\u2018Once in a while, you get to see a legend at the absolute top of their game,\u201d booms a voice at the beginning of Robby Hoffman\u2019s Netflix special, Wake Up, welcoming her to the stage. High praise indeed \u2013 especially since the voice is that of the leading US comedian John Mulaney, who directed the special, and who clearly thinks this 36-year-old New Yorker is one of the hottest talents around.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not the only one. Over the last year, Hoffman\u2019s star has risen at a stunning pace. She is currently on TV in Rooster, a college campus comedy starring Steve Carell, as well as the fifth season of the critically acclaimed sitcom Hacks<\/a>. This is only her second season as talent agency assistant Randi, but last year the role earned her an Emmy nomination.<\/p>\n \u201cLast week, I was a Hassidic Lubavitch Jew living in Crown Heights, New York,\u201d was Hoffman\u2019s first line as Randi. \u201cNow I\u2019m in LA, I\u2019m gay and probably an atheist.\u201d Hoffman\u2019s own life has taken a similar about-turn after being thrust into the spotlight. Randi, a role that was created for her by writers Lucia Aniello, Paul W Downs and Jen Statsky and draws on Hoffman\u2019s own background, has been \u201ca life-changing part\u201d, she says on a video call from the home in Los Angeles that she shares with her wife, the reality TV star Gabby Windey. And meeting Carell, one of her childhood heroes, on the set of Rooster was \u201creally good. I mean, he\u2019s a doll.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I do think that a lot of my jokes are misinterpreted\u2019 \u2026 Hoffman. Photograph: Alex G Harper\/August<\/p>\n Hoffman herself seems like a bit of a doll, too, which might come as a surprise to those who have seen Hoffman\u2019s comedy sets, in which she adopts a boorish, constantly exasperated persona. Wake Up includes gags about \u201cdisgusting\u201d women (\u201calways the hottest ones are sickest\u201d) and abortion (\u201cwe raise the age of abortion till 10, we got a lot of well-fucking-behaved kids on our hands\u201d). Not to mention the jokes about paedophilia.<\/p>\n But although her punchlines make some audience members bristle, \u201cI just don\u2019t get to choose my thoughts\u201d, the comedian <\/strong>says. \u201cI\u2019m just sharing it with you. I wish I didn\u2019t know some of these things. I truly wish paedophilia was not something that I was introduced to or heard about. I think it\u2019s more democratic that I joke about everything, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n Although Hoffman <\/strong>insists she isn\u2019t trying to offend (\u201cI do think that a lot of my jokes are misinterpreted\u201d), she also doesn\u2019t think being offended is the worst thing: \u201cBeing poor is.\u201d She\u2019s <\/strong>speaking from experience: she grew up in a family that relied on welfare payments, the seventh of 10 children.<\/p>\n During the early years of her life, she lived in Brooklyn, where her parents were part of what they would call a Hassidic Jewish community and what she has described in her comedy as a cult. \u201cBut I\u2019m also loosey-goosey about what\u2019s a cult,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely would say it was a fanatic religious sect.\u201d She hasn\u2019t spoken to her father since her early 20s, and even before that, he hadn\u2019t been a significant part of her life for some time. Her mother divorced him and moved back to her native Montreal with the children when Hoffman was in grade school, some time between the ages of five and 11 (she is hazy on the exact timings).<\/p>\n \u2018I think it\u2019s more democratic that I joke about everything.\u2019 Photograph: Tristram Kenton\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Home life in Montreal was chaotic, living in a house that was \u201cso packed with so many people\u201d, Hoffman says. She would frequently get into physical fights with her brothers and \u201ccried every single day \u2026 sometimes I was kicking and screaming on the floor\u201d. She got out as soon as she could, at 17, when she began renting a place of her own, taking on a part-time job to support herself through her C\u00e9gep, a type of pre-university college unique to Quebec. After that, \u201cI almost stopped crying for ever\u201d, she says. \u201cIt takes me so much to cry now.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite its difficulties, Hoffman\u2019s childhood was \u201csomewhat\u201d stable, she says, thanks to her mother, who would wake up at 5.30am every day to cook, clean and care for her children. Although \u201cemotionally absent\u201d, she was \u201cdefinitely physically present, which is incredible\u201d, Hoffman says. \u201cNo matter what, she was there.