Sarah Sherman knows she “bombed” while opening for Adam Sandler’s You’re My Best Friend Tour, and she has a pretty good idea of precisely what went wrong.
The Saturday Night Live star offered her performance review in a new interview with Variety. “I bombed! I stunk,” Sherman said when the subject of the tour came up. “The thing about Sandler is his comedy is really surreal and bizarre and dirty. So, it’s actually a good fit” with her own style, she said.
But “so much of my material… is very audience-interactive, so it’s weird to be so far away from people,” she said, which made her brand of comedy a not-so-great fit for the massive arenas Sandler plays.
To add insult to injury, the 32-year-old comedian said, “My voice is very shrill, and when it’s ricocheting off the walls of a giant arena, it can be painful for some people.”
Sherman has a new comedy special on HBO, Live + In the Flesh, which was recorded at Brooklyn’s The Bell House, a much smaller venue. She also has the benefit of an audience that knows what to expect from the self-described “shrill” comedian, unlike when she opened for Sandler.
“Because I’m some random woman on stage, they’re like, ‘Why the f--- is she talking about her f---ing a-----e?’” Sherman told Variety. “Also, if you pay to see an Adam Sandler show and someone is on stage who isn’t Adam Sandler, you’re like, ‘What?’”
The comedy star’s new special showcases her penchant for the shocking and bizarre, attracting a slightly different fan base than Sandler’s.
“The whole special is all about how you’re never in a real zone—it’s all transformation, fantasy, escapism. I just love that,” she said. But “comedy is also a job. Being a comedian is awesome, but I’m a comedian for hire. Sandler hired me to open for him and warm up the crowd, so I want to do a good job.”
“I don’t want to make comedy that’s for no one. I like making people laugh. It’s just a matter of learning how to make all different kinds of people laugh in different settings,” Sherman concluded.
