"What happened when I interviewed the world's coolest comedian."

This week’s episode of Mamamia Out Loud is about the world’s coolest comedian.

And what happened in real life, when I got to meet her.

And here, it is friends. Unedited. Not filtered, in all it’s hopeless flailing.  A good lesson to journalism students.

When I was offered an Amy Schumer interview I almost licked the computer screen in excitement. All my friends were like, “Holy shitballs!”. All my colleagues were like, “She will love you!”.  My mum was like “who?”

Amy Schumer is everywhere right now, and for good reason. (I mean, she has a movie out so she’s doing publicity for it). But apart from that, Jerry Seinfeld called her the funniest person he’s ever seen, and her show, Inside Amy on Comedy Central, has been nominated for seven Emmys. Her humor is irreverent, dry, funny and smart, she’s feminist and badass and pretty much my idol.

And apart from my mum, everyone was pumped. I’ve watched so much of this woman I felt I knew her. I thought ‘we can just chat and laugh, it will be like we’ve known each other for years’. But despite that, I prepped for the interview for days.  I watched the movie twice. I watched all her shows. I watched all her other interviews and made notes like I was swotting up for an Important Exam.

For weeks leading up I was contemplating how to maximise my 10 minutes of interview time. “Perhaps I can introduce her to the Australia delicacy that is the Tim Tam Slammer!” I said to my workmates. “Has she ever eating a Lamington?” I pondered. And “maybe she’ll be so bored of interviews, we can sit there and do some mindfulness colouring in as a joke!”

Finally, we figured since she’s a comedian we could play a bit of a picture/word association game.

“It’s foolproof”, people told me. “Comedians love material to work with.”

So I went to Officeworks and crafted me some flash cards. Bronwyn Bishop. Tony Abbott. Mick Fanning. Vegemite. Tim Tams, Hamish and Andy, and finally a picture of her. I arranged my flash cards in order and drew helpful arrows on the back so I knew which way to hold them up right so I wouldn’t stuff it up.

In my head:

I would hold up Bronwyn Bishop and she would yell out “what a NANNA!” and we would laugh.

I would hold up Tony Abbott and she would say “Eeeeew” and I’d be like “AHAHHA that’s our Prime Minister, Amy!”

I would hold up Tim Tam and she would be like “oh, is that a biscuit?” and I’d be like “NO AMY. THAT IS A NATIONAL TREASURE.”

After 10 minutes we would be like Thelma and Louise.  Laverne and Shirley.  Poehler and Fey. We would walk out of that interview arm in arm, and she’ll be like “you should be in my next movie” and I’ll be like “let’s eat ice cream first!” and would throw our heads back and laugh and she would buy me an Oreo McFlurry with extra chocolate topping ‘cos I’m assuming she likes the finer-but-not-completely-extravagant-things in life.

It didn’t go like that .

Not even a little bit.

Here’s what happened instead.

Basically I got so nervous I started sweating and foaming at the corners of my mouth, the first question dive bombed into a black hole, and then the game went downhill very, very quickly.

You can hear more of the chat this week on the podcast. We recorded the episode straight after my Trainwreck moment. I really just wanted to emotionally eat my way through the afternoon and start working on my PCITSD (post celebrity interview traumatic stress disorder) but, you know, the show must go on. And what a show it was.

Download in itunes

Listen in soundcloud

Direct audio download 

So now I’m the biggest dick in the world. And the glorious Amy Schumer probably hates Australian media. The moral of the story?

I think my favourite bit, though, the thing that makes my eyes tear up with a mixture of laughter and the sting of failure, was this.  The minder-sanctioned selfie.

And my hopeful face. Which says “Let’s pretend it all went fine!” And hers which says “yeah.”

The full episode of the podcast this week is here.  It’s the show where too much information is never enough:

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Ughhhhhhhhhhh.