“I’m the World’s Donkey”: Jenny Slate and Jacqueline Novak on Tiny Gods and Tradwifery

For the first two decades of her career, author, actor and comedian Jenny Slate found herself battling the overwhelming expectations placed upon Hollywood starlets. “It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be attractive or sexual or a winner,” she explained. “But the mold one must pour themselves into to be the ingénue, at least for me, I could not do it.” But a few years ago, when the Obvious Child star turned 40, she found relief from the burdens of the entertainment industry, taking a break from stand-up comedy and trying her hand at a brief stint with tradwifery. “Instead of sitting at the writing desk, I’m going to tidy the house for as long as I want, choose what’s for dinner, then space out,” said Slate when she got on a call last month with Jacqueline Novak, the Emmy-nominated comedian and co-host of the hit podcast Poog, in which she and Kate Berlant sample, and sometimes skewer, a number of health and wellness trends. But Slate didn’t have to wait too long before the right role came calling. It was the part of Nikki in Hulu’s Dying for Sex, in which Slate stars opposite Michelle Williams, who plays a woman setting off on a course of sexual and romantic adventure after being diagnosed with breast cancer. As Slate put it: “This is a show about two women who are the age we are, dealing with death and sex.” Below, she and Novak discuss ingénue syndrome, performance anxieties, and finding pleasure in the little things.

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JACQUELINE NOVAK: I used to think it was transgressive to say I love it when things get cancelled.

JENNY SLATE: There’s this weird thing that happens, at least in my opinion, when you say, “I love it when things get cancelled,” which, by the way, is how I honestly feel.

NOVAK: Yes, me too. I used to worry, as a child or at least a teenager, that on my wedding day I would be hoping for cancellation. Even for the thing I would theoretically be most excited about, if that morning they said an epic snowstorm had hit… I mean, I love making do when we’re forced to. We’d say, “Those who are already here, we’re going to meet downstairs for cocktails. If you can’t make it, you can’t make it.” I don’t know. It’s just–

SLATE: I’m not at all excited for doom, darkness or things falling apart. But one thing that’s gotten increasingly hard for me is inviting people to a birthday or dinner. Even though I really like my birthday, unless it’s my closest friends and family, part of me feels like I’m making everyone do it, that they don’t really want to be there. The opposite is when you have to “make do.” It’s like we’re all gathered because we know this is important. We belong here and it feels good to be together in this emergency.

NOVAK: Oh my god, right. Let’s just notice we have shelter in this storm and get to break bread together. Well, I don’t have the courage to have basically any birthday event. Isn’t that tough?

SLATE: No, it’s tough for you but not bad.

NOVAK: I mean, I ask people to celebrate me a lot with my shows. So on top of that and my birthday, it feels like a lot.

SLATE: I was at Largo for the premiere of your special. It was packed and so cool, a room filled with talented people I respect. I felt like I was in heaven. We were all there on purpose to watch this thing that blew us away.

NOVAK: It was great. The wisdom of Natasha Lyonne made that happen. She directed it and said, “Friends and family. People don’t even show up to this shit.” She lowered expectations to where I was like, “It will be me and my parents toasting, and that’s great.”

SLATE: Totally. Like, “Jacqueline Novak invites you to an evening of giggles at the chateau blah blah.”

NOVAK: Exactly. Have you had events for you that feel cold and weird and too big? Where it’s supposed to feel a certain way but it’s hell?

SLATE: Oh yeah, for sure. Coming from standup, remember when we’d have a mailing list like, “Come on out to the show.” You’d be at Rififi wondering how many seats there are. You’d have this 97 to 200-person mailing list, doing a new show every week. Then you get there and it’s six people. You feel so bad for them and have to do your standup. If you cancel, it’s even worse.

NOVAK: Oh god. Lying on the floor…

SLATE: It’s stayed with me forever. If it’s a show day, the day is ruined for me. I’m so anxious. I feel like I’m about to take a test I’m too stupid for and I’m going to get kicked out of the institution. The only other choice is not doing standup. After I filmed my last special, which–

NOVAK: Wait. Is that what’s coming out?

SLATE: No, I think today we’re talking about Dying for Sex, which I have coming out in April, a limited series with Michelle Williams.

