You might not have noticed Hannah Gadsby's Netflix special, Nanette, when it premiered in June. But since then, its many fans—including Kumail Nanjiani, Kathy Griffin, and Aparna Nancherla—have praised its genre-probing, searing honesty. Now, the Australian comedian is facing success on a global stage, all because of a show in which she declared she's going to quit comedy altogether. What happens when your swan song brings international acclaim? Gadsby reflects on it all here.

Gadsby will perform Nanette for the last time at the Montreal Comedy Festival on Friday.

There were several points in the year or so before I wrote Nanette that I began to think about what I was doing on stage. One of the defining moments was watching a couple of young guys here in Australia. I really liked them—really great comics—but they were doing self-deprecating humor on stage. They were two straight white men just going, "Oh, you know, I'm not really manly enough!” And I'm like, What the hell is going on? They're fine! What are they doing? That’s when I just flipped the script for myself, and began to think: No! What the hell am I doing? Why am I being self-deprecating? The world shits on me enough as a fat queer woman from a low socio-economic background. I've got nothing. If I'm not going to speak up for myself, nobody will.

Nanette was built around a story about being confronted by a man who thought I was hitting on his girlfriend at the bus stop. I’d told the story in a previous show but I realized that I hadn't told the truth about it. And I knew why—it had no place on a comedy stage. There's no way you can tell that story and make it funny; it's horrific. So the show's built around that: I tell it funny, and then I say, “Hey, guess what—that’s not what happened.”

The subject of self-deprecation became a very important touchstone for the show. It shows that comedy is an art form where people in the margins can tell their stories truthfully.

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Talking about quitting was a theatrical device, a kind of subversive tactic. In the middle of writing it, I realized my show would be relegated to being “a one-woman show.” That always happens to women’s shows. Nobody would ever say that to a man doing a subversive comedy show or showing his vulnerability on stage. He'd be called a genius pushing the genre. I've seen it happen for women well before me, so I counteracted that before they could even say it: “You can call it whatever you like. I quit.” Which was somewhat facetious, but of course as it went on, I really enjoyed the idea of not doing comedy anymore.

I don’t think it really matters if I quit or not. Often when comedians experience success, say, with a Netflix special, and then they get their own TV show, they don't do stand-up again; they don't do the grind. They don't go on tour. I may very well fall into that category—the world's really opened up. Real power comes with the idea that, yes, I can step away from this. I don't have to be a stand-up comedian anymore. Whatever I do next, I won't be pulling my punches.

I don’t think of Nanette as being a comedy show—I see it as a sledgehammer, because I think comedy needs to step up and grow up. When I first started in comedy, there was no YouTube culture. But now, if you want to laugh and not think, you are so well catered for: Just watch a cat video. But I think it's a waste of a moment—you know, when do you get to experience something in a roomful of people, like we can with a stand-up comedy show.

I don’t think of Nanette as being a comedy show—I see it as a sledgehammer

Unlike theater, it's an accessible art form. There are no gatekeepers. I'm a queer woman from a low socio-economic background. There's not many art forms where I would have had access to an audience as I did, and still do, with stand-up. So why not step up? Why not make it more adult? Why not push the envelope—why not refuse to play by the rules and see what can come of it?

I got to do Nanette because I'd already mastered stand-up. Those skills I showed in Nanette were already there, and I still wasn’t going anywhere in my career. I certainly wasn't going to crack America. I've been around long enough to know—I'm not an idiot. You know when your story doesn't matter. So I used a sledgehammer in order to prove to people that my story does matter. I'm incredibly grateful that I now have the attention of the world and I hope to do something equally constructive next.

I don't know if I think of myself as a comedian anymore. Honestly, I need to have a good sleep before I know where I am. I have always thought about myself as a writer. I also have something that means that I can perform: I'm engaging when I'm performing, I've got that thing that people find watchable. But my performance skills are limited—to just being myself. Like, I've had one acting role, where I play a fat, depressed lesbian called Hannah. But I write; I'm a writer and whatever I do next will involve storytelling, because that is where my passion and my skills are. But I don't really know what's next.

Netflix

I've got one more performance of the show. I simply cannot keep doing this to myself. If I did continue, I'd put myself in an early grave, honestly. When I do that show, I go through all sorts of different emotions, not least the fact that I'm reliving trauma night after night. The adrenaline that I need in order to perform that show and survive doing that show—I don't think it's healthy in a prolonged sense. I mean, it has been positive, in many ways. I have become a different person. I think it’s the reception of the show that has changed me. The show, my story, has always lived within me, so on its own, it was never going to change me. I think what's changed is that my plea—for my story to be heard, felt, and understood—the fact that it has, is what has changed me.

I thought the show was going to seal me off in the margin, both in terms of my comedy and also as a human, but it's been the opposite. I couldn't believe how disconnected I felt. I thought I was okay, and then I thought: My gosh, I really had been in a bubble made of shame residue.

I simply cannot keep doing this to myself. If I did continue, I'd put myself in an early grave, honestly.

In this one line in the show I say that I don't look to my future and expect to flourish. I honestly believed that when I wrote it, and for most of the time that I was performing it. In my mind, the damage was done. But now, toward the end of the run and as the reception of the Netflix special builds momentum, I think perhaps I might have a lighter time of it in the future. I think that's a testament to the live format: the exchange of my vulnerability, taking such a risk with all those strangers, and that they, for the most part, came along in solidarity.

The more I think about it, what I'm asking for in the show is perhaps for people to learn how to listen. Just to be heard is such a wonderful thing. Listening is an actual gift you can give really easily in your everyday life. You don't have to offer a solution, apologize, abuse, build a defense, or retaliate—just listen.



Watch Nanette on Netflix here.

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