Lauren Weedman Doesn't Think She's That Interesting

Just about everybody in Seattle likes Lauren Weedman. Sitting down with her over a few sandwiches, it's easy to see why. Being relatively new to the Seattle theater world, I never saw her before she scooted off to New York and two years on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But if she performs anything like she holds conversation--and something tells me she does--Weedman must be a fast, funny, and smart piece of work. She has returned to Seattle with Wreckage, her latest piece, about divorce and moving to L.A. What follows are cut 'n' paste excerpts from our conversation.

"I thought that you make a switch and suddenly you're in. When I got The Daily Show, I thought, 'That's it--I'm on the other side.' But I'd go to auditions and they would say, 'You're on The Daily Show, right? Yeah, well, we're not really responding to you right now....' Eventually, I realized it didn't mean anything."

"It's embarrassing, especially in L.A., to say you do solo theater. My first show was about being adopted and I would talk to people and they were like, 'Oh my God, mine is too!' And I'd say, 'My grandma--' and they'd say, 'Oh, my grandma's in mine, too!' People are just cashing in and cashing in, and that aspect is embarrassing. It's a joke, a punch line in the industry, like doing standup. It makes people go 'ugh.' I don't do standup--but if I did, I wouldn't admit it."

"I was doing a workshop in a high school and a kid raised his hand and asked, 'Just what makes you think you're so interesting?' And I was like, 'Uh, I don't think I'm interesting--the Rep approached me--I never wanted to do this... I don't think the show is that good.'"

"I did theater first--I never went into it thinking I wanted to do solo stuff. But I could never get my ya-yas out. I never got to be as intense as I wanted, as full-on as I wanted. This suits my neuroses better. And I get to create whatever characters I want--I always wanted to play a big, gospel-singing black woman. Nobody's going to cast me as that. Maybe after a few more of these pesto sandwiches...."

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