NOVAK: Hell yeah. I’m very excited to hear about that.

SLATE: It’s such an important job to me, so special. Until that, I was trying to ride a wave that started with Obvious Child and I didn’t understand how to continue it. After much therapy, part of it is my rejection of trying to be an ingenue.

NOVAK: Wait, this is amazing. Tell me everything.

SLATE: It’s so painful. It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be attractive or sexual or a winner. But the mold one must pour themselves into to be the ingenue, at least for me, I could not do it. I felt like a failure.

NOVAK: It’s interesting. I feel you have it all. You have this intellect and all the things we think you have to erase to have an ingenue quality, to leave nothing behind but an image. You don’t do that. You’re an author. But what is the ingenue thing we want, or don’t want? Is it that we won’t be loved or have a career unless we’re this flower that’s suddenly emerged?

SLATE: Yeah. Even if everyone knows there’s no way you’re a virgin, you still aim at being like, “She’s our fresh cultural maiden. She’s so clean, undeniably dominant in her beauty and we fight for her.” To me, that’s what it feels like.

NOVAK: We go to war for her. And by the way, to be a comedian in the first place is the first rejection of that. It’s an upfront rejection and refusal to be interactive.

SLATE: Totally. Because people are like, “Oh, funny girls are so hot.” But there’s a swath of people that just are mad at a woman with a microphone. It’s like, the patriarchy’s biggest fear. You basically hold a phallus, but it only speaks your voice and no one else gets to talk.

NOVAK: Obviously, I’m already mourning the eventuality of this conversation ending, because this needs to be a nine-part series. And also, isn’t Michelle Williams just someone you yearn to know?

SLATE: Obviously. I mean, the entire thing kind of blew my mind. Okay, so here’s what I was going to say. In 2023, I filmed Seasoned Professional, which is my latest standup special. But I was also like, “This is my last.” I was like, “If I have to decide between this amount of anxiety around standup and not doing it anymore…” I thought, “What if I just silently tell myself I don’t do it anymore?” And I just stopped doing standup. I completely stopped, didn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t like, “Hey, not that anyone cares, but I’m not doing it anymore.”

NOVAK: Do you remember when people would leave and then return, making announcements in both directions?

SLATE: Unless you’re the head of a hospital or Mitch McConnell announcing he’s going somewhere, nobody cares where I’m going. I just was like, “I’m out.”

NOVAK: I care. But yes, go on.

SLATE: I know. But I just didn’t do standup until two weeks ago when I was like, “Actually, I kind of want to.” A friend who was coming to town said, “I really want to see Mae Martin’s show. Would you go with me?” And I was like, “I will go with you. And I also, if you don’t mind, think I should probably make myself do it.” So I did Mae’s show.

NOVAK: Amazing.

SLATE: Obviously, they’re the nicest person and so funny, so talented, the fucking best. But anyway, I just started doing it again and was like, “Well, nobody really missed me, but I’m back.”

NOVAK: I don’t think you have to constantly be hitting the boards. If you come out with another special next year, I’m not like, “Oh, I thought she took a break.” I just assume the comedian is somewhere doing their thing or not.

SLATE: Me neither. I basically never toured because I get super lonely and I’m always guarding against the pinhole that’s going to pop through the dam keeping my depression at bay. I’m like, “I cannot afford errant loneliness.” Not that I’m such a sad sack, really. In fact, I’m happy because of huge choices I make, like really weird big swings. But in that standup break time, I lost that sort of instant self-portrait some of us get to make of ourselves on stage. I was like, “Okay, I guess I don’t do standup anymore. I’ve turned 40. I’m not an ingenue anymore.” Turns out, now I’m just this nice donkey walking through town, going to restaurants. You kept me in the corral and now I’m out. And in that time, I got an email from my agents about this incredible project.

NOVAK: Oh my god.

SLATE: I was at the point where I was like, “I really want to be able to act, to do something that has all the notes in it.” I kept saying, “I think my wings are clipped. When am I going to get to act?” So I took the train to New York and did a chemistry read with Michelle Williams. I remember thinking, “This part is so good, I’m lucky to get one try with her because I haven’t been able to go deep into acting for so long.” I was so sweaty and scared. Michelle was so kind and treated me as an equal even though I was gagging because I’m obsessed with her. She obviously looked incredible. When I got that job, what struck me was, “Oh, I’m not pretending to be 31. No one’s asking me to do that anymore.” This is a show about two women who are the age we are, dealing with death and sex. I took this leap into just playing people now.

