It’s no exaggeration to call Taylor Tomlinson a genius. In her twenties, she became one of the highest-grossing touring stars, and was chosen to host a late-night show (a CBS late-night effort). After midnight) and developed her own material more than many of her peers do over the course of their lives. It helps that she was fully committed to the path by the age of sixteen, initially performing as a Christian comedian.
“I’m 32 now, and I’ve been doing this half my life,” Tomlinson says. “It’s crazy to think about.”
In the decade since Tomlinson left the church circuit — and the church — her relationship with religious subjects has waxed and waned. But it’s shown in its entirety in its fourth hour on Netflix, The prodigal daughterwhich premiered on February 24 on the streamer. She even photographed him in church. But like almost everything about Tomlinson, her view on the subject has evolved.
“When I go back and look at the old jokes I made about Christianity, I think they’re pretty unforgiving compared to this hour,” she says. “This comes from a more nuanced, playful and even compassionate place.”
Speaking during the latest episode of Hollywood Reporter Podcast I have a ring (Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple) Tomlinson became immersed in her new watch, making the difficult decision to step away from the late-night gig she loved and the artist she was trading places with for a day. (It’s not Beyoncé — and for a very clever reason.)
There’s a moment early on The prodigal daughter You say your team was nervous because you were leaning too much into the religious material on this particular tour. Were there legitimate concerns? If so, what is it?
My team never gave me feedback creatively. So this is a bit of an exaggeration. When we were doing like the name of the tour, Save Me, and the artwork for the tour where I’m wearing crosses and stuff, I think they were like, “Okay, okay, can we show people that it’s not all that? And that we’re not just attacking religion all the time?” We’re not, but I understand. When they saw the Hour, they attained it. Their job is to think about it from a marketing perspective. So they were doing their job. If you go back and watch my other specials, you’ll find that all my jokes about religion come from a very hurt place because of the way I was raised. I had a lot of resentment toward a lot of the things I was told and taught while growing up in the church. I had to work through a lot of that.
It is known that you started your comedy career in church. What little I know is that those comics are mostly white, middle-aged married men. You were 16 years old. What does this group look like?
Honestly, it doesn’t look great. (Laughs.) There seem to be a lot of jokes about not going to prom and being a loser and feeling ugly and observant things about my family. Obviously I had no life experience. A lot of the jokes I used to do were apologies for being young, because I felt like it made people nervous about me in the audience – which I think is totally fair. I’d be nervous if a 16-year-old walked up to the stage and said, “I’m a comedian.” I think I was very self-conscious and maybe that was my strength at the time, but obviously I wasn’t very good. People always ask about initiation into churches, because it’s a weird origin story, and for years I was embarrassed by it. Part of growing in this new hour is that I talk about it in a way that feels grateful and appreciative instead of ashamed and embarrassed.
But how many of your peers can say they were performing when they were 16? It’s not like you have much choice about where to do it. I imagine it’s just churches and cafes.
One hundred percent. I was doing school fundraisers and stuff. I probably did some company, because I was clean. Do you know what it taught me though? He taught me that there are many different ways to make money as a comedian. You don’t just have to be in clubs, but in theaters, if you’re lucky. You can be a comedian at a company, you can be a comedian at church. You can be a comedian on a cruise ship. Maybe working clean during the first five years made me a stronger writer. I used to be really ashamed of my comedy background, and now I think it’s actually weird and wonderful and probably did me a lot of favors.
Between churches, corporate parties, cruises, clubs and arenas, who is the most difficult or forgiving audience?
It depends on the company. You always assume you’re going to bomb, and sometimes it turns out great. Wow, I didn’t see that coming. You’re really just a hired dancing clown. Go figure it out. But if you pull it off, you’ll feel like a great comedian. I would say cruise ships are really hard, because everyone comes to see you for free. You are just another activity available on the boat.
You are a waterslide.
exactly. And you’re not as good as a waterslide. Most people were there with their families or on their anniversary, and I was a 21-year-old talking about how dating was weird. I usually did a lot of group work on cruise ships. The other comedian who’s going to be with me, he’s going to have an hour about this cruise ship. And I was like, man, I’m not good at this. I think that was the hardest for me. Churches, if you’re clean, they’re very beautiful, but you have to be absolutely clean. I’m not talking like, “Send your text to Tonight show And for them to agree to it.” I speak insanely clean: no innuendo, no mild insults, don’t be too dark or negative. But if you can stay within those parameters, the audience tends to be supportive.
I heard you say that it was hard to say goodbye to money when you were transitioning from working at church. At the risk of sounding stupid, what does a successful canon comedian do on the show?
