In 'Broad City,' Two Women Make Comedy From The 'Muck' Of New York Living

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR, I'm Terry Gross. The hit Comedy Central series, "Broad City," starts its second season tonight. My guests are the show's co-creators, co-writers and stars, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. They play two single 20-somethings, named Abbi and Ilana, who live in New York, have dead-end jobs and spend a lot of time hanging out together.

In The New Yorker online, Rachel Arons wrote, the show is rough enough to inhabit the bro-dominated world of Comedy Central, but it's also surreal and strange. This week, Dave Itzkoff wrote in The New York Times, quote, "in the 10 episodes shown last year, 'Broad City' offered an absurdist, slapstick look at two women scraping by in New York. They have each other's backs through apartment lockouts, minor drug deals and the occasional hurricane, and it becomes clear they care far more about getting into a Lil Wayne concert than getting anywhere in the latter of life," unquote.

Jacobson and Glazer met through the improv comedy group, the Upright Citizens Brigade, which was cofounded by Amy Poehler, who is now an executive producer of "Broad City." Let's start with a scene from season one of "Broad City." Abbi and Ilana are in Ilana's apartment, sitting together on a couch and looking at their laptops.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BROAD CITY")

ABBI JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Oh, my goodness, this dude Brian Nicholera (ph) I went to high school with just friended me. He just moved here.

ILANA GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Oh, my God, people from high school only friend you, like, after business hours if they want to hook up.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Really? I had a huge crush on him.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) You should ask him out.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) I can't just do that.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Oh, my God, he likes "Roseanne"? OK, this is your new sexual partner.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) All right, I'm asking him out. I'm just going to do it.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Do it.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) This is so great. Like, why are we waiting for guys to come to us, Ilana? Did Amelia Earhart wait to be asked to fly around the world? Definitely not. She asked, and then they said no. But she still did it.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) And she died, but she, like, died doing it.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Exactly. I'm doing it again. I'm asking someone else out.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) This is the Abbi I love and fell in love with and I'm obsessed with.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Skylar Cummings-Conkelmann (ph) - I used to babysit for him. He was adorable. He's - yeah, he's 20. That's acceptable.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Troy Megliarino (ph) - he spent a hot sec' in jail. But he lives in South Jersey, and I know he'd steal a car and come up for the night.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Chris Wazcyleski (ph) - he was a nude model in my life drawing class, and he, like, always angled himself out to me.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Chad Michael Fong (ph) - we met at a hardware store. He was disgusting. I'm going to go with this.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) OK, who else, who else? Henry Rowdenbush (ph) had a unibrow all through middle school. And then he started waxing it, and all of a sudden it was like glasses off, you're [bleep] gorgeous.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) It's like "She's All That."

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) I feel like I'm on coke right now. P. J. Mallory (ph)...

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Bobby Cornhauser (ph).

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Johnny Fissinger (ph).

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Danny McCarrow (ph).

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Ryan Long (ph).

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) Rod White (ph).

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) We are like feminist heroes right now.

(SCREAMING)

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) So, OK, that's 36 guys that we've been rejected by and one lady.

GLAZER: (As Ilana Wexler) OK, so what, dude? You know what, the Internet is so '90s. Let's go find some guys I-R-L.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) You know, you can just say in real life. It's the same number of syllables.

GROSS: (Laughter) That's from season one of "Broad City." Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, welcome to FRESH AIR. I'm going to ask you to each describe your character in "Broad City."

JACOBSON: We sort of wrote these characters and write these characters sort of as us before we found "Broad City." So she's 26. She's an illustrator but hasn't yet been able to make that her career. So in the meantime, she currently works at this high-end gym as a janitor, cleaning all sorts of disgusting things up, mostly bodily fluids and remnants (laughter), but dreams of bigger things

GROSS: Ilana, describe your character.

GLAZER: A free spirit, very loyal - she's a stoner. She's a hedonist. She likes to feel good. She likes pleasure. I feel like at this point in her life, the most important thing is her friendship with Abbi. That's like a grounding through line for my character.

GROSS: Your characters are not shy about their bodies, and neither are you as actresses. And they're not shy about talking with each other about their bodily functions and their sex lives. They use the word vagina a lot.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: When I was growing up, that was such like a hard word to say. I mean, you would just, like, turn purple if you said the word, I think. And I'm just wondering what attitude you were brought up with in terms of being able to speak about your bodies and be comfortable with your bodies and now, you know, to be able to use that in your performances.

