Margaret Cho returns to Denver with her new Mother Tour on October 18 at the Paramount Theater. In addition to the tour, Cho is also currently starring in the new season of Drop Dead Diva as Terri Lee as well as a new web-series called In Transition where she plays a woman recently released from prison. But wait, there's more! The hardest working woman in show bidness also has a podcast called Monsters of Talk and in her spare time serves as the go-to guest-host on The View.
I had a chance to chat with Ms. Cho recently and we talked about all of the above in addition to much, much more.
Drew: Hey Margaret, you've got a ton of stuff going on so let's just run right on down the list. The new season of Drop Dead Diva started
not too long ago, are you still enjoying that gig after all this time?
Margaret: Yeah, it’s been about five seasons and it’s very cool to be
able to go back and play a character after all this time. You really learn who
this person is and it’s very interesting.
What do you find interesting about your character?
I think she’s interestingly different, she’s fun and strong.
I personally have never worked in an office but I feel like I have worked
vicariously through her. She’s cool she’s really like the boss of everybody.
She controls everything and calls the shots even though she’s not the boss she
is a boss!
You're also doing a web-series called 'In Transition'. What can you tell me about that?
It's something I wanted to do with all my friends. I
wanted to do this thing where it was easy and I could just hang out with
people I enjoy and don’t get to see enough. A lot of them are from The Cho Show,which was my reality show years ago on VH1, and we just kind of made the series
so we could have fun together and also it’s funny and cool.
It's also kind of timely
with this Orange Is The New Black, prison-chic kind of moment in entertainment. Are you watching that?
I haven’t seen it but I loved the book. I’m saving it and
planning to watch the whole season all at once. I actually prefer to watch TV
like that and I think a lot of people do it nowadays. We just wait and watch
the whole thing at one time, which is fun.
Just hang up the Do
Not Disturb sign and disappear for a weekend?
Yeah! So cool.
I just found out that you have a podcast and I
happen to be in the market for some new podcasts to listen to. I will be subscribing directly after this interview.
Oh good! It’s really great, it's called Monsters of Talk and it's all different people we
interview. Recently we had Lady Bunny and Exene Cervenka. We went to a
furry convention which was cool. It runs the gamut of entertainment and social
stuff and people I run across. My co-host Jim Short it really funny. So we just
go everywhere and interview really cool people.
Margaret, how is it you’ve got
like 25 jobs and some people ain't got any? Seriously, I know a lot of people who are unemployed or
underemployed and it seems like you are someone with some serious insight into how to find work. How do you do it?
I think the key is to start doing a job before you get paid
for doing it. Find out what you really love doing. I spent a little bit of time
doing comedy before I got paid for it and then when I got paid for it became a
different thing. But I think with anything, there’s an investment in time where you have to make it more about the journey and the work and then
generally you get compensated after. It can’t be like; oh, I want to be rich. I
don’t think it ever works that way. It’s more like deciding 'I want to do this
particular job' and then finding out all the ways you can do it. And then just do it.
You know nothing is ever for sure and I’m definitely their temp
at the moment. I’m kind of on call for that. It’s a great thing, to go on that show. I say
that I wanted to be on it so much that I dressed up as Catwoman like Sean Young years ago when she wanted to be in Batman. It was funny. It’s a really great thing to be
able to do it whenever they ask me. I’d love that job permanently.
The Mother Tour comes to Denver October 18. Speaking on behalf of longtime fans, is
there anything left that we haven’t heard about your mother?
I think that there’s a lot of things left to joke about with
her. There’s also a lot to do with my own kind of struggles with aging and my own
idea about how old I am and how everybody kind of looks at me as a mother
figure.
There’s a period when you’re a woman in your 40s that everybody assumes
you’re a mom and that’s kind of an identity for me as well.
I have people who
call me 'mother' as well so there are a lot of different meanings to the name.
As a longtime LGBT advocate and member of the community, what
are your thoughts all of the recent changes and gains in terms of LGBT rights?
I don’t know exactly because it’s just so different all over. I live
in Georgia sometimes and I travel all over and I wonder what does it all means for
some of the more conservative states. I’m waiting to see how it plays out. I
don’t understand exactly how something like marriage is going to work since it’s not legal
everywhere. It’s definitely exciting. I’m curious about how it’s going to
affect everybody, federal or state-to-state, what does it all mean? It’s an exciting
time.
I’ve talked to you many times
over the years and what always strikes me is how different your
public persona is from your personality in these interviews. You're so
bombastic on stage but kind of quiet and soft-spoken
in person and in interviews as opposed to, say Kathy Griffin or Joe Rogan who seem, and I
could be wrong, the same onstage as they do in their personal lives. Do you see yourself in those terms?
I definitely know that I’ve had to develop a stronger
presence as a performer. When I started comedy I was so young and it
seemed to be an insurmountable thing. Succeeding at comedy seemed like such a
big task that I had to, um, be a sort of like, very strong, very forceful
performer. It’s not that I act different, it’s just sort of that being on stage
requires that iron will a bit. You just get very strong and unrelenting. I
don’t know if it’s a different persona or anything, I’m not sure.
I posted on my Facebook that I was going to be interviewing you and I asked my friends if they had any questions they wanted to ask you. Author Michael Thomas Ford wanted me to ask you if
you think the platypus is an example of intelligent design or a failure
of Coco Chanels’ warning to remove one accessory before leaving the house.
(Laughs) Well,
intelligent design is not so intelligent all the time so it would probably be
answer 'B', Coco Chanel.
And finally, what message do you have for readers of MileHighGayGuy and why should they come see the Mother Tour?
Well, I haven’t been there much recently so this will be exciting
for me to come back and hang out. Also, your lungs are stronger than most because of all that
altitude so I think that you’ve all got to come out and really laugh it up and show
off that lung power. I think that would be amazing.
Margaret Cho’s new standup
comedy show MOTHER is a complicated and completely original take on sex, queer
politics, drugs, guns, identity and madness, proving time and time again,
boundaries uncrossed are meaningless. Nothing is sacred, least of all, this
MOTHER. Click here for tickets.
