Twelve years into Guys We Fked and Corinne Fisher still insists she and Krystyna Hutchinson don’t write stand-up together, they just happen to have built an entire empire side by side. “That’s our baby,” she says of the show, before drawing a hard line: her stand-up is hers alone, thank you very much.
She wrote and performed a one-woman show at 24, before she’d even started doing stand-up. Not because she was fearless, but because she didn’t yet know enough to be scared. “The best time to take on something difficult is before you know how difficult it’s going to be,” she told us, and then spent the rest of the interview proving she’s been operating on that logic ever since.
We talked about processing a near-stranger’s sudden death on stage the same night she got the news, why she refuses to bend her set to please a crowd (“I’m not Burger King, the audience can’t have it their way”), and what it’s actually like being one half of a fifteen-year creative partnership. She also gave her younger self some blunt advice, and no, it wasn’t about the comedy.
One-person shows are no joke — they’re one of the hardest formats in comedy. And yet you did I Stalk You: A One Woman Show at just 24, fairly early in your career. What gave you the confidence to take on something that demanding so soon, and what made you believe you had a whole hour in you back then?
I think the best time to take on something difficult is before you know how difficult it’s going to be. That’s why it’s easier to learn how to ski as a child than an adult – you’re not going up there thinking, “if I make a mistake, I could die”, you’re thinking “wheeee, skiing!!!!!”. I worked hard on that show and I’m super proud of it, but I definitely don’t think of it as one of the most challenging things I’ve done (I also had an INCREDIBLE director in David Crabb who made the good show I wrote a GREAT show). Art is so much easier when you’re a complete unknown because no one’s holding you to any real artistic standard, no one has a preconceived notion about you, and you’re not being placed on any type of moral pedestal because, quite frankly, no one gives a shit about you, no one feels any type of ownership or investment in you yet. Also lol I did have a whole hour, I didn’t just think I did. It wasn’t stand-up, it was a one-hour storytelling show. I didn’t start doing stand-up until the following year.
What was the point in your life when you realised that you want to pursue standup comedy for a living?
I mean, pretty much right when I started doing it. It immediately clicked in a way that all the other types of performance I had tried – and, baby, I tried them all! – didn’t. I also immediately recognized that stand-up was going to be incredibly competitive and that if I was going to do it, I really needed to devote myself to it. And, I have. No regrets.
How was it getting your first laugh on stage? Do you remember that moment? How did it feel!
I don’t remember my first laugh, but I definitely remember my first big show which was a bringer at COMIX in NYC (RIP). I had that manic nervous energy which, when used correctly, can actually add to the funny. For my first set on a big NYC stage, I think it’s pretty not embarrassing. There’s an actual thought process there, a seed of a voice, a perspective of sorts that’s bubbling. I like it.
Your comedy is rooted in dating disasters, breakups, and your own romantic chaos. How do you find the funny in heartbreak in real time — when the wound is still fresh — and is there a breakup you couldn’t write about until years later?
It’s always so funny to me the way other people perceive me because I really don’t think of any part of my dating life as disastrous haha. I think I was just living life as a 20-something in NYC and sometimes stuff works out and sometimes it doesn’t and sometimes you get blackout drunk and cry about it and then you move on because as long as I didn’t lose me, I am golden. I’m 40 now so I am pretty disinterested in talking about men or dating on stage unless I’m having a larger conversation about social issues (I promise funnier than it sounds). Heartbreak has a much different meaning to me now because I have experienced a lot of death in the last decade. And I love talking about death on stage! Way more than I ever liked talking about breakups. The stakes are so much higher and it’s much more challenging to navigate. A man I had just started dating dropped dead while I was away at JFL Toronto so I processed it on stage that same night. In that instance, it was a lifeline because it was either I talk about it right now with the audience or I have to get on a plane and go home because I absolutely cannot think about anything else (I did have an emergency Zoom with my therapist before the set from the hotel room). And then when it came to my Dad’s death, that took about a year before I felt I could comfortably make a joke about it publicly. Privately, I was cracking jokes long before that but amongst people I trust.
What do you do with a joke that should work on paper but consistently dies in the room? Do you keep rewriting it, retire it, or trust a different audience will eventually find it funny?
