Kate Berlant on New Comedy Special ‘Parmesan,’ A.I, and the Hardest Joke She's Had to Write

“I just came off a six-week Instagram cleanse,” Kate Berlant tells me while sitting on a park bench in Boston in a grey hoodie and big, bug-eyed sunglasses as we chat over Zoom. “Six weeks not looking, and I was feeling really tapped into spirit and source.” But eventually, she had to log back on. “I saw I had missed a lot of the latest horrors with Anthropic,” she says.

While the beloved comedian may have missed the conversation about whether or not AI will destroy humanity by the end of the decade, her latest stand-up special, Parmesan, is perfectly timed for the discourse.

“It’s funny because when I was putting together the special, I had this feeling of, ‘You know what, I’m not going to talk about the phones. I’m not going to talk about the world ending,’” she says. “Don’t we want to get away from that? Shouldn’t I provide an escape from that reality or something?” “And then, of course, it’s just like, no, I have to talk about how I actually feel. Ideally, the work you make in some way reflects the moment in which you’re living.”

That moment—fraught with anxiety and doomscrolling—is on full display in Berlant’s brilliant Parmesan, which premieres on HBO on Friday, October 16. In the special, the beloved, absurdist comedian goes back to her roots, while trying to open up to her audience in a way “that felt less natural or less easy.”

While she has legions of fans from Bushwick to Silverlake, thanks to projects like this summer’s cult hit Maddie’s Secret, her popular wellness comedy podcast Poog with Jacqueline Novak, and her solo work Cinnamon in the Wind and Kate, most of them likely don’t know that much about Berlant personally. “Typically, my standup evades any kind of autobiographical material,” she says. Not anymore. With Parmesan, she discusses everything from her obsession with social media to coming to terms with her queerness later in her late 30s. “I don’t want to claim bisexuality because everyone hates a bisexual woman,” the 39-year-old jokes. “Bisexuality is a curse. It truly is.”

Curse or not, she’s currently in a relationship with MUNA guitarist Naomi McPherson—that’s why she’s in Boston; MUNA has a show there that night. “I’m a serial monogamist,” she says. But while she opens up about her relationship with McPherson in the special, she’s careful not to say their name (McPherson uses they/them pronouns). “I’ve been in long-term relationships that are creative. It is that balance of keeping something sacred,” Berlant tells me. In Parmesan, Berlant explores herself—her wants, needs, fears, desires—while blending her singular vaudevillian performance style (the faces she makes alone will have you guffawing) with the intellectual insight of a modern-day millennial philosopher. The result is a stand-up special that’s both timeless and so situated in our current moment that you’re laughing before you realize maybe we should all be crying.

The conversation that follows has been edited for length and clarity.

Vanity Fair: Your last comedic show, Kate, was very theatrical and form-breaking. Parmesan is more traditional stand-up comedy. How did you transition from one to the other?

Kate Berlant: So, I wrote Kate in COVID, and it is completely scripted. It’s a one-woman show about someone who’s revealing who they are, but really it’s a total fabrication. I talk about having a cruel Irish mother in it. It’s not real. Once that ended and I slipped into a deep depression, I was like, “Okay, right, stand-up, stand-up...” And so I did feel a calling to maybe talk about myself for once. I was like, “Oh, what if I just did more stand-up comedy, capital S?”

How have your feelings about stand-up evolved since you started?

I love stand-up comedy. I started doing stand-up when I was 17.

I was thinking about the stand-up specials that affected me the most when I was in my youth: Chris Rock: Bigger & Blacker, Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic. I think that I was 16 when that came out, and it rocked my world. Zach Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion. I was really obsessed with David Cross’s stand-up, which followed him on the road. That was actually the thing that made me try to start writing jokes, just because I thought it looked so fun. I was like, “That’s so... Oh, he’s just traveling to different cities and doing these shows and meeting people and going to a bar every night.” I just thought that seemed like such a cool life.

I guess one would say, stand-up is more popular than it’s ever been. But we’re in this world now of podcasting, and I’m guilty of being a podcaster. Not that there aren't great comics who do podcasts.

One of my favorite aspects of Parmesan is your relationship with your notebook. It almost becomes a second character in a way you don’t typically see in a filmed hour of comedy.

