Some people are better at being themselves than others are. They're the ones at home instantly in any untried environment, the way a cloud looks just right no matter where it is in the sky. They seem to keep slightly better rhythm with the beat of the universe than other people—noticing things faster, making connections more quickly.

They're people like Tiffany Haddish, who has been on this whale-watching expedition for ten minutes and is already its undisputed captain—a turn of events no doubt surprising to the disputed captain, i.e., the man commanding the vessel and ostensibly hired to lead the tour. Gleeful in mutiny, Haddish's fellow passengers beseech her to hijack microphone duties from Captain Nick. Only one or two of them recognize her as a professional comedian and newly minted movie star; to the majority of middle-aged white people on this boat, she is simply a confident woman with three free hours to search for whales off the coast of Los Angeles. A woman whose commentary they enjoy.

“I don't know that much about whales!” Haddish protests. Her voice is pleasingly scratchy, with a low hum underneath—the auditory equivalent of a palliative scalp massage. She declines the offer of the mic, but she doesn't need it anyway. Strangers on the boat are clustering near her to catch pearls of observation as they drop from her lips.

“AAH, THERE'S A WHAAAALE! THERE'S A WHAAAALE! RIGHT THERE!” she shrieks, at a decibel level appropriate to signal the start of Armageddon. Haddish is the first person on the boat to spot the 40-foot gray mass emerging from the abyss of Santa Monica Bay. “I'm always paying attention,” she declares as passengers compliment her lookout skills—another disgrace for the captain.

Indeed, over the course of the day, Haddish proves a rigorous, insatiably curious observer—perhaps why she preferred to take the tour, rather than lead it.

“They have this—this kind of stuff,” a guide says, struggling to explain the physiology of a whale's mouth.

“Like brushes?” Haddish suggests.

“Exactly, like brushes, thank you,” says the guide. Haddish nods.

“That's a fisherman's boat, right?” Haddish asks, pointing at another vessel. “What they fishing for?”

“Why is some of the water super ripply and some of it not?” Haddish asks, and, along with everyone on the boat, is visibly disappointed when no one can exactly tell her.

“Now jump out the water, whale!” she yells at a whale. “Let me see that body!”

The January morning is sparklingly sunny and dreamily warm, even by Haddish's standards as a Southern California native. Though most people on the voyage have never heard of Tiffany Haddish, the details of her presence surely suggest to them that she is someone exciting. Flung on the deck is her large Gucci shoulder bag containing a full gallon jug of water with lipstick on the rim—Haddish's water bottle. Her denim jacket bears marks of intentional spray paint, and she's also wearing intentional Uggs. Her hair is a glossy panel of pristine, shoulder-length black—a wig, explains Haddish. It gleams in the sun as she dances in the breeze at the bow of the boat.

“It's pinned in!” she exclaims. “Let the wind blow!”

By the end of the tour, the white women on the boat will feel so close to Tiffany that one of them will simply reach over and feel her hair without asking permission. Haddish will handle this sudden invasion of her space with charm and grace.

“I just appreciate who you are,” another white lady tells her now. She has not seen Girls Trip, last summer's film that launched Haddish, who'd been steadily if unobtrusively working in comedy for years, suddenly onto the A-list—but she finds herself lost in a reverie of Tiffany. “It's the real deal,” the woman adds, “and I love it.”