- Hi, Margaret, I'm Jackie.

Nice to meet you.

- [Margaret] Hi.

- I was wondering what you thought about, you always bring your life into your comedy and real experiences, and there's been a lot in the press, like with the Hasan Minhaj getting taken out because he didn't give the exact story.

How do you feel about that?

And do you tell the exact story every time?

- Well, I think it sort of depends on your writing style, and I actually have had crabs, so I feel like, to me, nobody's gonna contest that.

Like, the New Yorker's not gonna go, "Have you really had?"

you know?

And I'm like, "Yes, I have," and I'll talk about it.

- This is different than the Judy Woodruff interview.

I'm just saying.

- I mean, I haven't seen the online part of this interview.

- Fair.

- Judy Woodruff.

But no, I think it sort of just depends on writing style and what we expect from art.

I think the way that I sort of approach it is I'm not sure if I'm embellishing it would necessarily help the story for me.

But with him, I think it sort of depends on the way he's approaching a story, and I wouldn't fault him for that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think it's just the way that we're coming at comedy or styles of comedy.

My style is like extreme self-incriminating, self-deprecating, but still I'm a fucking masterpiece.

So that's like my approach, that's the thing.

Like high, low, and so maybe that lends itself to this idea of more honesty, but more and more literal.

I'm not sure.

- [Jackie] Okay, thank you.

- But the idea that someone in your business, in the business of comedy, would make the personal the professional, that's pretty commonplace, right?

There are a lot of people in comedy who do that.

Not everybody.

- Oh, absolutely.

- It feels very natural.

- Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's the best comedy is when people are telling their stories from their lives.

- It's the thing you know best.

- Yeah.

- Right, of course.

Hi.

- Hi, Margaret.

Thank you for coming to Austin.

- [Margaret] Thank you.

- I have a general question I just wanted to know.

So when you work with like other comedians or actors or whatever on a Saturday Night Live or whatever it might be, I've always wondered how much is scripted versus ad-lib in general.

And, of course, it's gonna vary and depend.

Like, if you worked with Robin Williams when he was alive, I would imagine the majority was ad-lib, right?

But I just was wondering because it's hard to tell.

- Yeah, it's hard to tell.

I think something like just a setting where I think comedians who are performing, you want to kind of know where you are and then sort of have a script that you're working from.

But then Bill Hicks would always say, but Bill Hicks is like the best comedian that we always look to and say, "Oh, that's the best comedian."

He would say your material is what you fall back on.

You've gotta go out there and have no script, have no nothing.

You have to just work and trust that it's going to be there.

So that's what we're aspiring to.

But somebody also like Robin Williams, he was just everywhere.

Everything was happening all at once so there was no sense of a script or structure, but it would still hang on something.

It was very celestial what he was doing.

So you can't really, everybody was very different.

- When you hear that a show is largely ad-lib, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, you kind of think, "How is it possible for them to be that fast in the moment?"

And I imagine there's a lot of stuff we don't see that's less funny than that, but you gotta give them respect for that.

- It's so funny.

- It's so hard to imagine that that's not scripted.

- But it's following the through line of Larry hates everything and then everybody hates him and then they go and that's how- - [Evan] And so if that's the frame- - And the thought of that is so funny, just him walking around and him trying to do these things, hating everything and the tension of that is hilarious.

- [Evan] You thought that show was funny?

- I love it.

I love it.

- [Evan] It was pretty good.

It's kind of sad to see it go.

- I know.

- [Evan] Hi.

- Margaret, I was wondering if there's anything you can share about your screenplay?

And also, did you name it Mommy because, or is it Mother?

- [Margaret] Mommy.

- Mommy, because your mom would refer to herself in third person?

'Cause my mom does that a lot.

I always thought it was like a just her thing, but I'm now thinking it's an Asian thing.

- It's an Asian thing.

Like it's an Asian thing of like in Korean culture, when you have a child, you no longer are your name, you're your child's, I'm like, you know, my mother's now called Margaret's mother, Margaret's mommy.

And so she's like, "I'm Mom, I'm Mommy, I'm Mommy, Mommy," that she just identifies as Mommy.

Like, we don't even know her name.

Like, we're not really sure.

So the play is all about her and what she's representing, like kind of coming into this life as this foreign person, and she still really identifies as very much Korean, even though she's been here for way longer than she was ever in Korea.

So she spent like 60 years here and 20 there.

It's very different, and so I think it's just her trying to kind of explain her story and her journey.

- She's still with us?

- Yeah.

- Does the fact that she's still alive mean that you're writing a different play than you would write if she were not with us?

- Well, she's lost her hearing, so it's perfect.

(audience laughs) - That's the answer to the question, right?

- It's the best.

She won't get a hearing aid.

And I'm like, I'm so supportive.

I'm like, you do you.

You do you.

- [Evan] I love it.

Hi, how you doing?

- Hey, how are you?

