At what point in your career did you feel like you really figured out what your thing was–the thing that you identified yourself with?

I’m still trying to figure it out. I hope this will be a lifelong process, what my function is as a performer, and how it changes as I need different things out of life. The more I got into stand-up, I was exposed to both people I admired and people I did not admire. I had to say to myself, “OK, so you know what you don’t like—that’s easy, so what do you like?” It makes you warped and people become uneasy around you if the sort of motor that’s putting you forward is that you’re against something, rather than for something. I don’t want to get up on stage and tell shitty jokes about how long it takes women to get ready or that women like white wine or any sort of weird thing that seems like it’s for women but it’s actually for men—I know I don’t want to do that. I know I don’t want to say the word feminism onstage without being an actual feminist. I know I don’t want to go onstage and be self-abusive. But, what can I do is the question.

I asked myself that around [the time] I got fired from SNL, because I had the urge to self-flagellate in public and say sorry that I disappointed everyone, when in fact, nobody gave a shit, and I was the only person who was disappointed. When I took a greater look at it, it turned out I was just super rage-ful and actually not disappointed in myself at all! [Laughs] I was disappointed in how I had acted within Rockefeller Center and how I acted during that show, that I had been so self-abusive and I had expected so little of myself in terms of self-care. Once I started going onstage and being rude to myself, I noticed that people didn’t like it, and I had to ask, “What am I supposed to do here, if people don’t like me being rough with myself?” That’s the answer: There’s no payoff. I started, right around the time my husband and I made Marcel the Shell, to become obsessed with the different ways you can express self-love in a way that it makes other people love themselves and ask themselves questions. I’ve started to become obsessed with figuring out how I can create a world around me that I would want to live in. Even if I’m the only person that sees it. How can I live in that knowledge? I think that was it for me; that created a kind of baseline. Now, it’s not really about the part as much, unless the part is really sexist…I think my main rule is I just don’t wanna work with assholes. I just don’t wanna work with assholes, even if they’re really, really successful. I don’t want to have three months where I feel like shit; that’s the part of me that was bullied and that is still completely alive, and I am in protection of that younger woman.

How do you maintain that joyful, emotive, and non-jaded part of yourself that comes through in your work, but also seems like it’s a part of your life?

I…I think that I feel lonely when I am keeping parts of myself to myself, only. It’s not that I don’t have private things, because I do. But I have a knee-jerk reaction to phrases like, “We don’t talk about that,” “That’s something to discuss with your therapist,” or “We’re eating.” I have complete trust that I know what is appropriate to discuss with other people.

In my nature, I am very joyful. I’ve always been that way. You know how in college orientation, or something like that, they do the name game where everyone has to do an alliteration for themselves? I’ve always been Jumping Jenny. I hate Jolly Jenny; I think that’s so gross and stupid and it reminds me of a man’s stomach shaking while he laughs at something he shouldn’t be laughing at…

Uh, yeah, that’s called Santa Claus.

[Laughs] Yeah, Santa, right. I think at this point in my life, I’m equally as emotionally stormy as I am joyful. I’m not just one thing on that spectrum; I feel a lot of emotions, especially recently. I know sometimes my Twitter feed is intense, but I take it as a friendly void to scream into. I don’t have another way to be. I think that can be annoying for my friends, but…my friend has a new boyfriend, and I met up with him by myself recently. He was saying to me that before he met me, my friend had described me as [someone who] “feels every emotion to the -nth degree.” I was like, Whoa! I’ve never heard him describe me that way, and I was relieved. I think sometimes when I’m feeling a wide spectrum of emotions all at once, it feels like I’m walking around with a broken leg, and sometimes it feels like I’m in the world with a set of wings. Sometimes it’s wonderful, and sometimes it’s scary, and all the time I feel like I’m different. All I know is that it’s something to be really, really proud of, but more importantly, be really interested in. I am! I’m very interested in myself. [Laughs]

The more I can show people how vulnerable I am, the more they will understand my limits and push me to my limits. My limits can then become a little further [out] than they are now–that’s how I’ll grow. It also means that there’s never a time to not be creative. I think my goal is to be like my parents: to have a creative lifestyle, not just a creative profession.

What other creative or otherwise helpful habits have you learned that have been important to your growth?

I would say for me the secret and the magic, is always in simple pleasures. That’s maybe obvious, but I really feel that. I definitely dance in the mirror every day, watching myself. I love dancing. I think that making your body move in that way just by yourself is really cool. [Laughs] I tend to respond really well to fresh air, honestly. A good airing. And, I don’t think I could live one day of my life without music.

I think what’s important is still being able to nest and care for yourself and be diligent in making it your home a nice place for you. Feathering my nest is really important for me. It feels totally unstable when I don’t have a personal place to go to. I often cry in hotel rooms and feel like it’s so bizarre for me to be in there, and I want to be able to be a combination of everything that I’ve seen, and everything that I hope I can be.