NOVAK: That’s truly the donkey out of it. This is phenomenal.

SLATE: The donkey’s out. I’m the world’s donkey.

NOVAK: Were you really conscious along the way of this ingenue box, of having to stay within it? Or did you start doing this role and realize how locked up you’d been? Or both?

SLATE: I think it’s a bit of both. If you IMDB me, my career mostly reflects someone who likes and needs to work. That’s great. I have said no to some things, like being a regular on a show for 5 years. But whatever I tried to do or not do, or when I was afraid of typecasting or whatever, it was overridden by “Do I need the money right now? Is there something interesting here for me?” It concerned me, but I also wasn’t able to totally contort myself. So I often felt bad about myself but was also unable to fully assimilate into whatever I thought I should be. I felt like an outsider who wanted inside but was unwilling to do what I needed to fit. But maybe I just didn’t fit. Either way, I felt it. But after doing Dying for Sex, I have a pretty clear understanding of my deal, what I like and don’t like, what’s worth it. If it doesn’t feel as good as this, I can’t be there. That’s the donkey that left.

NOVAK: That is huge. There’s that riddle where a guy says, “Eat this albatross” and after one bite, the other guy immediately kills himself. Years ago in war, someone had fed him seagull saying it was albatross. When he tasted it now, he realized that was no albatross before, that it must have been human flesh. All I’m saying is, if you’ve tasted it once and it’s what you want, then you have this reference point.

SLATE: And by the way, I sent you a million texts on the way home from watching your special being like, “Thank god.” I’m looking for other people who want to create stuff like you made. Seeing your work made me feel less alone, gave me something to aspire to, gave me energy and made me feel relieved.

NOVAK: That alone was so meaningful to me. It’s really generous of you to say. I feel similarly, like I managed to make my own project that has a signature for me that I now have to seek out. I want it to feel like that. But I’m equally able to lead myself into the wrong self-created project. There’s no escaping the self in anything you say or write. I don’t know that I ever tried to hide it, but it’s amazing how high artistic stakes actually feel. You could absolutely plummet into depression based on something artistically being off.

SLATE: It’s so tough. Actually, recently there’s something really important I want to be working on, but I’m tired. I missed a deadline on it. I think part of me wanted to be expelled from my own project.

NOVAK: Of course.

SLATE: Not that it hasn’t happened, but nobody’s asking for it. It’s a small theater piece I want to do, something I’ve never done before. I can see it clearly but also can’t see part of it. I was almost heartbroken over not being able to engage and how bad it felt. I was like, “This isn’t how I want to live with this.” I’m not what they call a “tradwife” on social media. I don’t think that’s my deal. 

NOVAK: I doubt it.

SLATE: I really love the domestic arts and rhythms.

NOVAK: Yes, yes, yes.

SLATE: I was like, “I’m not going to tell my husband or make a declaration to anyone. But for the next two weeks, I’m getting up, making school lunch, bringing her to school when it’s my day.” Instead of coming back and sitting at the writing desk, I’m going to tidy the house for as long as I want, choose what’s for dinner, then space out. I’ll do a weird journal entry about making lists of stuff nobody wants. At first, I was like, “You’re disgusting. You’re a bad girl who wastes everyone. You failed. You’re dead.” But by day five, I was like, “I fucking love this, man.” Then I sit at the writing desk like I’m holding in 90 pounds of diarrhea, whipped into a terrible frenzy. It’s not the way to approach the desk.

NOVAK: Goddamn. This is so massive.

SLATE: It’s so gross to say “whip myself into a frenzy” after mentioning diarrhea. I’m trying to say something important and somehow I always end up on diarrhea.