JACOBSON: I think I grew up in more, like, conservative way, where we were not always talking about our bodies or sex or anything. It was never discouraged, but it was not...

GLAZER: Encouraged.

JACOBSON: It was not encouraged or, like, dinner talk or - I didn't really share much, but I have - I grew up with, like, an extremely supportive family. I think that's part of how Ilana and my voice developed. As - when we were writing the show, that became a much more of a thing than it was for me growing up.

GROSS: What would surprise us most about your childhood? And let me get started that, you know, Abbi, in eighth grade, you were the Student Council rep for your homeroom class. And, Ilana, you were the class president in 11th and 12th grade, and according to what I read, you were in an anti-drug group called The Positive Edge.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAZER: Oh, my God, that's right.

JACOBSON: I will just say, I did - I was secretary of my class in high school, too. I did continue on through student government.

GLAZER: Thank God.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAZER: What were you doing? Secretary, what was your like - was it like treasurer?

JACOBSON: Treasurer is, like, money. Secretary is like - I ran, like, canned food drives and AIDS walks...

GLAZER: That's so you.

JACOBSON: ...More like organizing stuff.

GLAZER: That's very, you.

JACOBSON: Go ahead, why don't you talk about that anti-drug club you were in?

(LAUGHTER)

GLAZER: It was vaguely Christian, or it, like, felt like it. And it was - my brother Eliot had done it years earlier. We used to, like, gather and talk about how cool it was that we didn't do drugs. And we, like - I don't know, we went to sixth- and fourth-grade classes - we could miss class. That's what it was.

JACOBSON: So one day, some bad kid from the tracks came and pulled you out of this?

GLAZER: I just got a boyfriend who, like, was a huge stoner. And I was like oh, finally. I, like, knew it was my calling.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Abby Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, the co-creators, co-writers, co-stars of the Comedy Central series, "Broad City." When you were starting "Broad City" as a web series and then as you transitioned into an actual program, did you ever sense of what you were as a show and what you weren't? For instance, like, you know, when "Girls" started, it was compared to "Sex And The City," and when you started, your show was compared with "Girls." Did you make comparisons like that in your own mind, or did you see yourself on, like, a different track?

GLAZER: You know, the webisodes were such slices that they were really just, I feel like, for tone. In character development - we didn't realize it was going to be character development for a TV show later - but I think we looked to Larry David more than anybody else.

JACOBSON: Yeah, we did the web series from 2009 through 2011, and I think it was, like, "Curb," "Seinfeld," and "Louie" was just starting.

GLAZER: Yeah, we talked about "Louie" a lot.

JACOBSON: Because they - yeah because they were these short slices that didn't wrap up, usually, or they were just sort of little segments of these characters lives.

GLAZER: However, the - our lives are reflecting "Sex And The City" more than ever now that we're, like, becoming the age of the characters. We talk about "Sex And The City" a lot and have seen all of those episodes. And I definitely see overlap with "Girls," with the content, with tone, with characters - like, the characters could be friends or be at the same party or something. But I think that comparison was more just a result of the reductiveness of like a headline, for example. A lot of headlines...

GROSS: What do you talk about when you talk about "Sex And The City"?

JACOBSON: Often times in the writers' room...

GLAZER: Oh, my God.

JACOBSON: ...When we are pitching ideas, you know, we have the pleasure of working with a lot of our best friends who write on the show. And we're talking about just something that's happened to us, whether it's a sexual encounter or friend thing, oftentimes, someone else will be like that was a "Sex And The City" episode, so we can't do that.

(LAUGHTER)

JACOBSON: They've covered a lot of ground that is still extremely relevant and relatable.

GLAZER: And their situations, too, like - they had a real world, you know?

JACOBSON: Oh, yeah.

GLAZER: So we'll find ourselves being like, oh, that's very "Curb" world or like, that's very "Sex And The City World."

GROSS: So it sounds like in order to write the show, you and your co-writers, part of what you do is sit in a room and share some of the most awful and embarrassing things that have happened to you.

(LAUGHTER)

JACOBSON: Exactly, and also amazing things that have happened to us.

