic, and really likes to create. And then there\u2019s the other side of me that really just wants to lay in bed and watch Real Housewives of Potomac<\/em>. I think everyone contains that level of duality when it comes to certain things. So, for me it\u2019s sort of trying to just acknowledge that, yes, I\u2019m going to be exhausted a lot, but also reprioritizing things to the point where I\u2019m not just constantly working all the time and not enjoying my live or resting. I really do enjoy being a leader and collaborating with others. It definitely can be stressful sometimes, like anyone running their own business. But I\u2019m so proud of the work that myself and my employees are doing. Every time we developed a show and it didn\u2019t get greenlit or it didn\u2019t sell — all those nos, and then we get the yes for my TV show Everything\u2019s Trash<\/em>. You just sort of go, Ok, all the hard work is paying off<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re also adapting your second book, Everything Is Trash, But It\u2019s Okay<\/em>, as a sit-com. What\u2019s it like adapting an essay collection into a narrative show? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m really excited. We start the writers room soon, and so I think what\u2019s great about having the book is we can pull storylines and beats from it and really expand it and fictionalize things, and really just have a great foundation for the show for us to work off of. So, I\u2019m really excited about this process. This is the first time I\u2019m adapting something to TV, so I\u2019m gonna be learning as I go. But I\u2019m in really good hands. Freeform is super supportive, so I can\u2019t think of a better place to make my TV dreams come true.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re starring in the show, and I assume you\u2019re playing a fictional version of yourself. Obviously, as a stand-up, you perform a version of yourself as well. But I wanted to know what it\u2019s like for you to turn yourself into a fictional character. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how it is for other people, but for me, this is fun. I get to play. We all call her \u201cTV Phoebe,\u201d and so we just kinda know that we can have fun and extrapolate on certain things and it\u2019s not really related to me. So, it kind of allows me to live, maybe, a more hectic version than who I really am. I\u2019m looking forward to it. I\u2019m sure I will probably, like in Season 2 or Season 3, be like, I wish I didn\u2019t name her after me so there could be a little more separation\u2026<\/em> [Laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Did you stick with any of the hobbies you learned on Doing the Most<\/em>? <\/strong><\/p>\n

[Laughs<\/em>] Outside of doing a little bit of baking, that\u2019s kind of the only one. The Kevin Bacon episode with the high ropes course — I was already terrified of heights, and so after we shot that, I was like, \u201cI absolutely will not do anything scary like that again.\u201d It was just too much. I was like, \u201cIt\u2019ll be so funny, I\u2019ll just be scared a little bit.\u201d And then I was scared a lot! [Laughs<\/em>] I was like, Whoops!<\/em><\/p>\n

But, I see Whitney Cummings from time to time, so next time I\u2019m in LA I wanna go back to that barn and ride her horse again. Because that was really cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29097,"featured_media":37838,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,16],"yoast_head":"\nPhoebe Robinson on Her New Stand-Up Special and Building an Empire - Grazia USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Phoebe Robinson talks about returning to stand-up after a pandemic-induced break with her HBO Max special 'I'm Sorry, Harriet Tubman.'\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/phoebe-robinson-sorry-harriet-tubman-hbo-max-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Phoebe Robinson on Her New Stand-Up Special and Building an Empire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Phoebe Robinson talks about returning to stand-up after a pandemic-induced break with her HBO Max special 'I'm Sorry, Harriet Tubman.'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/phoebe-robinson-sorry-harriet-tubman-hbo-max-interview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Grazia USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-14T18:28:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2021\/10\/Mindy-TuckerHBO-Max.jpg?resize=1024,683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/phoebe-robinson-sorry-harriet-tubman-hbo-max-interview\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/phoebe-robinson-sorry-harriet-tubman-hbo-max-interview\/\",\"name\":\"Phoebe Robinson on Her New Stand-Up Special and Building an Empire - 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