NOVAK: But it’s a core metaphor for a reason. The core biological stuff is so deep in us that we reach for it. If it’s the right metaphor, you’ve got to go with it even if it isn’t flattering. I tend to do things joylessly. Like, “Let me remove from the thing.” [But now] I’m making my office a vibe. Even this dumb chair, it’s very comfortable and that does a lot for me. It’s pretty significant; I’m actually excited to go sit in it. I bought it at an estate sale thinking it was a vintage French chair. Then I realized it was made in 2005.

SLATE: Darn it.

NOVAK: It’s a cheesy, fake French chair. I don’t know what I thought it was. But anyway.

SLATE: It looks nice.

NOVAK: It doesn’t really go with anything else. The point being, this tough self-talk of, “Little lady, if you want to make it, you better be…”

SLATE: “You better be hardcore. Do all the stuff you’re supposed to do.” The more I lean towards what actually pleases me, the better my work and experience feel. They’re in one tiny boat, they sink or float together. For so long I was like, “To be a legitimate writer or adult, I have to have an office.” But I like to write in my bed with my computer on a pillow on my lap. I don’t want an office, I just want to sit in bed and write. Most of my day I actually spend in the kitchen.

NOVAK: Yes. The kitchen is—

SLATE: It’s like my Nana Connie. I’m just in the kitchen on the phone making soup and—

NOVAK: My grandparents had this step stool. I think it was called a phone stool. It’s very 50s. There’s the phone on the wall and this little step ladder you sit on. It’s fantastic.

SLATE: Oh yeah, we have a chair that was my great grandmother’s and a landline. You can just sit in the chair and talk on the phone.

NOVAK: It’s phenomenal.

SLATE: It’s one of those things where it’s a complete experience with a very clear feel. Let my daily life be like this.

NOVAK: I’m convinced you know how to do this. I see you as someone who really knows this is the stuff of life. You don’t forget that. I’m always like, “I’ve got to beat myself into whatever to buy time and space for that.” But throughout the day, I’m feeling this dull lack, breathing air into a dead animal, feeling around for a pulse. When you get a little something creatively, you latch onto what has juice and you’re alive again. Then I try to white-knuckle grasp it.

SLATE: Oh, me too.

NOVAK: So the stool by the phone is what I need all day. Then when the mood poisons that and I’m feeling the dead feeling—

SLATE: It’s not good.

NOVAK: You go, “It was a false idol.”

SLATE: That’s why, rather than there being one idol, I like to imagine tiny gods everywhere. Sometimes they have their light on, sometimes they don’t. If you’re in the chair by the phone and feel that dead day, maybe there’s a pulse but you forget the point of having it. But my new understanding is, “It’s not a failure. I didn’t break the god. I’m not kicked out of a feeling, it just doesn’t work for me.” Like, I love Shirley Temples. But when I wake up, why would I drink one? I need coffee.

NOVAK: Tiny gods.

SLATE: Self-made polytheism. I’m not being offensive, but that’s kind of how I see things.

NOVAK: When you say “little gods,” something turns on in me. A sense of peace and a world of possibility for feeling okay opens up. The specificity of that image is doing something. That’s ultimately why we’re drawn to making art: to find the little ways, the images or ideas, that suddenly bring a sense of possibility. You are so specifically good at finding a million gods in all your work. You’re really something.

SLATE: You’re really something, too. What a great title for a special if one of us ever wants to go there.

NOVAK: “You’re Really Something.”

SLATE: We’ll see.

NOVAK: Do you want to tell me… I feel like we should serve the project a bit more, or no?

SLATE: Wait, oh god. I have to go. I’m receiving texts from a friend I’m supposed to meet in seven minutes.

NOVAK: Although you actually gave a gorgeous thesis about the significance of this particular role, so I think you did it anyway.

SLATE: Yeah. If people are interested, they’ll go ahead and watch Dying for Sex on FX and Hulu, premiering April 4th maybe, starring—

NOVAK: I’m so excited.

SLATE: Sissy Spacek, Jay Duplass?

NOVAK: Oh my god.

SLATE: Rob Delaney.

NOVAK: Holy shit.

SLATE: Esco Jouléy. It’s very good.

NOVAK: I’m so excited to watch you work.

SLATE: Watch me work.

NOVAK: It’s juicy acting.

SLATE: I’ll text you in real life and I will continue our friendship.

NOVAK: Adore you. Bye.