Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out

Episode 187: Jenny Slate – Unafraid of Sadness

Date: October 13, 2025
Guests: Mike Birbiglia (host, A), Jenny Slate (guest, B)

Episode Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on vulnerability, creativity, and the intersection of comedy and sorrow. Comedian and actor Jenny Slate joins Mike Birbiglia to “work out” material but also reflects deeply on sadness, self-acceptance, failures, career navigation, improvisational artistry, and honest living. They explore how their personal histories and struggles manifest in their comedy, with a focus on Slate’s career, including Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, her experience at SNL, the challenges and rewards of live performance, and the ongoing process of finding meaning and connection through art.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Embracing Sadness in Comedy

• Jenny’s Approach: Jenny discusses how Marcel the Shell balances humor and sadness without shying away from sorrow ([00:08]).

  "I don't want to do that kind of like grad school short story about something really upsetting so that the story can be serious and good... but there is something about being sad... baseline sorrow."
  — Jenny Slate [00:08]

• Loneliness & Acceptance: She reflects on feeling “lonely for that part of myself that couldn't be included” ([00:53]), highlighting the catharsis and creative necessity of acknowledging all emotional states.

• Comedy as Inclusion: Both agree their favorite comedy “acknowledges in the silliness that also there’s sadness” ([32:31]).

2. Early Days & ‘Big Terrific’

• Comedy Roots: Jenny, Gabe Liedman, and Max Silvestri formed a supportive, improvisational group environment, illustrated by the humility of performing to tiny crowds and valuing those formative experiences ([05:47]).

  "Like, whoa, this is... I must really want to do this because I'm performing for 11 people. Thing is, that's like in my—in me now."
  — Jenny Slate [05:47]

• Artistic Support: Mike recalls these shows as uniquely joyous, emphasizing the importance of community to creative resilience ([05:25]).

3. Improv, Process & Writing Styles

• Jenny on Process: She describes her unstructured, bullet-point style for standup ([08:47]).

  "Everything just has a title, like Dad’s Nightgown... I’ve never once written anything out."
  — Jenny Slate [10:31]

• Improvisation & Authenticity: They agree on the need to “just tell the story” rather than force scripting, equating performance to sharing memories authentically ([14:16], [13:51]).

4. Navigating Failure & SNL

• SNL Firing: Jenny recounts her stage fright post-SNL and the lingering insecurity and self-doubt it sparked ([14:32]).

  "I used to have stage, like, kind of, like, fun, uncomfortable excitement... and then I just got stage fright when I got fired from SNL, like straight up. No way. It, like, fucked me up a little bit."
  — Jenny Slate [14:32]

• Career Detours: She acknowledges her ensuing successes (e.g., Obvious Child, Marcel) as paths she might not have taken had she remained at SNL, embracing the idea that setbacks opened her truest creative pathways ([17:17]).

  "The end result is better. The life that I've had is really good for me... It’s weird to fail at something that you get."
  — Jenny Slate [17:19]

5. The Individual Path: Fame, Opportunity, and Social Media

• Perceptions vs. Reality: Jenny resists notions of having “ascended,” disclosing her continued need to audition and prove herself ([24:05]), and underlining that external markers of career “success” are not the whole story.

• Resisting Social Media: She speaks to her deliberate exit from social platforms to preserve her wellbeing and creative focus ([22:19], [63:26]).

  "I was like, oh, this is drugs. It makes me feel bad. I'm out."
  — Jenny Slate [22:28]

6. Marcel the Shell: Artistry and Personal Resonance

• Art Reflecting Life: They discuss how Marcel the Shell, created in collaboration with Dean Fleischer-Camp, is a deeply personal, improvisational achievement that blurs the lines between indie charm and mainstream relevance ([26:39]-[36:45]).

• Emotional Authenticity: They recount recording Marcel during Jenny and Dean’s divorce, infusing the film with real emotional undertones ([37:36]-[39:51]).

  "And we were recording in the house that we used to live in... it's just—I don't know. It was a really weird thing that we did to do that. But it, I think, allowed us to be the people who... Like, yesterday I was like, hey, do you want to have lunch?"
  — Jenny Slate [38:43]

• Central Marcel Themes: Jenny connects personally with Marcel’s monologue about connection, space, survival, and the pursuit of small beauties ([35:54]).

  "I seem to have, in spite of all the things that can get me down, an inexhaustible appetite for life's small beauties and for creating little playful games..."
  — Jenny Slate [35:54]

7. Sensitivity, Wonder, and Depression

• Being Open: Both discuss their capacities (and failures) to experience wonder, their fluctuating “receptors” for joy, and how depression can disrupt this openness ([48:13]).

• Overheard Moments: Jenny’s love for eavesdropping is recounted in a hilarious senior-center romance story, relishing the beauty in “overheard” snippets of life ([50:16]-[51:54]).

8. Boundaries in Comedy & Family

• Parenting & Privacy: Jenny and Mike talk about the ethics of including their children in standup as they age, advocating for sensitivity and consent ([29:08]-[30:11]).

9. Working Out Material (‘Scraps & Fragments’)

• Abandoned & Half-Formed Jokes: Jenny shares a social media observational bit—comparing the absurdity of “liking” strangers’ swimsuit photos online to keeping a shoebox of physical bathing suit photos at home—and why she struggles to make the bit work for her style ([59:38]-[62:10]).

• Mike’s Material: The two riff on age as an abstraction for children and discuss the “list” of life experiences they’re now writing off due to age—skiing, skydiving, certain countries. Jenny highlights how some ages are vivid and others impossible to picture ([66:00]-[70:00]).