GLAZER: We try to do, like, the most New York, you know what I mean? It's more like that. Like, there's definitely universal experiences to be had, but the funniest ones - like, Abbi, in the first season with the mail, with the package, going to North Brother Island for the package. Like, that's just so New York-centric. Getting a package in New York City is different than getting a package anywhere else. Like, our show's a lot about suburban transplants still being in awe of the city, even when it's a really annoying result that you have to endure.

JACOBSON: I feel like I think about our show a lot, where it's as if you're, like, walking through just this gross block, and there's just trash and people peeing and spitting on you. And then you turn the corner and look up and it's like, oh, right, I'm in New York. This is, like, the most beautiful city in the world.

GROSS: Well, yeah, there's a scene on the subway where there literally is a pile of feces in the middle of the subway car. And people in New York have probably been exposed to worse.

(LAUGHTER)

JACOBSON: Yeah.

GROSS: And, well, another thing you were both exposed to as, you know - your characters exposed to as young women, young, single women in Manhattan, is that, you know, men are brushing up against you and rubbing against you in awkward places.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: And I'm sure that's something, like, every young woman in New York has had to deal with, especially on, like, crowded subways, crowded stores.

GLAZER: Ew, it's true.

GROSS: So do you sit around the writers' room like talking about - and here's what happened to me?

JACOBSON: Yeah, all those little details are never lost.

GLAZER: We, like, love the mundane. It cracks us up, the minutiae, the muck that you have to wade through in the city. It cracks us up. It is like this sick, masochistic romance that New Yorkers - permanent New Yorkers have with the city, where they love how tough they are. And, like, friends who move to LA are, like, over it, later. Like, but there's some sort of pride that New Yorkers have. Somebody texted me the other day who had seen that episode at our premier party - Phoebe Robinson, stand-up comedian...

JACOBSON: Who that happened to. It happened to her.

GLAZER: Did she send - did she tell you?

JACOBSON: No.

GLAZER: She...

JACOBSON: It happens every so often - a [bleep] car comes down through the subway.

(LAUGHTER)

GLAZER: She walked in, everybody's running out.

JACOBSON: I know.

GLAZER: She doesn't know why.

JACOBSON: But that was sort of just all of us brainstorming like, what crazy, almost unbelievable things have happened on the subway? And we - on the show, we tend to heighten those things a little. It gets a little bit surreal, but...

GLAZER: That is, like, the real car. Nobody invented that one.

GROSS: My guests are Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, the co-creators, co-writers and stars of the Comedy Central series "Broad City," which begins its second season tonight. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. The Comedy Central series "Broad City" begins its second season tonight. Let's get back to my interview with the show's co-creators and stars, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer.

"Broad City" started as a Web series. When you were first starting with the Web series, did anyone know it existed? And how do you find an audience when you don't have, like, a larger organization or network to hook up with?

JACOBSON: Our Web shorts are still not widely viewed at this point. They were never viral. Basically we came - we had both worked these SEO jobs - search engine optimization. We had both worked these different jobs that dealt with dealing with the Internet and using social media. So we sort of made this spreadsheet of press outlets that we felt needed content. And so we thought about our Web series that we thought, well, what different types of places would be interested in this? OK, it's about two women. OK, it's about New York City. OK, it's about Jews. It's about stoners.

GLAZER: Broke people.

JACOBSON: Yeah.

GLAZER: So you like, go to those subsets and look for those kinds of blogs or Twitter.

JACOBSON: And you do research. And we made a spreadsheet of all these different sites. And then you have to research and find the editors or the writers and different contacts. And you just start emailing them and you'll hope that some people will write some articles and post - when we release a video, they're going to post a video that's about - oh, they're in Washington Square Park and it's about them selling - or, buying weed.

And it's like, that's something that relates to like, our viewership. And it was just very slow and steady, but every little blog post wasn't such a big deal for us because it got the word out. And I have to say because we came out of this amazing community, like, Facebook built our show.

GLAZER: Yeah, I was just going to say that was like, the main vehicle for the show. That was where, like, we like, counted those likes more than YouTube views.

JACOBSON: Oh, yeah - people would share. That was huge. And I will never, ever, forget - we were part of this teeny little film festival called the Iron Mule and somehow like, we submitted to be on that somehow. And we were working at this company Lifebooker at the time - both of us sitting next to each other - and for whatever reason, The New York Times was advertising this little film festival and used our photo.