\u201d Hoffman does her own bit for the family today by using half her earnings to support her siblings and her mother.<\/p>\n The comedian\u2019s proclivity for referring to women, including herself and her mother, as \u201cbitches\u201d is an aspect of her onstage coarseness that carries over into our call, in which she is otherwise much more mellow and thoughtful. Sure, she doesn\u2019t follow the typical Hollywood script of simpering self-deprecation, instead unapologetically backing herself and frequently talking about how great it is to be rich. But you get the impression that this is self-conscious gaucheness, a send-up of convention rather than outright rudeness.<\/p>\n \u201cI come in hot,\u201d Hoffman admits \u2013 especially on stage. But she is not pretending to be something she\u2019s not \u2013 unlike, she says, supposedly \u201ckind and nice\u201d figures such as Will Smith, who was banned from the Oscars<\/a> after slapping the comedian Chris Rock, or Ellen DeGeneres, whose talk show was cancelled after allegations that junior staff had been bullied<\/a>. Off stage, \u201cyou\u2019ll see that I\u2019m a delight\u201d, she says. I can\u2019t argue with that \u2013 although I can\u2019t actually see her, since she has refused to put her camera on for our call, her excuse being that she has only just woken up after travelling back from her most recent tour date.<\/p>\n \u2018I feel so, so lucky to have met her\u2019 \u2026 with her wife, Gabby Windey. Photograph: Cindy Ord\/VF26\/Getty Images for Vanity Fair<\/p>\n Hoffman is endearingly grateful for her success. \u201cAm I not living one of the greatest lives you\u2019ve heard about?\u201d she said during her recent appearance<\/a> on Late Night With Seth Meyers. \u201cI really do feel that,\u201d she says. When she started out in comedy, it felt like \u201csuch a risk\u201d to pursue a career with no promise of financial stability: \u201cIt\u2019s becoming harder and harder to go from no money to money, so when we get one of our guys in, it always feels miraculous.\u201d<\/p>\n She wishes it wasn\u2019t so miraculous \u2013 Hoffman is a Bernie Sanders<\/a> supporter and believes \u201ceverybody\u2019s entitled to dignity\u201d. She resents being an example of someone who \u201cdid it\u201d \u2013 got herself out of poverty via talent and determination. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t have to be this special, you shouldn\u2019t have to be this talented,\u201d she says. (I told you, she backs herself.) Throughout her adolescence, she was \u201cso sick of being poor\u201d, so focused on working hard at the Jewish private school for which her grandfather had helped her win a scholarship, then pursuing a degree in accounting. She briefly worked for the consultancy KPMG after completing her degree at McGill University in Montreal, before swapping accounting for the comedy circuit and TV writing work.<\/p>\n \u201cComedy was foisted upon me, like Moses or something,\u201d she says. (She makes more than one reference to religion and God in our conversation, although these days her only belief is that \u201cthere\u2019s something larger than us\u201d.) She was soon rewarded for following her calling, winning a daytime Emmy in 2019 as a writer on the children\u2019s TV series Odd Squad and recording her first standup comedy special, I\u2019m Nervous, the same year.<\/p>\n By the time she joined the cast of Hacks, <\/strong>she had developed a devoted following, via not just her standup, but also the podcast she co-hosted with the comedian Rachel Kaly, Too Far, and her high-profile relationship with Windey. The pair have become darlings of the LGBTQ+ community, with images of their 20-minute wedding ceremony shared all over the internet after they tied the knot in Las Vegas last year. The whole thing had an air of chic irreverence, including Windey\u2019s Instagram announcement<\/a> post captioned: \u201cHusband and wife!!\u201d<\/p>\n Despite identifying as a woman, Hoffman has had top surgery, the breast-removing procedure typically associated with transgender men and non-binary people. Using they\/them pronouns \u201cwould have been a viable option for a person like me\u201d, she tells the audience in a set she recorded for Netflix\u2019s Verified Stand-Up series, before joking at length about the non-binary community.<\/p>\n She is gentler on the topic when we discuss it, although she stands by her gags (\u201cIf I can\u2019t talk about it, who can? It\u2019s crazy. You\u2019re only going to let Joe Rogan talk about this shit?