{"id":289091,"date":"2025-10-09T11:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T11:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/289091\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T11:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T11:16:13","slug":"iliza-shlesinger-on-how-dallas-shaped-her-why-motherhood-is-funny-and-staying-blond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/289091\/","title":{"rendered":"Iliza Shlesinger on how Dallas shaped her, why motherhood is funny \u2014 and staying blond"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iliza Shlesinger was living in Los Angeles when she became the first woman to win the NBC reality competition Last Comic Standing. A girly-girl with a foul mouth, she has a rare ability to speak frankly about women\u2019s lives without alienating male audiences. I learned about Shlesinger from a guy friend, and it was my brother who took me to see her in Grand Prairie when she played the Texas Trust CU Theatre in 2021.<\/p>\n

They loved her because she\u2019s funny, but that affection deepened when they learned<\/a> she was from Dallas. She went to the Greenhill School. \u201cClass of 2001,\u201d she tells me on the phone from LA. \u201cGo Hornets.\u201d Her dad and stepmom lived in North Dallas until recently, when they moved to Argyle, and she came of age competing on the swim and lacrosse teams. \u201cWhat I lack in skill, I make up for in aggression,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 17 and 18, she\u2019s appearing in Dallas at the Majestic Theatre on the heels of her new comedy special, A Different Animal, her first on Amazon Prime after half a dozen on Netflix. Once a binge-drinking elder millennial, to name-check one classic routine<\/a>, the 42-year-old is now a wife and mom, but her sly observational comedy still alternates from chill stoner vibe to a hyper physical schtick that manages to skewer both male and female absurdities. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s become one of my favorite comics, and I was grateful she made time for me one morning so we could chat about her hometown, how motherhood and Oct. 7 changed her and why it\u2019s time for women to retire the word \u201cpatriarchy.\u201d<\/p>\n

News Roundups<\/p>\n

Catch up on the day’s news you need to know.<\/p>\n

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You\u2019re from Dallas, but you don\u2019t fit the stereotype, which is a nice way of puncturing it.<\/b><\/p>\n

When I tell people I\u2019m from Texas, they\u2019re like, Oh my God, I love Austin. I always say Dallas and Austin are like sisters. Dallas is older, she got married, she went to SMU and lives in a big house, and she might have a Klonopin addiction. Austin is the younger sister who\u2019s barefoot and married a musician, and everyone always brings up Austin. It\u2019s like a real \u201cMarcia Marcia Marcia\u201d situation. But I love Dallas! I love to visit and see what new corporate restaurant has opened off Belt Line. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to figure out which part of your personality is Dallas, and I think it\u2019s the combination of girliness and toughness.<\/b><\/p>\n

\""No<\/p>\n

“No matter how dark the low lights in my hair get, I\u2019m keeping it blond,” says Dallas-raised comedian Iliza Shlesinger, photographed in 2019.<\/p>\n

Marteen Deboer \/ Courtesy Photo<\/p>\n

I think about that, too. Growing up you play a sport, and I think back to sweating in the heat, and there\u2019s a let\u2019s-get-it-done attitude. I also carry my head pretty high, and there\u2019s this very Texas quality where you walk into any room smiling like you\u2019re running for mayor. But the most Texas thing about me is that no matter how dark the low lights in my hair get, I\u2019m keeping it blond. <\/p>\n

You used to joke about drinking too much, and now you\u2019re joking about \u201cmom brain\u201d and squeezing a baby\u2019s tooshies. What do you want people to know about being a mother?<\/b><\/p>\n

Nothing. If you\u2019re not a mother, chances are you aren\u2019t interested, which I totally understand, in the way I don\u2019t want to hear a man talk about his fantasy draft. But if you are a mom, what you\u2019re doing is impossible, and it is the most beautifully, painfully exquisite experience. I keep trying to get my bearings, but it\u2019s a roller coaster that doesn\u2019t end. You gotta strap in and strap on, \u2018cause it\u2019s wild. <\/p>\n

I do have to say I was nervous about it. It\u2019s such an indictment on me as a comedian that because I took a step in my evolution I worried I would lose my ability to call \u2019em like I see \u2019em. It\u2019s somehow not bad to be 50 and still talking about the same experiences? But we have a problem with being angry at women \u2014 when they don\u2019t have kids, when they do have kids. So people are going to be upset that you\u2019re a woman from the get-go. But with the mom material, I\u2019ve never had a customer complaint. <\/p>\n

I watched your new special on Amazon Prime, <\/b>A Different Animal<\/b>, and I want to thank you for trying to put the nail in the coffin on the word \u201cpatriarchy.\u201d <\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m just so over it. We need to focus less on the language that condemns what you perceive as the opposition and focus on ourselves. I work in standup comedy. It\u2019s a boy\u2019s club. I focus on the jokes. I never focus on why I\u2019m not getting things because of my gender. Hard work and talent pay off. <\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s very Texan.<\/b><\/p>\n

Get it done! Sometimes there are forces working against you, but Texans are good at pushing back. I moved to LA, and I didn\u2019t have money, and I didn\u2019t have family there. I paid to keep that hair blond, and OK, sometimes I went a little too light. Now that I\u2019m a mom, I\u2019ve got honey highlights. <\/p>\n

In 2023, you wrote a story for <\/b>The Hollywood Reporter<\/b><\/a> about antisemitism after Oct. 7. Had you spoken much about being Jewish before that? I can\u2019t remember it being part of your act. <\/b><\/p>\n

I have a fairly nonpolitical routine. I don\u2019t want anybody of any gender or orientation to feel preached to, so I never felt compelled to talk about being Jewish. Oct. 7 happened, and everybody I\u2019d stood up for was not standing up with me. So I wrote something I didn\u2019t think was a big deal, but somehow people weren\u2019t getting the memo that it wasn\u2019t OK to enact violence against civilians just living their lives. <\/p>\n

I think any time you stand up for yourself, things are going to get deliberately misconstrued. You want Jewish people to feel safe, so that gets twisted into you want people dying in a war. No. There are a lot of people whose mission is to create chaos. <\/p>\n

But I spend most of the year traveling, and most people are normal and good. We want to live our lives and have our families, pray how we want to pray, love how we want to love, and it\u2019s a violent minority making things difficult. I have not given up on this country. I\u2019m still fighting for it.<\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019ve always liked that you\u2019re from Dallas. You may have moved away, but I still think of you as one of us.<\/b><\/p>\n

There\u2019s part of me that is still one of you. And it\u2019s from the scalp up.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Hepola: Taylor Sheridan, Nicole Kidman and Diana Ross make for one hell of a Dallas party<\/a><\/p>\n

A star-studded amfAR fundraiser celebrates the Fort Worth-bred auteur of \u201cYellowstone\u201d and \u201cLandman,\u201d but you\u2019ll forgive us for being fixated on the Nicole Kidman part.<\/p>\n

\"Growing<\/a>Hepola: Taylor Davis wanted to be a wrestler, but she became Miss Texas instead<\/a><\/p>\n

As she preps for Miss USA, the Allen-bred beauty queen reveals her WWE obsession and how she learned to love the swimsuit competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iliza Shlesinger was living in Los Angeles when she became the first woman to win the NBC reality…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":289092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,11321,1596,13527,19892,7260,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-289091","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arts-entertainment","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-greenhill-school","12":"tag-high-profile","13":"tag-performing-arts","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115343929816735453","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}