Aisha Tyler: Funniest spy ever

by Dylan P. Gadino

For someone who’d rather stay at home, park it on the couch and kill virtual zombies with her husband, playing an oversexed spy on FX’s new animated series Archer is a stretch. But Aisha Tyler — comedian, author, Renaissance woman — can do anything; so long as there’s still time for Xbox.

Beyond her incredible career onstage as a stand-up comedian, Aisha Tyler has been no stranger to the small screen, showing a wide range of acting chops in comedies (she played Joey and Ross’ girlfriend on Friends for nine episodes) SciFi dramas (she was Jennifer Love Hewitt’s best friend on Ghost Whisperer) and dark police shows (12 episodes of CSI).

But she’s never played a spy, until now. And she does so, wonderfully. In the new animated FX series Archer, starring H. Jon Benjamin (famous for his role in the classic Dr. Katz) premiering Jan. 14 at 10 pm EST, the down-to-Earth, video game-obsessed Tyler transforms seamlessly into Lana Kane, and under dressed, over-sexed spy who enjoys psychologically abusing her boyfriend. The show itself is a brilliantly written, handsomely drawn 30 minutes of some of the finest adult humor on television.

Tyler’s new role comes on the heels of a banner 2009, having starred in her own one-hour Comedy Central special and DVD Aisha Tyler is Lit: Live at the Fillmore, recorded in her native San Francisco; she’s also in the running to host her own daytime chat show on ABC. The pilot is taped and submitted. Now’s it’s just a waiting game.

We caught up with Tyler a few days ago; she was just home from recording scenes for Archer. We talked about everything from working on an animated show, to her ambassador role in the world of video games, why she doesn’t do political comedy — despite her political science degree from Dartmouth — and much more.

Tell me a little bit about what Archer is. It seems you’re making fun of the slick detective or sexy spy shows.
Yeah, I think the show shares probably even more DNA with Bond franchise; we’re turning the Bond franchise on its head. It seems to be a re-emerging genre, kind of with the slick, sexy spy guy. And Archer is obviously incredibly good at what he does, but a lot of the time by accident. And he also says and does kind of whatever comes into his head. We’ve described him as kind of a walking Id. Whatever is in his head comes out of his mouth. What he wants to put in his mouth goes in his mouth. He’s like a lethal infant in a really nice suit. I just think this show is so fun and kind of turns on its head that kind of symbol of like suave, sexy perfection that we got from the Bond films.

You play Sterling Archer’s ex-girlfriend, who is also an agent.
Yes, exactly. I’m an agent. I think I met him at the agency. We occasionally partner up. But the agents all kind of work independently as well.

In one clip, you and Archer are in bed, and he gets a phone call from his mother. You guys aren’t dating but is this kind of a running theme where you guys end up sleeping together anyway?
The clip you saw is a flashback from when we used to date. So, it’s part of the reason why we break up, because he’s just got this total mommy complex. She dominates his whole life and he can’t get it together. And I’m just sick of him. So he works for his mother and he’s got this incredibly twisted, almost Oedipal relationship with her. They compete with each other. They insult each other. I don’ t know if they’ve ever had sex but they talk about really inappropriate things with each other; so that’s a big reason why Lana and Sterling aren’t together. He doesn’t understand boundaries with his mom.

What’s the difference between voicing a character and actually being in front of the camera? Do you still have the same amount of contact with your co-stars?
No, actually, not at all. And this is the first animated series that I’ve done where I was a series regular. I’ve done a lot of individual kind of, guest starring on the Boondocks and some stuff for Disney. I did a big Disney movie a couple of years ago where my role eventually got cut out of the movie called The Wild. You almost have no contact, no acting contact with the other actors. I mean, I met Jessica Walter in the hallway once when I was in New York and then today I met Judy Greer. She was coming out and I was going in.

It’s amazing that there’s no real contact.
Yeah, there’s just no interaction. And one of the great things about the show is that it really does feel like all the characters interact; lines overlap a lot. But we’re in there all alone, just us, and [creator] Adam Reed and the producers and we just do the lines in lots of different ways and try to be as explosively funny as we can. And then they lay it all together.

So it’s very different than doing scripted live acting where a lot of what you do is really dependent on the environment and the conditions and what the other actor is doing and your interaction with each other. It’s just a really, really different experience. It’s very freeing. It’s just purely about how to be as funny as possible and how to be as creative as possible, and to find the funniest beats and moments and elements in the script. And of course, you just get to kind of show up there in your sweatpants.

I just came back. I was working at my desk and then I hopped up 10 minutes before I had to be there. Jammed down there, did two hours, and then came back. So you know, for one hour of scripted drama, you show up at four o’clock in the morning, come home at midnight, and get mono every three weeks. It’s a totally different experience.

