Whitney Cummings’ issues have ups (comedy), downs (therapy)
August 12, 2014 - 7:28 am
I told comedian Whitney Cummings I’m envious of the riches she must be banking, because she co-created CBS’s “2 Broke Girls.”
“I don’t know where everyone gets this idea that I have all this money. It’s weird,” Cummings said. (She performs all-new material Friday and Saturday at The Venetian.)
“And my family will always make sure I’m poor. They will always ask for more than is appropriate,” she said.
Plus, money doesn’t bring her happiness the way stand-up comedy does.
“The age-old debate is, comedians are desperate people, and when they stop being desperate, they stop being funny,” she said.
When comedians do come into money, they panic and pretend they don’t have it so it won’t affect their psyche or comfort level, she said.
“This might seem annoying or ungrateful,” she said, “but I don’t know any comedian who has a lot of money who is happy about it.”
I told her Chris Rock has said comedians can write a good hour of stand-up material if they go live a more miserable, friendless life on the road for a while.
Cummings understands that writing mentality.
“I remember a couple of years ago, I was in a really good relationship with a guy who was super trustworthy, and loving, and sweet. And I was like, ‘You’re making me less money. Can you please cheat on me, or lie to me, or something, so I can get some jokes?’ ”
Comics operate best when they’re hurt or under duress, she said.
“That’s an inherent part of the formula, is being the underdog, and having something to prove, and having the stakes be kind of high,” she said. “I like being an underdog. That’s where all the good (comedy) happens.”
If Cummings ever needs to tap into old feelings of hurt, she has a wealth of childhood drama from which to draw.
When she was 7, she made not-nutritious meals for the family, because her dad wasn’t around and her mom was sleeping and drinking, she said on Jim Norton’s talk show on Vice.com.
Those abandonment issues seem to have given her a freedom to say anything she wants. On stage (and in interviews), she easily delivers wild, cutting, funny, uncensored truths.
But abandonment freedom comes with a price: therapy.
“If I didn’t go to therapy, I wouldn’t be functional. I wouldn’t be able to do anything,” she said.
“My therapy is not just talk therapy,” she said. “It enables me to be more creative, and save more time, because I’m not wasting my time being full of fear, and obsession, and self-doubt, and insecurity — the kind of stuff that thwarts creativity.”
Cummings — who graduated magna cum laude at the University of Pennsylvania after studying at its Annenberg School of Communications — works hard on her abandonment issues.
“I think you become funny, because you want people to like you, and ergo not abandon you,” she said.
Cummings, 31, has a great therapist who helps her give up negative behaviors she developed as survival mechanisms during a rough childhood.
“The whole thing is: ‘Adults can’t be abandoned. You have a car. You have a house. You can’t be abandoned. It’s an irrational fear,’ ” Cummings said.
So anyway, that’s a pretty heavy conversation. But Cummings is a pretty fascinating smarty pants, so I could have talked with her about it all day.
However, Cummings’ job is to be funny. And she is. My favorite joke from her new “I Love You” special is about how men dig women who wear eye shadow.
“The point of eye shadow is to make us look like we have black eyes, so why don’t you take a good hard look at yourself and why you think that’s attractive.”
But Cummings wants to assure you her gig at The Venetian this weekend will be a whole new routine.
“And I’m coming back in November. I just want to have a little home base in Vegas,” she said.
Doug Elfman’s column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Email him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.