GLAZER: And we didn't know.

JACOBSON: And it was this little - it was a little photo with a teeny little blurb about the film festival. But I remember taking the subway to work that morning like, hugging the newspaper, like, everyone knew. That was just such a huge payoff from this sort of outreach that we had been doing.

GLAZER: And that was like, something - that was like, another receipt to show our parents.

JACOBSON: Oh, my gosh. That was huge.

GROSS: Was it important to have something to show your parents to kind of prove to them that what you were doing was real and not, like, a waste of time and a diversion from figuring out what your future really should be?

JACOBSON: Oh, yeah. What do you think we're doing this interview for?

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: That's funny. (Laughter). I want to play a short clip from what will be episode four of the new season. And in this scene, Abbi, you are with your neighbor Jeremy, who, you know, you're attracted to. And this is the day, well, you know, Elana's grandmother has just died. And so you're saying to him that, you know, you're talking to him about how death has been on your mind. And you both have some - I don't know if it's wine or champagne, I don't know exactly what you're drinking, but you have that in your hands. And here's the scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BROAD CITY")

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) You know, I've been surrounded by a lot of death lately, too. And sometimes death really makes me think about - life.

STEPHEN SCHNEIDER: (As Jeremy Santos) I totally agree.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) To life. And to remember, and to being and - that's it.

(GLASSES CLINKING)

SCHNEIDER: (As Jeremy Santos) You're really eloquent about death.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Well, my favorite TV show's "Six Feet Under," so that's probably why.

SCHNEIDER: (As Jeremy Santos) I haven't seen it.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) You haven't seen "Six Feet Under?" Oh, God. You're so lucky. You know, I have the box set, if you want to borrow it.

SCHNEIDER: (As Jeremy Santos) Maybe we could watch it together sometime.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) Yeah. I mean yeah, if you want to.

SCHNEIDER: (As Jeremy Santos) I definitely do.

JACOBSON: (As Abbi Abrams) OK. That's going to be great.

GROSS: (Laughter). I think that's a really funny scene. Because obviously, like, your frame of reference for death is a TV series. (Laughter). And your profound thought about death is so like, not profound. So can you talk a little bit about writing that scene, Abbi?

JACOBSON: Yeah. I mean, I have had actual death in my life. But a real thing is that "Six Feet Under" is my favorite show of all time. And, as weird as it sounds, is a wonderful portrayal of life and death.

GROSS: Oh, I agree.

JACOBSON: But I think that show was a really big influence for me in writing because it is so dramatic, but it is so funny and deals with such dark things. It's such a wonderful dark comedy.

GLAZER: But I also think we were like, capturing like, how stupid dates are. And how like, you're just trying to, like - in this day and age - like, trying to seem real. And it's like, so hard. There's so much like, surreality and virtual reality and cyber - like, all of this like, weird distortion of reality. It's like, funny to quiet down and actually hear this character try to be real.

GROSS: So are you already thinking ahead to when they get older, when the characters get older, how will they change?

JACOBSON: Well, we're using special serums and creams...

(LAUGHTER)

GLAZER: (Laughter). Serums.

JACOBSON: ...On the daily to make sure that never happens.

GLAZER: A lot of Botox on this show. We're low-budget, but then the Botox is sort of out-of-pocket. They say start early, so that's what we're doing. But we've been talking about this, like, sort of calibrating our expectations for these characters. And so far, it doesn't feel like we've had - we've told that many stories of this baseline that we're working off of. I mean, season two I do think the characters grow in an organic way, not a necessarily pointed way. But we're still like, figuring out how far they get.

JACOBSON: Each episode is, for the most part, 24 hours - maybe a little more, maybe a little less. And so there's really only been - you've only seen 10 days of these characters' lives. There's not a ton of time that has passed. I just like, sort of love thinking about other shows and I love thinking about "Seinfeld," about how they didn't really change much.

GLAZER: They didn't have to change. I feel also like, this is only our first TV show. You know? We plan on doing writing and performing for a long time.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both so much for talking with us.

GLAZER: It is an honor...

JACOBSON: Absolute honor.

GLAZER: ...And a pleasure.

GROSS: Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer are the co-creators and stars of the Comedy Central series "Broad City," which begins its second season tonight. I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

(MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.