10. Advice & Notable Wisdom

• Graduation Speech for One: Jenny tells the story of giving a graduation speech to a single student on a small island, reflecting on tailored advice and embracing receptivity to life ([43:00]-[45:15]).

  “Find out what your receptors are for like feeling and feeling what you like about life. Once I did, my life got a lot easier.”
  — Jenny Slate [45:15]

• Knowing Yourself: Jenny encourages embracing and expressing what one genuinely likes, rather than aspiring to norms or roles that don’t fit ([46:48]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Feeling Sadness:

  "Why am I always as a friendly person who likes to have fun and likes romance and chilling out, why am I so sad?"
  — Jenny Slate [00:31]

• On SNL:

  "...the second I walked in there, I was like, this isn't what I thought."
  — Jenny Slate [18:21]

• On Social Media:

  “I was like, oh, this is drugs. It makes me feel bad. I'm out.”
  — Jenny Slate [22:28]

• On Artistic Mission:

  "Once I figured that out, I was like, oh, I don’t have to try to be on, like, Three and a Half Men... I don’t have to have that goal."
  — Jenny Slate [47:44]

• On Joyful Living:

  “I seem to have... an inexhaustible appetite for life's small beauties and for creating little playful games...”
  — Jenny Slate [35:54]

• On Self-Acceptance:

  "I’m not sassy, I’m not sarcastic, and I’m not dry. …I’m supposed to be finding that in my daily life, in my comedy. ...It’s totally consistent in my private life, my private moments and in my larger work."
  — Jenny Slate [46:55]

• On Ageing and Giving Up Things:

  "I'm hitting that age where I'm like, I guess I'm never gonna... For sure. You know what I mean? Like, I think I'm not gonna hit North Korea."
  — Mike Birbiglia [68:09]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:08 – Embracing sorrow in Marcel the Shell; “baseline sorrow”
• 05:47 – Early days performing for tiny audiences; humility in comedy
• 10:08 – Jenny’s writing process: “scraps” and improvisational spirit
• 14:32 – Working through stage fright after SNL; Nick Kroll’s support
• 17:19 – How “failure” at SNL led to major creative breakthroughs
• 22:19 – Slate’s exit from social media for mental health
• 26:39 – Obvious Child and Marcel: taking indie art mainstream
• 35:54 – Jenny’s appetite for small beauties and playful life
• 38:43 – Recording Marcel the Shell amid a divorce
• 43:00 – The one-person graduation speech and tailored advice
• 45:15 – “Figure out what your receptors are for feeling...”
• 50:16 – Overheard octogenarian romance at the diner
• 59:38 – Standup “scraps” and “fragments”: social media, voyeurism
• 66:00 – Mike’s “living list” of things never to do again
• 71:01 – Working It Out for a Cause: Jenny chooses NPR

Tone & Style Notes

• The conversation is candid, intimate, and peppered with self-effacing humor and vulnerability.
• Both Mike and Jenny are generous in sharing creative defeats and doubts, encouraging openness about creative processes.
• The dialogue is affectionate, filled with mutual admiration, and notably shy of harshness or cynicism.

Nonprofit Highlight:

Jenny’s Pick: National Public Radio (NPR), for its importance in public discourse and journalism ([71:01]).

Summary Table of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic Summary | Notable Quote/Speaker | |-----------|--------------|-----------------------| | 00:08–01:11 | Embracing sadness creatively | Jenny: “baseline sorrow” | | 05:11–07:58 | Early standup, humility, ‘Big Terrific’ | Jenny: “in me now” | | 10:01–10:31 | Unscripted, improvisational writing | Jenny: “never once written anything out” | | 14:32–17:19 | Post-SNL firing, resilience | Jenny: "fucked me up a little bit" | | 22:19–22:28 | Leaving social media | Jenny: “this is drugs” | | 26:37–27:59 | Indie to mainstream transition | Mike/Jenny | | 35:54 | Life’s appetites & beauties | Jenny: “inexhaustible appetite...” | | 38:43 | Recording Marcel during divorce | Jenny | | 43:00–45:26 | Graduation speech for one | Jenny: “figure out what your receptors are...” | | 50:16 | Overheard diner conversation | Jenny | | 59:38–62:10 | Working out standup bits | Jenny/Mike | | 66:00–70:01 | The “living list” of aging | Mike/Jenny | | 71:01 | Nonprofit: NPR | Jenny |

Conclusion

This episode is a moving, laughter-drenched meditation on showing up for all parts of yourself—funny, sad, or in between. It celebrates the value of creative humility, improvisational artistry, and the vital human project of finding resonance even in life’s smallest or most challenging moments. Slate’s personal stories, her work on Marcel the Shell, and her refusal to conform to either industry or social media pressures offer guidance and companionship to fellow artists and listeners alike.

Listen if you:

• Love comedy that goes deeper than punchlines
• Want insight into creative process and vulnerability
• Appreciate conversations that bridge humor, sadness, and self-acceptance

Memorable Moment:
Jenny’s story of overhearing senior citizen gossip about romance in a diner—a sweet, comic microcosm of the episode’s thesis: connection and wonder can be found anywhere if we stay open ([50:16]).

For more from Jenny Slate:

• IG: @JennySlate
• Podcast: I Need You Guys (SiriusXM, Thursdays)
• Latest special: Seasoned Professional
• Book: Lifeform (“Graduation Speech” essay referenced)

Cause to Support: NPR and local public media stations ([71:01])