I never got to the point where I was selling tickets at churches, so I don’t really know. But I can tell you, when I was 21 and I was opening a big church comic show, the show cost like $1,000. It was hard to lose. At one point, I told my manager that I could no longer do churches: “Just don’t tell me if we get offers.” The last thing she told me was $3000 for about 30 minutes. When you’re 22, you’ve got two TV credits and you’re not selling tickets, it’s pretty crazy. That’s a lot of money. But I couldn’t do it. I am not a Christian and I am not the person they think they are paying for.
When talking about personal matters on stage, regarding yourself or your friends and family, you have also noticed that your profile has risen significantly. Have you had to redraw any boundaries of where you’re willing to go or what you’re willing to reveal?
I don’t know if it was This Hour or “Get It All,” but there were some jokes I did — like a whole piece, eight minutes of jokes — that were about a relationship I had with someone in my family. They were doing really well, and I was proud of them. But I was afraid to tell them every night. I just thought, “You know what? I don’t need to do this.” I write my own script. It’s up to me what I say there. So, I just stopped and felt better immediately. When I was younger, you were so desperate for material that worked and so desperate to produce it, that if you wrote a strong joke that worked all the time… you said, “Okay, I’ll do it. I don’t have a choice. I have to do it.” As you get older and more confident as a comedian, you’re like, “Okay, [I’ll tell] Another thing. decent.”
I want to talk about it After midnight. I decided to go ahead and focus on standing. CBS then announced the show’s end. A few months later, CBS canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, declaring the end of Late Night as we know it. It’s a lot.
Isn’t that crazy? I couldn’t believe they canceled Colbert. I’m interested in your opinion about the late-night situation.
I realize that financially, it is a very difficult model to Work with him. But when there is still such a level of prestige and quality, this logic alone is a cop out. This is just my opinion.
It’s interesting how the argument is, “Nobody wants to watch people talk,” people watch hours of people talking on podcasts on YouTube and now on Netflix. I’ve made all these podcasts and they’re very interesting, too, because you go into some studio and it’s…it’s a TV show. They have a team of eight or nine people, 20 lights and a beautiful setup.
Back to After midnightCan you talk a little bit about that decision and those recent months?
It was difficult. I have decided that I cannot return before the offer is renewed. It was kind of a muddy timeline, because the decision had been made to renew – but I didn’t know that. So it wasn’t that simple, “They told us: ‘Your business will be renewed.'” I said, “No, thank you.” But that’s not what happened. This show was a lot of fun. Our writers room was amazing. They come up with many different games and jokes for many different people in each episode. I really couldn’t ask for a better group of people to go to work with every day and I was excited that I was in a position to be able to host her three days a week and then continue to tour. From the beginning, I always said, “If I can do both, I’ll do both.” I just got to a point where I was touring, I was doing press for the show, I was doing the show and I had some health issues. I can’t do both anymore. I really wanted them to hire someone else to host because I think there are a lot of comedians who would be absolutely great hosts for this show. And it’s unfortunate that they didn’t go in that direction, because in the two seasons that we did, we got to the format that CBS seemed to feel good about. It’s a completely different show to the one I signed up for, and I was really happy and proud of where we all got it. The hardest decision I’ve made professionally, so far, is not to return for a third season. But I couldn’t bear it.
What surprised me about the cancellation was that the format seemed like a practical late-night development. Group shows are less expensive and quite large in other countries, especially the UK
I thought so too. I’m really sad that it’s no longer there, because a lot of hard work went into it. It was a great opportunity for comics to get in front of a new audience, get TV credit, and tell jokes in a way that didn’t burn their material on stage. I’m really grateful to have been a part of it for this long. But when Colbert got cancelled, it was like, ‘Oh my God, really? How long would we have lasted if they were going to cancel Colbert?’
Okay, I’ll let you go, but if you could trade jobs with anyone in the entertainment industry for a day… who would it be and why?
Maybe Greta Gerwig because I want to know what she does with it Narnia. the Narnia Books were very important to us growing up. Maybe I was rambling and trying not to answer any questions. Is it like a Freaky Friday The thing – where I’m still me but in her body?
This is a good question. No, you switch yourself. Greta comes up to you and says, “Listen, I have to do some dental work. If you could direct for just one day, that would be great.”
I like when you say, “By the way, Greta Gerwig doesn’t want to trade places with you.” (He laughs.) I no longer exchange places with her. I fill in the space while you get a root canal.
You will stand up later in the day, after the effect of Novocaine has worn off.
I got it. Okay then [I pick] Greta Gerwig or like anyone who can sing. I just want to know what it’s like. But you don’t want to say Beyoncé. Everyone says Beyoncé. But then you have to live the rest of your life knowing what you feel and go back to being you. That could be devastating. This could destroy me.
