Sarah Silverman has a career many comedians would envy: She's a household name who's spoken at the DNC, written a best-seller (The Bedwetter), starred in her own comedy series (The Sarah Silverman Program), and earned acclaim for her dramatic acting in films like I Smile Back and an arc on Masters of Sex. In short, she's been there, done that.
But have her comedy and career changed as a result of the crazy world we now find ourselves in? Ahead of her latest special, A Speck of Dust, hitting Netflix, we caught up with Silverman to find out.
Turns out, she's got real perspective. Even her explanation of how she gave her special its title is a comment on the nature of human existence: "We're on a rock in outer space, we're nothing, we're cogs in a universe we can't even imagine." That look-at-the-big-picture POV is something she's keeping in mind when it comes to the news and the "news," too. For example, when Silverman read that the FCC was investigating Stephen Colbert, she was initially "ignited, angry, and terrified." But then, she told journalists at Netflix's press day, "I found out that it really is a nonissue; the FCC investigates anything that's reported. Unfortunately, it was a sensationalized story by even, you know, the left!"
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In other words, sometimes we get so distracted by bullshit we don't realize when things aren't bullshit. And sometimes, it's too late. "I forwarded that! I tweeted that out!" Silverman admitted. "But then I retweeted it saying, 'This wasn't true,' and tried to explain it. I still saw other people were retweeting the initial story—but I can't control it. The truth is more important than what we want to believe."
The truth is more important than what we want to believe. Take that, Fox Mulder. Silverman's no stranger to swallowing the bitter pill of pragmatism. In a, frankly, iconic moment, she told a crowd of Bernie Sanders supporters at the 2016 Democratic National Convention that they were being "ridiculous." And she stands by that comment today. "I'm someone who wanted Bernie for president, but he wasn't going to be president," she said. "I got a lot of shit for it, but it's fine. It doesn't matter. As somebody who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 because I wanted to vote my conscience and make a mark and thought Gore was going to win—and he didn't—I learned my lesson."