So you didn’t even interact with Jon Benjamin?
Very limited. I had met him at the TCA’s in the fall. I got to meet him there. We said what’s up and hung out, did some interviews together. And I do think it’s a testament to Adam and [executive producer] Matt [Thompson] and the guys on the show that they have a really clear vision of how they want the show to look and feel and they’re able to help us get to where they need to go, but they also enable us to be as funny as we can possibly be. It’s really very pleasant. That’s almost an under-endorsement. It’s incredibly fun to do this show. Because they just laugh their heads off, like ‘Let’s try it this way, let’s try it that way and say whatever you want now. Go nuts.’ There’s a real kind of raw creativity that happens when we’re laying the show down, which is really wonderful.

Are there any similarities between you and Lana, your Archer character? The one parallel that I saw, and maybe it was a stretch, but in your stand-up, you have that bit about how it’s easy to get addicted to Internet porn and Lana seems to enjoy porn.
You know, it’s interesting. I handle that in my act but I don’t necessarily know that they were thinking about that when they created the character since they wrote the pilot before they hired me. We started to shape Lana a little bit more since we’ve all been working together and we kind of brainstorm on things like what does she do in her free time, what kind of television does she watch, you know what I mean? She’s definitely not shaped by me. I think of her as her own person. It’s not like I’m say, ‘I like this so Lana would like that.’ I think she’s definitely got a different attitude and a different approach to life than I do.

I mean, today we had a discussion about what word Lana would use for having to go to the bathroom. We were discussing whether she’d say “pee” or “take a leak” or “piss” or “drain the main vein.” that was like 15 minutes of conversation. So we do try to come up with a concept for her for the way that she looks at the world that’s uniquely hers. I think that’s she’s somebody a lot of girls would love to be. Because she’s just super bad ass.

There are a lot of different women in the office and Lana, obviously is always completely under dressed and like a super fox but not a victim. She doesn’t try to pick up on anybody. She just is who she is. And I always joke that if an intruder came into my house I’d jump up in my long jammies and leap out the window. If an intruder walked into Lana’s house, she’d jump up naked and beat the crap out of him with like a chopstick and a paperclip. So I definitely think that she’s the girl that we would all love to be. She’s’ balls out, if you can use that word about a girl.

Also, Lana, as far as we know, didn’t graduate from Dartmouth with a degree in political science, as you did.
Right.

It’s interesting that you don’t do much political humor. Did you just want to get away from that after being so embedded in the subject?
While I very certainly have political views, I tend to have an attitude of wanting my show to be really welcoming no matter what other people’s political background is. I feel like there are things that are universal. And when I mean universal, I don’t mean like neutral or vanilla. I think my show is very specific. There are definitely people who would be offended by it. I don’t think you should just get up there and be kind of tepid and easy to swallow. But I do think that the more people that can get into a show, if I can get inside their head in a more of a surreptitious way, then it’s better for me.

I also think that I’ve always loved really personal comedy. The comedy that I love to watch is the comedy that’s really revelatory personally about how the person feels up on stage. And you think about somebody like a Richard Pryor or a Lenny Bruce— those guys were personal. They were like ‘this is how I feel, this is my experience.’ And that, I think, is the way to get people to connect with you directly. Doing comedy is about being funny, absolutely. But I also think it’s about being relatable. If they feel like they connect with you, and they relate to you, then you can do or say almost anything. So, for me, talking about stuff that I feel personally has always been more interesting than talking about what’s going on in the world.

You can be political, and even socio-political, like I feel like my book, and some of my comedy, is socio-culturally critical, without being specifically political about current events; it’s more about culture. I talk about things that most women don’t talk about. I talk about porn. To me, that’s subversive. Most female comedians don’t talk about sex the way I do. Most female comedians talk about how annoyed they are that their husband wants to have sex all the time. I’m somebody that gets up there and talks about how I really love to have sex with my husband. And I think, that in its own way, that’s a culturally subversive position to take for a female comedian. But, the other thing is with political comedy, besides the fact that if you get up there and strongly voice your opinion, there’s 50 percent of the audience that’s not going to be able to relate to you.

Right.
The other thing is, it requires being really vigilant about constantly writing jokes. You end up writing jokes like, ‘This thing happened—‘ punch line. ‘This guy said this’— punch line.’ So you’re not able to develop longer, kind of narrative threads in an hour. In order to develop an over-arching concept or theme, or point of view, I hate to use the phrase point of view, so I take it back. It’s harder to develop an overall hour that hangs together because you’re constantly having to rewrite. Your act is different every day or every week. I think there are guys that are really good at that. Lewis Black is someone who is really great at political comedy. And I think that there are guys that are – but it’s just never been my forte.

It also requires your audience to be readers. And let’s face it, not everybody reads. Some people that don’t laugh are going to laugh anyway because they don’t want to feel left out or feel stupid. But that type of comedy requires everybody to be thinking and reading up on current events. And if they’re not, you’re just going to lose people. It’s just not what I spark to when I put on an hour special; the things I want to see are not necessarily political. That stuff is fun, but it’s always the personal stuff that really gets you and so that’s just what I’ve chosen to do.

