MARGARET CHO: When I was in high school, I did these improv shows with a comedy group. And my mother was always part of my act. I was just reaching for the first character I knew how to do, and that was really her. It’s not a parody or mockery or caricature. It’s a very real portrayal.
JCM: Do you find that you will suddenly say something you’ve never said before?
MC: Oh yeah. It’s one of those things that I can’t really write, because it emerges as something that is happening and real at the moment. I catch moments where I’m not aware of what she’s going to say, I’m just listening – which is good.
JCM: Does the experience bring out a compassion in you for your mother that you might not have had before?
MC: I have a lot of compassion for her anyway. My mother had an incredibly unhappy life – a terrible marriage, and just a hideous existence. And sometimes I felt the physical evidence of the mistakes that she had made with her life. That’s really an awful way to put it. But I always grew up feeling bad. I needed to somehow find a way to enjoy her as opposed to being frustrated for her or feeling sorry for her or being angry at her. My sense of humor developed out of that need to cope,
JCM: You talk about your mom having experienced intense racism when she was young. Is it true that she resisted an arranged marriage?
MC: My mother’s family is very wealthy, and she had been arranged to be married to this guy who was very wealthy. She got out of it somehow – which is incredible. She married my father, who had no money and very few prospects of money. They came to America. It was really hard.
JCM: When you were growing up did you feel racism at all?
MC: No. Not really. I think the real alienation started when I was eight or nine, when I realized I was just different inside; I thought different thoughts and had different priorities. And then as I got older I became more of a difficult disciplinary case and had to be expelled and go find my own way. And doing standup, I was incredibly out of place because I was around all these men in their midforties who were trying to be comedians. It was in the ‘8Os; these guys wore bolo ties and rolled blazer jackets and new sneakers. I slept with a lot of those guys. It’s so gross. [laughs]
JCM: You’ve been a drinker. When did you stop drinking?
MC: It’s been a little more than a year.
JCM: I’m always the friend of the addict. I went to some AlAnon meetings, which were so not fun. They were like: “Excuse me, we’re fifteen minutes late.” “I think you’ve been reading from the book a little too long and can I just say something about that?”
MC: That’s so funny.
JCM: Hundreds of caretakers together.
MC: That’s so nightmarish.
JCM: Did you ever have caretakers?
MC: I think I was my own caretaker which is incredibly lonely and difficult. And I was on the road all the time. The people in my life didn’t really know the extent of it. Because I would breeze through their lives for a brief time and then go away again. But actually I lived at a bottom for four years. Like in every way.
JCM: Was sobriety an all-at-once thing?
MC: It was really an all-at-once thing. I couldn’t live that way any more. That really is a big part of my life. I just feel free from it, and it’s just better.