For a joke that I have faith in, I will try it in different neighborhoods in the city if I’m working it out at home or different cities if I’m working it out on the road, rewrite it a little bit, run it by a handful of other comics to troubleshoot it, and then if I keep hitting a brick wall I’ll put it aside for a little bit and come back to it with fresh eyes in a few months.
Krystyna told us you’re “the Yin to her Yang.” What’s your version — what does Krystyna bring to the partnership that you couldn’t do alone, and what do you bring that she couldn’t?
I agree with that assessment. We are very different, but share a sense of humor and a lust for making the world a better place which is an incredibly strong bond. One that I share with my nuclear family, in fact. I think some people might be under the impression we write stand-up together, but stand-up is an incredibly solo activity so that is not true. But as far as GWF goes, that is our baby. We raised that show together and continue to nurture it through every stage of its life. Krystyna brings the childlike wonder and then I figure out how that pure vision can actually exist in this brutal business. She makes people feel comfortable with her vulnerability and then I make sure they don’t fuck us over with my New Jersey.
Hosting a talk show puts you in the room with people from every corner of the entertainment world — comics, writers, artists, and storytellers you might never have crossed paths with otherwise. How did interacting with all that talent shape your comedy style, and is there a specific guest or conversation that genuinely changed the way you write?
For me, the podcast and my stand-up are two pretty different beasts. When I’m speaking with a guest, I’m trying to get to know them, when I’m doing stand-up, I’m trying to get to know me. The guests don’t shape my comedy or my writing at all. They do expand my worldview which is an important part of becoming a better comedian, but I’m not directly influenced by them.
Tackling controversial topics or material built on ideas people aren’t quick to accept requires a real ability to read the room. How do you do it? Do you walk on with a few “test” jokes to gauge the crowd, or can you tell what kind of audience you’re working with just by looking at their faces?
I think altering your set too much based on the crowd is kind of a rookie move. Sure, I choose jokes from my repertoire that fit the demo, but my comedy is my comedy. I’m not Burger King, the audience can’t have it their way.
You’ve performed at New York Comedy Club, The Stand, Carolines, UCB, Gotham, The Stress Factory — and sold out The Comedy Store’s Main Room. Which of those rooms taught you the most about being a comic, and which one humbled you the hardest?
I have been humbled in all those rooms. Although, the word humble doesn’t really resonate with me in general. The world is constantly trying to humble women and that’s not really something I’m interested in. So, what I will say is that I have become a better comic through successes and failures in all of those rooms. I have done the most reps at New York Comedy Club so that’s like my gym, but the Main Room at The Store holds the energy of my comedy ancestors so that is always an incredibly important room for me. Getting on stage there feels like a big win every time, no matter how many times I do it.
Has there ever been a point in your career where you were just continuously bombing on stage? Did that make you question your decision of being a comic? And what helped you come out of that dump?
I’ve questioned if comedy is the best way for me to be of service but never because of bombing, it was more because I have other things to offer. For me, I find that when I go through a period of bombing it’s because I have graduated from that material and it’s my brain telling me to write new shit. And so then I write new shit.
Who are your standup idols?
Kathy Griffin, Eddie Izzard, Janeane Garofalo, Dave Attell
What are you currently up to? New specials, new tour, new show?
You’ll know when you need to know🫣
Last one — if you can give one piece of advice to the Corinne that performed the one woman show in 2010, what would that be?
Talking to my younger self questions are so hilarious to me because I’m not at all disconnected from that person. She is me, I am her. If anything, I would say don’t waste time on men and you could be much more famous by now. Plus, being straight becomes kind of a bad look in the industry in the near future.
That’s Corinne Fisher: one half of Guys We Fked, full-time refuser of the “humble” narrative, and a comic who’s been doing the hard thing before she’s ready for it since she was 24. She’s turned heartbreak, grief, and a decade-plus of bombing and rebuilding into a career that doesn’t look like it’s slowing down, and she’s not interested in softening any of it for a room, a crowd, or anyone reading this.
If there’s a thread running through this whole conversation, it’s that she trusts herself over the noise, whether that’s a crowd she refuses to pander to or a fifteen-year creative partnership she still treats as sacred. Catch her at New York Comedy Club, where she says she’s done the most reps, or wherever GWF is airing next. And when she’s ready to tell us what’s coming, she will. Not a second before.