Is it a challenge, then, to keep you’re material relatable, but not so much that it just becomes uninteresting?
I don’t think about relatable as we’re being all alike. Relatable is like, ‘this is shit that happened to me and it’s real.’ If you talk about what really happened to you and how you really feel and you’re really honest about it, it will be relatable. And I think that’s different than saying, ‘Let me do something that 100 percent of the people in the audience are going to understand and relate to.’ I never do that. I talk about my own shit. It’s another way of saying likable, maybe. I think it’s more about this person’s telling the truth. And they’re telling their own truth. And they’re being revelatory and they’re being self-deprecating and they’re being honest and they’re not up their on their high horse criticizing other people. There are guys that get up their and they’re mean and they talk shit about other people and they’re hilarious. But it’s just not what I do. Because of who I am and maybe the way I look, it wouldn’t really make sense for me to be like, ‘I’m so great and everybody else sucks ass.’

Speaking of the way you look, you do a few minutes on your newest special on how you were very awkward as a child and young adult, and how you really didn’t fit in too well. You always hear a lot of really great looking actresses and personalities say during interviews, that they used to be so awkward. Do you ever worry that your audience is rolling their eyes and saying ‘Come on, Aisha could not have been awkward at any time in her life?’
I think that’s entirely possible. I tell those stories specifically because it helps people not feel like that. I don’t want them to step into the relationship with an adversarial posture like, ‘Who does this girl think she is?’ And I think that’s carried out by the fact that when I’m onstage, I’m not precious. I don’t try to look cute.

I had a girl come up to me after a show once, and she was like ‘I only know you from TV and I was like how is this girl going to be funny if she’s going to worry about her hair the whole time?’ She said, ‘You didn’t give a shit what you looked like onstage, you looked like an idiot.’ And I was like yeah, you know. It’s not my job to be pretty up there. It’s my job to make you laugh.

But all I can say to people who think I’m lying about how I used to be is that it’s true. Those stories are true. I have pictures and stuff posted online. I was just the biggest, nerdiest, most outcasted kid and I’m still that geek at heart. I still don’t go to Hollywood parties. I still like to stay at home and play XBOX with my friends. That’s who I am in my heart. Hopefully, most people get it. I can’t do anything about the people that don’t. The first rule of comedy is there’s always going to be one guy in the corner who doesn’t laugh. You can’t worry about that dude. You can make 399 people laugh and everyone’s focused on the 400th guy. Fuck that guy.

You are definitely an enthusiastic gamer.
Yes, I am an avowed, avowed gamer.

I read somewhere that you’re part of a seven member Halo council.
Yes. When Halo 2 come out they kind of nominated this seven member ambassador council of gamers and I was the only girl, which is very cool.

So what do you do as an ambassador?
Nothing. Just play some video games. You just rep the game. They did a party for me for my birthday and we invited a bunch of people to come and play. They let us come and play the game in beta before it came out and, you know, I did a bunch of interviews on behalf of the game. It’s a very easy job. I didn’t get paid for it but I got a really beautiful custom gaming system that they built for us, which is kind of cool.

Besides Halo, what are you currently playing?
I played one game for a long time, a game called Fallout 3 and it’s kind of a combination of like role-play, first person shooter, problem solving, and interaction. It’s really complex and so that ate a good part of my year. It was really turning into kind of a problem that we couldn’t stop playing Fallout. It’s the longest game in history. And when you do all the downloadable content, it ends up being the biggest game in the world. We finished the game but we go back in and still play it, even though it’s finished. It just like never dies. I played a little bit of Left 4 Dead, I played Resistance: Fall of Man. I was not in love with that. And now we’re switching back and forth between Left 4 Dead and Halo again.

When you say ‘we,’ play, do you mean your friends or do you mean your husband?
My husband and I play together all the time. We geek out together, yeah. And I also have a group of friends that we play with.

That’s awesome that both you and your husband are into it.
Yeah, it’s great. If it was just one of us, it would be kind of ugly, right? But we sit down on the couch at night and don’t watch TV. We kill each other or kill aliens, or kill zombies. Depending on how we feel.

That’s adorable.
Yeah, I say we’re saving the world as a family. A family that shoots zombies together stays together. But we have a group of friends that we play with quite a bit. They come down every year and we have a really long weekend and we play Halo all day long, drink bloody Mary’s. It’s just awesome.

In May of last year, there was an announcement that you shot a talk show pilot for ABC. What’s the status of that?
We finished it and we turned it in and we haven’t heard anything yet. We have no idea. But they haven’t said no, which is great. They’ve been very forthcoming. A lot of people are quitting. Tyra’s quitting. Oprah’s quitting. So it’s been an interesting time. But we’re really proud of the pilot. I think it was really very definitely for daytime. It was much more comedy driven and the show was very political. It was much more about politics and culture and smarter than a lot of stuff that you see on daytime television, which may be good for it or may be not good for it. I really just wanted to make something that I was proud of, that was funny and smart, whether it got picked up or not. I kind of have no control over that stuff.

For more info on Aisha, check out aishatyler.com and the official Archer site.