'After Midnight' host Taylor Tomlinson is able to joke about her bipolar II. Principally

Comedian Taylor Tomlinson was simply 16 when she caught the stand-up bug. That is when she began acting at open mics in church basements in Orange County, Calif., the place she grew up.

“It is not a cool story,” Tomlinson says. “However … church audiences are very supportive — so long as you do not say something darkish, edgy or blue.”

Over time, Tomlinson’s materials has shifted, with subjects starting from the perils of relationship on apps to discovering out she has bipolar II disorder. Although she was initially not sure about speaking about her personal psychological well being on stage, she says it is helped her join with the viewers.

“I received such wonderful suggestions from individuals who had been battling their psychological well being, … the way it made them really feel seen and fewer alone and made them really feel higher about their very own journey,” Tomlinson says.

Tomlinson describes her on-stage presence as “the sharpest, quickest, wittiest, most assured model” of herself: “Once I began doing stand-up in highschool, it felt like extra of a persona, … just like the model of myself that I knew I could possibly be and needed to change into, however wasn’t but,” she says. “And I feel through the years, who I’m off stage and who I’m on stage have come collectively the place I do really feel that I’m the identical particular person in every single place.”

Earlier within the yr, Tomlinson grew to become the youngest ever late-night host. Her CBS present, After Midnight, has been described as a recreation present that facilities on web tradition. Tomlinson additionally has three stand-up specials on Netflix: Quarter-Life Disaster, Have a look at You and Have It All. She’ll quickly be touring the nation along with her Save Me tour.

Interview highlights

On shedding her mom to most cancers when she was a toddler and the way that affected her path to comedy

I am not saying that everyone in comedy or any inventive particular person has to return from this darkish place and the one means you are humorous is when you have a darkness about you. I do not suppose that is true. However for me, that modified who I used to be and who I used to be going to change into. And it modified my humorousness. And it made me attempt actually exhausting to show myself in a means that I do not suppose I’d have if she had been nonetheless alive. As a result of after you lose a father or mother, you are still making an attempt to impress them, and you are still making an attempt to be any individual that they’d have preferred and revered and cherished and been pleased with. And also you’re hoping different individuals who knew them inform you that. …

I do depend on different individuals’s accounts of her, as a result of there’s solely a lot you bear in mind once you lose any individual at 8 years outdated. … Like my aunt has mentioned to me, “Oh, your expressions on stage will remind me of her.” … And which means a lot to me. And rising up, I needed to be a author earlier than I needed to be a comic. And they might say, “Your mother was such an ideal author.” And there is so some ways I am not like her. Like she was an extrovert. She was very bubbly. She was very charismatic. She was beautiful. … I do not suppose I shine brightly as she does and I, in a bizarre means, really feel like my changing into a comic and a professionally inventive particular person and a author is like my means of honoring the potential that was wasted by the universe taking her.

On why she left the church after her mother died

I had been informed should you consider and pray and keep devoted, God will reply your prayers. And we had so many individuals praying for [my mom] and she or he believed she was going to get higher. And so to look at your mother die of most cancers, even whereas all people gathers round her and lays palms on her and helps her and prays for her after which for them to show round and go, “Nicely, God did heal her. He simply healed her otherwise. She’s healed in heaven.” And I used to be like, whoa, OK. Like, the rewrite on that’s loopy. It made me query all the pieces. And slowly over the subsequent 10 years, I felt like I used to be struggling to remain in it the entire time I used to be rising up, and I simply felt like I used to be a foul Christian as a result of I did not, in my coronary heart, agree with all the pieces.

On being identified with bipolar II dysfunction

I attempted so many antidepressants and so they weren’t working for me, and I used to be having horrible uncomfortable side effects. … It was actually a years-long course of looking for what labored for me.

Then after I lastly did discover what labored for me, I kind of labored backwards from that and was like, oh, this is smart. … I had a lot disgrace round that prognosis after I first received it, and I used to be embarrassed that I felt ashamed as a result of I’ve by no means choose anyone else who had it. However when it is you, it is in some way totally different, which is why I began writing jokes about it.

On deciding to joke about having bipolar

I bear in mind my therapist mentioned to me, “Possibly we do not discuss this on stage.” And I used to be like, “I’ve already performed it.” … When you write one joke and it hits and you actually just like the joke, you are like, properly, it is received to go within the act. … However after I filmed [Have It All], I felt nice about these jokes after which within the months ready for it to return out, I began panicking and was like, Oh no, I can not un-share any of this.

Over time, I’ve gotten higher about modifying myself and deciding what’s going to go within the act and what I am simply going to maintain non-public. But it surely’s quite a lot of trial and error. … The guiding gentle for me has been even when one thing kills on stage, do I really feel good telling it each evening, or do I dread that bit developing? I’ve performed jokes about very private issues that I took out of the act as a result of I used to be dreading attending to that a part of the hour each evening, and I used to be like, ooh, that is most likely an indication that I am not prepared to speak about this but. … I additionally run jokes by relations and buddies earlier than I do them, as a result of a joke just isn’t price destroying a relationship, in my view.

Heidi Saman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey tailored it for the online.