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HBO:
Tell us about your show for One Night Stand, what's it about?
Caroline:
Mine is a science project. No, I'm sorry... LAUGHS] Okay, here are my goals: I wanted to be on Letterman, I wanted to do an HBO One Night Stand, and I wanted to be on Sesame Street. So the other two were easy compared to this. Mind you, when I did Sesame Street, and I could see the puppeteers right there, I still burst into tears. So I'll probably do that for One Night Stand. I did ask my boyfriend, what is my show even about? He said, 'It's about, um, human nature.'
HBO:
Let's back up to way before you got here. What did you do for a living before you went into full-time comedy?
Caroline:
My road to comedy was full process of elimination, no skill in any other area. I was a receptionist, I kept answering the phones saying, 'Hello, can you help me?' Which was not as bad as the woman who worked with me at the Bank of Minneapolis, who had been a phone sex operator. She used to answer the phone like this? 'Lick me where I pee. Sh**! Bank of Minneapolis? Hi, sorry, sorry.'
And then what else did I do? I drove a chair. [LAUGHS] I was a catering waiter. I'd carry a tray - we called it the hernia cheese board, because it was like a marble slab that you had to carry around, and you'd be sweating into the food. The people would point at the tray and say, 'What's that?' It's my sweat, because this thing is so f***ing heavy I can't carry it. Do you want one or not? Then they would take a shrimp, go ah-ah-ah, put it back in the sauce, then ah-ah-ah some more. Then with that disgusting little shrimp tail, they'd go, 'Can I give you this?' And I'd say, 'Yes, I'm making a necklace, I just needed two more. Fantastic.'
What else did I do? I talked to an animatronic cat for six years.
HBO:
In a theme park?
Caroline:
No, on Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I always did affirmations when I was a kid, like, 'I'm going to be a highly successful actress on a highly successful television show.' I didn't know you had to be so specific as to mention 'without an animatronic puppet.' I thought that was a given in the proof.
What else? One time when I was a catering waiter, I served breakfast to the Princess of Japan. I'm not kidding. The whole thing was a disaster. First of all, I touched her, and I was almost killed by four Japanese bodyguards. They were like, 'Don't ever touch the princess!'
It was when I was at the University of Arizona, out in the desert, and there was wildlife everywhere. Her people said to me, are you University of Arizona? And I said yes. So they thought I was the host of the party rather than the waitress. So, the Princess has this piece of peach in her hands, and she held it up and looked at me and said, 'Whore eat fruit?' And I'm like, Oh my god, she called me a whore! And she's making me eat a piece of fruit! But everybody is yelling at me if I do anything, even remotely touch them. So literally I'm lowering my head to the plate, and I can't believe I'm eating a piece of fruit out of her hand like an animal. And I'm like 'whore eat fruit,' what does that mean? I was this close to the plate, and I was going to snap it out of her hand like whore-eat-fruit, yes, whore eating a fruit. And then she points to something out the window, and I turn to look and it's a horse. 'Horse eat fruit.' That's what she was trying to say.
HBO:
I love backing into it: so you were a catering waiter, and then you were in the desert, and the Princess of Japan is there?
Caroline:
I swear to god it's all true. It just sounds like the most nonsensical story, but you know what, it's all entirely true.
HBO:
So what was the first thing you did that was even quasi-professional as a comedian?
Caroline:
The first job I ever did was a Korean/Jewish wedding, and I said, 'Oh, and you'll really enjoy the wholesale salad bar.'[LAUGHS] Bad. That was the worst one ever. And they didn't announce that I was a comedian, they just thought I was some random friend of the family. I still get flashbacks.
The first show I ever did was on Half Hour Comedy Hour, and I told my dad to watch. He called and said, 'Honey, I watched the show, and, uh, you weren't on it.' I said, Well what did you watch? He said, 'Well, something called Yo MTV Raps.' So he missed it. But I think that was my first big professional show.
HBO:
Was there a big breakout performance that really launched your career?
Caroline:
With this one guy, but I had had so much to drink, and I don't think I could ever do it again if I tried. I was young and flexible. Comedy-wise? Oh no, nothing. Yeah, when I did Comic Relief, which is, thank god, on HBO, so I can mention that. That one I think changed my life, because Milos Foreman was in the audience and he cast me in Man on the Moon. And this is how he says action and cut: 'Action, C**t!' I had to throw a bucket of bred in Jim Carrey's face 14 times. Then I got Hollywood Squares off of that, which was great, because now everyone in America asks me if I'm Charlotte Ray. But the same night as that Comic Relief, I met my boyfriend/fiancé, which didn't work out in the long run, so that would be too much information about the one big night that changed my life.
HBO:
That's a completely comprehensive answer, thank you. You've done a lot of film and television shows. Is there something about doing stand-up that keeps you coming back to the mic?
Caroline:
Well, now it's like a social duty to get up on stage and remind everybody what's going on in the world. You know, 'Here's George Bush wanting to privatize social security.' I'm like, has he been to Vegas? This is not a nation of savers, okay? I mean, you have to wrench yourself in between oxygen tanks. This is not a good idea to take anybody's money. I actually know about money, and I buy a stock at three, let it go to a thousand, and sell it at two. So if you're going to tell people who have no idea to go invest their social security, they're all going to be like, 'Put your retirement on red.'
So, I think you have to keep the public aware of certain things that are going on, and if comedy is your thing, more than being on television or in a play or anything, that's what you focus on. Stand-up is what makes me feel the most... present. I'll go further - purpose driven. Anyway.
HBO:
Do you have a favorite city or place where you like to perform?
Caroline:
I love doing shows in New York. New York was the best place in the world to train, because they would heckle you on your way to the stage. 'You're fat!' You’re like, I haven't even gotten to the microphone, how do you know I'm not just going to the bathroom?
HBO:
[LAUGHS] Do you have any favorite comedians, someone you looked up to before you started?
Caroline:
The people who influenced me were Johnny Carson and Carol Burnett. When I met Carol Burnett, I burst into tears, and I have every time since then. To me, she formed what I wanted to do with my life. I also think Kathleen Madigan is pretty brilliantly hilarious. But I think there are lots and lots of hilarious comedians out there.
HBO:
How about TV shows right now, is there anything you watch religiously?
Caroline:
I feel that reality has gone too far. People are going to be sitting around their families and they're just going to turn to dad and go, 'It's just not working out. We voted you out of the family. So you're eliminated. Mom is making more than you now, and I'm seven, she's nine, we don’t need you.'
So what do I watch? Oh, America's Top Model, it's the best guilty pleasure going. It's insane. I like that one. But all the reality shows have made me so judgmental. I had friends over to watch the horrible bachelor, and my boyfriend was horrified. When the bachelorette girls were arriving, we were like, oh, she's not that pretty. Well, she's fat. I mean, these are not fat people. [LAUGHS] So my boyfriend goes, you're being so horribly judgmental. I'm like, it's just part of the show, the judgment is the fun. And then the next thing that came on was some Discovery Channel show about Humpback Whales mating, and I found myself saying, that whale is so ugly, she is covered in barnacles. And she's fricking huge!
My boyfriend said, 'Do you know what you just said?' And I realized that the reality shows, they make everybody too judgmental. I mean, you don't look at someone and say, 'Oh my god, you need the DaVinci veneers for those foot length teeth!'
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