Nikki Glaser's 'Someday You'll Die' Pushes All the Right Buttons

"I feel like I have been able to present sexual material in a different way than it's been done before comedically."

Comedian Nikki Glaser never wants to offend. "I never want to say offensive or raunchy [things] or push the envelope, because that speaks to some kind of comedian who wants to rile people up." Instead, on her new HBO comedy special Someday You'll Die (May 11), she wants to hit you with "honest and really funny, precise, acute jokes throughout." Those jokes are about classic topics discussed in ways unique to Glaser: sex, being a woman and struggles "with trying to be my authentic self, but also molding to what other people want of me." On that, she's clear about not wanting things women are often expected to, like kids and a home. "Why do people want kids? I think it's narcissistic, and that's OK. I don't want to buy a home, but I wanna want to buy a home." Also the host of CW's FBoy Island, she also is dabbling in music, she wrote the single "Someday You'll Die" which will be released the same day as the comedy special. Glaser ultimately knows she's able to explore the topics she does in comedy because of luck. "I got really lucky with how things lined up. Even being born a decade later, I would have been probably mystified by YouTube and TikTok. I don't think I have a brain for that."

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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

Considering we've known each other since we were literal children, do you ever kind of pinch yourself with how far you've come?

I think so? I don't know. There are days where I feel like an imposter. I feel like I haven't done enough. Like how did I get here? I've tricked so many people. I'm in too deep. I can't keep this up. And then there are days where I'm like, "Oh, this is pretty good." Like, I'm not the most famous, I could probably do better, I should do better. I need to achieve more. And then there are days where I'm like, "Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Good job." It honestly depends on the day. But I think what I've achieved is impressive. I always kind of knew that this would kind of be what it was. like, I never thought I'd be the most famous person in the world or most successful at this thing, but I've achieved exactly what I thought I would, which is notoriety to a degree that I'm recognizable and people are fans of me and I get to be on TV a lot. It's the only thing that makes me believe in manifestation. I think I manifested it without knowing that I did because—speaking of high school—there wasn't any question that this was gonna be it. I can't do it anymore. When I try to manifest now I just feel ridiculous. But in high school, I just had this, "Well, what else am I going to do?" