Anjelah Johnson: On the comedy fast track

by Emma Kat Richardson

Five years in the stand-up game and she already has a one-hour Comedy Central special set to premiere– not to mention roles in three new major movies? Anjelah Johnson has arrived fashionably early.

She used to be a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, but unlike her previous employers, Anjelah Johnson is on a major winning streak. Making the transition from professional cheerleading to telling jokes is logical, Johnson even explains, once you mention that you used to pay the bills by cheering on the Raiders.

Good-natured swipes at the NFL aside, Johnson the comedian, as of late, has found herself at the 50-yard line of stand-up comedy’s mainstream scene; last year she was even chosen by Entertainment Weekly as one of 12 “rising stars of comedy,” after she became a YouTube sensation, garnering millions of views of her stand-up. After discovering her stand-up chops quite by accident, the mixed heritage beauty (Johnson is of both Hispanic and Native American descent) underwent a stint as a regular on MadTV, and has been conjuring up audiences from all over the nation with a much-needed does of good, clean comedy.

You can hear her voice in Alvin and Chipmunks: The Squeaqkuel (in theaters now) and then early next year in the movies Our Family Wedding, (out in March) and the animated Marmaduke, starring William H. Macy and Owen Wilson (out in June). But on Dec., 28 Johnson’s first hour-long comedy special, That’s How We Do It will debut on Comedy Central, which will more than likely have Johnson finding herself on the other side of cheers.

Since you have a background that revolves around a lot of entertainment mediums in general, what in specific drew you to stand-up comedy?
What drew me to stand-up comedy… well, actually, I just took a stand-up class just for fun – someone had wanted me to take it – and at the end of the class, we had to perform in a real comedy club. It was something that just came so naturally to me that it would have felt wrong not to pursue it. That was kind of what drove me to do stand-up; even after I did the class and performed, I still wasn’t doing stand-up hardcore. I’d do a coffee shop once a month, or an open mic here and there. It was kind of like a fluke, actually.

Why did it feel natural to you?
I think it had to do with the things that I was writing and getting an instant reaction from people. In the class, everybody wrote material, we learned different techniques, and everybody did five minutes of material, except for me: I actually did 12 minutes of material my first time doing stand-up comedy, and the instructor let me do all the material I wrote. It showed me that the things I was writing were actually coming across as funny, you know.

So it wasn’t really something you had considered before you took that class?
No, never. Not at all. It’s funny, because growing up, I wasn’t… I didn’t watch Comedy Central all day long, or dream of being a stand-up comedian. The kind of comedy I do is more cleaner comedy and observational comedy. I actually started watching BET’s Comic View, which is not really the direct kind of comedy that I present, but that’s what made me laugh. Even watching that, I never ever thought of myself as being a comedian one day. I moved to LA to pursue acting, and I loved George Lopez and Ellen DeGeneres; I’d listen to their CDs, and even as I would listen, I never thought of myself as doing stand-up comedy, ever.

Then what inspired you to take that class?
I was in an improv troop, and the instructor of that class actually saw me in the improv troop and asked me if I wanted to take her class. It was free, so I said, “If it’s free, I’ll do it.”

Does your former career with cheerleading play any sort of role in your comedy?
Yeah, I guess so. I mean, people always ask me how you go from being a professional cheerleader to a stand-up comic. I just tell them that it’s kind of an easy transition to telling jokes when you cheer for the Raiders.

It actually took me a while before I even mentioned the Raiders in my stand-up comedy, because if you don’t look funny and are overweight or anything, people automatically judge you and be like, “Oh, you’re not going to be funny.” So I just figured that, for myself, what I look like already is a wall for me to have to break down, and to even talk about being a professional cheerleader, I didn’t know how to bring that up to audiences without them just getting stuck on that. It was just recently in the past couple of years that I figured out a way to talk about being a professional cheerleader and make it funny without detracting, and it’s actually some of my favorite material that I do now.

Jokes.com
Anjelah Johnson – Last Name
comedians.comedycentral.com

It’s interesting that you bring up the idea of your being a cheerleader as a hindrance to your comedic success. Do you think that image-based career decisions for female stand-ups can help or hurt their success? I’m thinking of Chelsea Handler’s recent Playboy cover.
I think it’s different for everybody. We have different kinds of material: she talks about different things than from what I talk about, and the way that she presents herself [is different], but I think it goes along with whatever she’s doing. For me, that wouldn’t work for me because of the kind of audience and following that I have, you know what I mean? So something like that wouldn’t necessarily work for me as it would for her.

Why’s that?
Chelsea Handler is more edgy in her material, and just kind of out there in the stuff she talks about – from her book about one night-stands, and things like that. [Posing for Playboy] seems like something that goes along with what she talks about and coincides with what she does, whereas my comedy is more observational, like about getting my nails done or about how my dad used to spank me, and how we grew up kinda poor. If all of the sudden I was in Playboy, it would be like, “Wait! Hold on.”

Speaking of your comedic voice, where does it come from? What are its origins?
I don’t really know. My whole family is really funny. My dad is funny – he’s definitely quick witted. My grandpa – I think I definitely get it from my dad, my grandpa, that whole line of funny that my grandpa’s always doing. Even so, my mom is goofy and just silly, so are my brothers and sisters. None of us care what we look like. I’ve always been comfortable in that, and I always knew that I could make my family and my own friends laugh, but it was being able to make other people’s friends and family laugh by just being myself – that was what was surprising to me.

Where do you see yourself fitting in with the larger picture of the current comedy landscape?
Where do I see myself fitting in? I think I’ve actually managed to pave my own way into doing things totally differently, so I don’t know how exactly I fit in, or maybe it’s something totally different. Especially with the age of YouTube and things like that, people are doing things different nowadays, as opposed to these big headliners who have been doing this for years; they’ve really just been touring forever, doing comedy clubs and colleges and things like that, and working their way up to this headlining place.

Whereas myself, I’ve only been doing comedy for five years, and I have my one-hour special coming out soon, and that’s something I couldn’t have have planned or dreamed of on my own, but it’s the way that things are working out for me. It’s the cards that I’ve been dealt. So, I don’t know exactly how I fit in to this mold that’s already there, or maybe it’s something new. I don’t know.

Jokes.com
Anjelah Johnson – Growing Up Poor
comedians.comedycentral.com

Is there anything you think you bring to stand-up comedy that no one else does?
I guess just my point of view. No one else can have my point of view but me. Everybody has parallel thinking and it’s almost like every topic has been talked about – sure, other comics have done jokes about getting spanked by their dad, or even getting their nails done. All these topics have been talked about, but nobody has my point of view or perspective: I don’t have Ellen DeGeneres’s point of view, or George Lopez’s, or Daniel Tosh’s. I don’t have anyone else’s point of view.

You’re of Hispanic and Native American descent. Do you, like other Hispanic comics, like to use ethnically based humor in your act, or do you find it to be abrasive?
I don’t find it abrasive at all. I definitely don’t categorize myself as a “Latin comic.” My set is not like, “Latin people: we’re like this!” I definitely talk about how I grew up, and the cultural things that pertain to me and my family. I make references like, “We’re Latinos, and we spank our kids”; that’s coming from a personal experience, where I’ve had an aunt spank me who wasn’t even my mom. I may generalize the Latin culture, but it always comes back to my personal story about it.

I like to play a lot with accents, and I’m very observational, so I do pick up on a lot of different cultures and ethnicities with accents. If I notice something, I’ll call it out, like with the nail salon or things like that. I try to bring out a lot of people’s cultures and lifestyles.

You’ve got a lot of movie projects on the horizon. Is there any one in particular that you think best exemplifies your comedy and your persona?
I definitely had so much fun working on the film Our Family Wedding. I think that’s what they chose – it’s been untitled for a while, and I just heard it’s being called Our Family Wedding. It’s with America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, and lots of really talented people that I was so blessed to work with.

I play America’s sister, and I’m kinda like her tomboyish older sister, but we’re like a year apart so we’re very close friends and sisters. I think that actually resembles my actual life with my sister – we’re very close in age, I’m very tomboyish. A lot of times, the director would ask something of me, and it almost felt like cheating, because it came so naturally. I had so much fun with that, and it was great to play an exaggerated version of myself.

Can you give me a little preview on what viewers can expect from your upcoming Comedy Central special?
It’s basically a lot of my life story; the whole growing up stuff, to the Oakland Raiders stuff, me sneaking into nightclubs when I was younger, guys hitting on me and how I respond to that. I included some of my characters from MadTV, and it’s kind of like a recap of what got me to where I am right now, all smooshed into an hour.

Having done MadTV, improv, and stand-up, do you have a preference between sketch, improv, and stand-up?
They’re all fun and exhilarating in different ways. I guess I like stand-up because it’s my own material that I get to write and perform; the instant gratification of having someone laugh at something you’ve written is a really great feeling. Also, two, I feel that there’s more security in that, whereas in improv, it’s like, “Well, I’m going to try and say something, and hopefully it’s funny.”

It may not be, but with stand-up you know: you’ve tested and tried it, and if it’s your fourth show doing this joke, you know you’re going to get a really big laugh right now. Stand-up has a sense of security to it, and sketch is always funny and fun with your being able to get dressed up in wanting to be somebody else, with wigs and everything. They all have their own pros and cons.

Jokes.com
Anjelah Johnson – Butt Check-Out
comedians.comedycentral.com

That’s funny; I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone attribute the term “security” to stand-up.
It’s a vulnerable place to be: standing onstage by yourself with a microphone, and hundreds of people just watching you. But you really like having the confidence in the material that you’ve written, and just knowing that you are funny, and just also knowing that everybody in that room wants you to be funny. They’re on your team already – you know what I mean – so it’s like they’re rooting for you, just deliver. It’s not like they’re against you.

Have you ever had the requisite bombing experience?
I’ve never had like a moment where I wanted to just cry offstage, but I’ve noticed that any time I do a room where it’s all of one group of people – be it all black people, all Mexican people, all gay people, all straight people – if it’s all of one type of people, things don’t go well. It needs to be mixed, diverse, with cultures from everywhere, because I’ve noticed that people get a little uncomfortable when you start talking about something else that’s not pertaining to them.

One night, I did a show – it was like a Latin night show. This was when I was first starting out, and I never felt that I was Latin enough for the Latin crowd, so I had to put a little extra on it, because I didn’t really know yet who I was as a comedian. So I remember one night I was performing at a Latin night, and I was just totally putting extra on, and they could just see right through me, and it was like crickets the entire night. I was like, “…okay, thank you, goodnight!” I was aware of the mistake that I made, and I just couldn’t figure out how to fix it. (Which I’ve done now).

On your website, you say that your faith is very important to you. In what ways are you able to incorporate your religious beliefs into your comedy?
I poke fun at myself in every way, whether it’s about my culture, my life, my beliefs, and anything about it. I do some jokes about things that happen in the church, like gossiping; they talk about not gossiping in church, but there are some people that do like to disguise their gossiping as a prayer request, and just calling people out here and there.

It’s stuff that happens in real life, in church – there’s always going to be good and bad of everything, and I’m just not afraid to call those things out, as well as the good things. I don’t ever really preach from my pulpit, which is my microphone; I don’t ever preach my beliefs at anybody, but I’m not afraid to talk about it. Like, I was in church the other day, and the pastor said this, and this is what I thought about it. It’s like some kind of funny observation.

Have you ever been faced with a dilemma in the entertainment industry in which the business would have required you to do something that was in defiance to your faith?
Yeah, there have definitely been some auditions that have come about, where I’m full-on like no, I’m not going to do this. There have also been situations where I’m like kind of torn, and I don’t know. Unfortunately, I don’t have a handbook that says, “You can do this job where it says this, but not if it requires you to do this.”

Every situation is different, and everybody’s journey is different, so the way that I would approach material in an audition is different from the way that somebody else would. If I was playing this total evil villain, as long as it wasn’t being glorified as something good, and teaching people that yeah, be an evil villain, and your life will be great. That’s definitely not something I would stand for, but I would play an evil villain character if it was portrayed as that. This is the evil side that you don’t want to be.

Do you ever worry that wearing your beliefs so openly might make it harder for you to be accepted among the mainstream stand-up circuit?
You know, it’s not something that I’ve ever worried about, but I have been aware of it. I am aware of it, and I do know that everybody has different beliefs. People will make their own judgements of me and who they think that I am, and what they think that I think of them, but the people that really get to know me know that I’m not trying to judge anybody or judge myself, but just live life with everybody. We’re all here to just live life together, and I do things a little bit differently, you do things a little bit differently.

I’m aware that there might be some hindrances, that there might be some people who aren’t too accepting of me, and I definitely don’t downplay who I am, just like they shouldn’t downplay who they are. Being myself has gotten me to where I’m at right now, without compromise or without watering down who I am. I think it’s good for everybody to just know who you are and just stick to that.

What long-term goals do you have for your comedy career? Do you see stand-up as a foundational backbone for your TV and film career, where ever that ends up going?
I definitely want to just keep growing. I’m interested to see where my stand-up goes, like where it goes next. I’ve done material about my life growing up, and I’m sure there’s plenty more stories I could come up with, but I’m interested to see which area I start talking about next. What’s going to be the core point of view from where ever I go next, and then growing in that – I have no idea. I’ll just sit down and start writing, and we’ll see what happens.

I’m definitely interested in continuing to grow as a comedian – in my perspective, and my point of view, and the way I write, and the way I communicate with my audience. I’m always going to have stand-up, I feel. It may not be my touring every weekend, like a full-on touring comedian. I’m definitely going to be pursuing more film and television, which was my passion when I first moved to LA. Stand-up is always going to be a part of me, and it’s always going to be something that I do, and really something that I continue to grow at and better myself.

For more info, check out anjelahnicolejohnson.com.