The notebook... that is not a prop, and it is a prop. Part of what helped me do this was to be like, “I’m just going to write down ideas, a couple words, and just see what comes out of it and not be too precious.” And the notebook allowed for that. The notebook allowed me to feel like I could just go on stage and rifle through it. And I felt this excuse to allow myself for it to be non-sequitur and just fragmented. It’s not that deep. I just got dependent on it. As you can imagine, I was like, “Okay, let me do it without it.” And then I got very in my head about it, and then I straight up missed it and also felt like I just let myself have it. And then, of course, it becomes a joke too.

How did you land on Parmesan for the title?

Titles are so hard. I was like, “Parmesan,” and then I was like, “Oh, well, it's not going to be that. I'll improve upon that.” And I just never did. I was talking to Chelsea Peretti, and she was like, “Oh, you're shooting a special? I was like, “Yeah.” She's like, “What's it called?” I was like, “Parmesan.” And she laughed, and I was like, “Okay, that's good enough for me.”

It's sort of impossible to have a funny stand-up special title. I like how confusing it is. It means nothing. And then when you watch the show, you obviously gain insight into what that might mean or represent. But it was the best I could do. And honestly, it was just making me laugh because it's so deeply unserious.

This is your most personal stand-up special to date. How do you draw the line between what stays for you and what you share?

There's nothing I'm trying to conceal. It's more like in this moment of “I'm so aware of persona,” I would be really fearful of something as private or sacred as a romantic relationship taking on a persona of its own, and then it's expected to perform. So that makes me nervous. That being said, of course I'll post a hot picture of my boo. So it's that balance.

I didn't want to be overly precious and be like, “I will not discuss.” My instinct is more to be like, “I will not discuss my private life. I will not discuss these things. Why would I go into my sexuality? Who do I think I am? How indulgent.” But I decided to push against that.

Your partner also worked on the special. What was it like working artistically together?

Oh my god, I highly recommend… I was touring, and Naomi was not touring, so as a result, they were able to just come with me, so it was really fun. I tour alone most of the time, but it's really nice to have someone with you because it can be so strange alone on the road. Like any creative friendship or anything, they would come to the shows, and they started to know the material as well as I did. It was endlessly helpful, [McPherson] being like, “Oh, you dropped this,” or, “Oh, the other night you did it this way, and that was funnier.” They really, in so many ways, directed the show.

You joke a lot in the special about figuring out your sexuality later in life. What’s your relationship like to your former selves, now that you’re making comedy from a new place?

It's so funny. I think that's what the show's about. I always think about this idea of no easy answers. I don't have an easy answer if someone asks me about myself or my sexuality. It's so fascinating how things change so quickly, even just people that are five years younger than I am, their relationship to queerness. Whereas when I think about myself, I mean, it breaks my heart. I literally wasn't around a single lesbian until I was... Do you know what I mean?

Of course.

I went to an all-girls school. That just was not in front of my face. And so now I really wonder, oh, if I had known, I don't know, one—it really just takes one at a young age—what would that have been like for me? And what would I have seen as being possible? And I don't mourn my previous self. There's no part of me that feels like I was living a lie or something. I just had different experiences. And thank God my only regret is, oh, I wish I had earlier known more about myself so I could have just had more sex in college [laughs]. Do you know what I mean?

What was the hardest joke to write?

Honestly, the one that was the hardest for me was mentioning that my dad has Alzheimer's. That was something that I was trying out, and people would really get quiet, which I get because it's so depressing. And I was like, “Oh, I don't know if I'm going to do that.” And actually, that felt really private too. But then I was like, “No, this is what I think about every day.” This is what defines my life, so I should talk about it. And it's also relatable. In the special, I talk about coming out of anesthesia and saying, “I'm gay,” which is completely real. That was 100% real. That's exactly what happened. But what I don't say in the special, and what's the truth, is that the next thing I said was, “My dad has Alzheimer's.” That's what's on my mind most of the time: sexuality and mortality.

You also talk about whether or not you want to have children in the special. Do you have a better idea of whether you want children after Parmesan?

I'm still in it. I recorded it just a few months ago, so that's where I still am. I think it's all just the nature of everything, which is probably just surrendering to the ever-changing world around us. It's comforting to hold on to anything we can to give our lives shape or structure, but those things often slip away.

You make a joke about your back breaking from still being considered an “emerging talent” at this point in your career. Do you feel you have emerged?

Totally [laughs] No, no, niche till I die… Or not. I’m open. Open to being less niche [laughs]. But no, I feel very good and lucky. I'm looking forward to more collaborations with John. We have ideas we're working on right now. I'm a collaborative person. I just think my friends, to me, are the most talented people. I feel very lucky for that.