Margaret, I'm Ken.

And so growing up, I was always glued to the TV Guide, and I was an only child, so I read every article, front to back, just everything.

And then I remember when All-American Girl was coming out, it was just like, this is historic, this is history.

You don't see an Asian family, and so I just wanted to ask you what were the highs and lows of that show, like when you first got it, like your excitement and just, 'cause there was 19 episodes, so talk about that, please.

- Oh, thank you.

I love TV Guide, too.

I miss it.

I miss it.

We don't really have anything like that where we can all just sort of look, but the TV was so major.

There were so few shows really.

We only had three networks really and just a few shows to choose from.

We could really look at that.

But the highs were that it was the first Asian American family on television.

It was a really big deal, and we had amazing guest stars.

We had Jack Black.

The real Jack Black, not the Asian Jack Black.

- [Evan] Much younger.

- Yes, much younger, playing a minor supporting role.

We had Mariska Hargitay playing a minor supporting role.

We had Oprah playing a sort of a cameo.

We had all sorts of really interesting guest stars but the low point was they thought I was too fat to play the role of myself.

So I was like, I don't know.

Okay.

I think I'm this size.

I'm not sure, so it was very hard.

- [Ken] Why did it get canceled?

Was it ratings or?

- They canceled it because they wanted our furniture for the Drew Carey Show, and couldn't be persuaded to get new furniture.

I think that it was also, at the time, the conceit of having a standup comedians front television shows was sort of going away a little bit.

'Cause right before that you had the big sort of wave of that started by Seinfeld actually.

So I think part of that was going away.

And then we were looking more at ensembles like Friends, which, of course, is very historic.

So I think we were caught in the crossfire of trends changing and stuff like that.

- [Evan] So what year was that show on?

- 1994.

- [Evan] Okay, so '94.

So now it's 20 years later.

No, it's 30 years later.

- 30 years.

- Pardon me.

30 years.

But I seem to think that the show that Randall Park did.

That was Fresh off the Boat.

Is that right?

- Yes.

Yes.

- So people were like, "Oh my God, this is so groundbreaking "to have this show," and I remember thinking, "But Margaret Cho had a show a million years ago."

What's so different?

But it shows how little has changed in some ways, right?

- Right, right, but I had fucked up that show so bad it took them 25 years to do it again.

- To get another one.

Thanks a lot, Margaret.

- Sorry.

- Exactly.

Okay, go ahead.

- Hi, so my question has more to do with the craft of keeping jokes 'cause I remember seeing a special with Joan Rivers and she had this giant file, going through that, and Mrs. Maisel had her notebook on that.

Do you do that or do you write?

- Great question.

- I do.

I have things written down.

It's not as formal as Joan.

I mean, I wish I had something like that.

That would be great.

Maybe someday I will.

But minor recorded stuff.

And what's good is that I have a lot of my specials on tape somewhere.

You know, they're all filmed everywhere, so I have made documents of it over time, so it's good.

- You ever recycle jokes from a previous, it's like a band going out and playing their hits from the first album?

- Absolutely.

- And they still work?

They still hit.

- Right, yeah, because you just fill in when it was Pamela Anderson, now it's Kim Kardashian.

You just like fill in different, because the same archetypes and icons kind of come up again and again in society.

Like, you'll have the big male star, you have the big female star that everybody's jealous of, and then you can reuse these ideas again.

But O.J.

's still O.J.

We still make fun of him all the time.

(audience laughs) - [Evan] I'll tell you what, if I were in the audience tonight, I'd be like, "Okay, where's the O.J.

joke?"

- I know.

You got it.

- Right?

It's obviously gonna happen.

All right, we'll do one more here.

Yes, hi.

- Good afternoon.

I'm Joyce from Virginia.

- [Margaret] Hi.

- Hi, I just love everything that you do.

Whenever you're on the screen, you just take over, and I just love that about you.

- [Margaret] Thank you.

- One thing I'd like to ask is if you could think back in time, I was gonna ask you, if you went back and spoke to your 14-year-old self, what would you tell her about your life and encouraging, but is there any other point in your life where you would go back and tell yourself something?

And if not 14, when and what would you say?

- Yeah, thank you.

I think just not to worry so much.

I was just so worried all that time.

Like, I was just so worried, and I just didn't know if I would be able to make a living or if I would be able to pay my rent or whatever, and I was just so scared.

And now I realize, oh, actually, I could have had more fun.

I was so nervous about things or making a mistake or doing something wrong or I don't know, and you realize as you get older, time goes by so fast.

Like, how did that happen?

I'm like, you know, I'm 55 now, and I didn't enjoy it as much, so I wish that I could go back and tell that person, that kid, to have a good time.

- [Evan] Good.

Okay.

- Thank you.

- Well, I hope you all had a good time.

It was wonderful, wasn't it?

Give Margaret Cho a big hand.

Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- All right, good.

Great.

(audience claps)