\u201d). She says she is respectful of non-binary friends and uses their chosen pronouns (\u201cof course\u201d); when it comes to her own identity, she is \u201cdefinitely in a genderqueer space\u201d. She is broadly happy with being a woman, although \u201csomething is off\u201d, she says, as \u201cmost girls don\u2019t want to cut their tits off\u201d. For her, the decision to get surgery came down to her preference for a \u201cboyish physical appearance. I\u2019m a lot more comfortable this way.\u201d<\/p>\n When she feels it\u2019s important, Hoffman is unapologetic about sticking her neck out, as she did in 2023 when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) announced a strike to secure higher pay for writers, better job security and tighter regulation of artificial intelligence. In a statement at the time<\/a>, the WGA said major studios\u2019 behaviour had \u201ccreated a gig economy\u201d that risked turning writing into an \u201centirely freelance\u201d profession. Hoffman questioned that decision, having looked through the union\u2019s financial statements with her accountant\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n \u201cI said: hey, hey, hey, have you sued? Why are we not? We should be paying for lawyers and litigating at every nook and turn and cranny. The idea to go on strike before you\u2019ve exhausted all of our other litigious efforts really felt like a slap in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n With Megan Stalter and Paul W Downs in Hacks. Photograph: Sky<\/p>\n Months into the strike, WGA members became interested in her view. \u201cI had so many people, hundreds of people in my DMs, saying: hey, what were you talking about? Or where can I see this information?\u201d But her questions didn\u2019t go down well in WGA\u2019s initial meeting \u2013 she was booed \u2013 and she says now that \u201cmaybe my timing was autistic and off\u201d.<\/p>\n Hoffman has described herself as autistic before, but she doesn\u2019t have an official diagnosis. \u201cBut I will say that my wife, we watch Love on the Spectrum<\/a>, and she feels like she understands me better with each episode.\u201d<\/p>\n Towards the end of our call, I hear Windey\u2019s distinctive vocal fry on the line; she has come to tell Hoffman there is avocado toast and orange juice ready for breakfast. \u201cThat is so nice, love. Thank you,\u201d Hoffman says, her voice switching to a softer, more tender tone.<\/p>\n The comedian had been single for a while before she met Windey three years ago outside a bar in LA. \u201cIt was a little bar, but it was having a dyke night and I missed most of it because I was out doing standup,\u201d Hoffman says. \u201cBut I went at the end of it to meet one of my friends and they were kind of filing out. And I said: let\u2019s bum a ciggy.\u201d So she and her friend headed outside, where Windey was waiting for an Uber: \u201cI met my match.\u201d<\/p>\n After some chatting, \u201cI said: listen, I\u2019m not going to beat around the bush \u2013 pun intended at the dyke bar \u2013 but I gotta get your number\u201d, Hoffman recalls. It must have been surprising to see the former star of The Bachelorette, who had identified as straight before she met Hoffman, at a lesbian night, I say. \u201cShe said she was exploring,\u201d Hoffman says with a laugh. \u201cI heard that one before.\u201d<\/p>\n She continues: \u201cI feel so, so lucky to have met her. We love being together. We love living together. We\u2019re not having kids \u2013 she is my family. She is my life and I am hers and we love it.\u201d That\u2019s not to say it\u2019s always sunshine and roses. <\/strong>\u201cWe\u2019re not going to live in a relationship where we don\u2019t ever hurt each other\u2019s feelings,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s OK. Let\u2019s deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoffman\u2019s refreshing honesty is surely a large part of the reason that audiences can\u2019t seem to get enough of her. She has added 10 dates to her tour and has her own TV show in the works. All of us are \u201cgoing to live a life of happiness and pain and suffering and joy and all of it\u201d, she says. \u201cI just don\u2019t think it\u2019s my job to spare anyone of anything necessarily.\u201d So what does she consider to be her job? \u201cMy job is just to be me. I\u2019m trying to allow myself to be as \u2018me\u2019 as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Hacks is available in the UK on Sky Atlantic<\/a> and Now<\/a><\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n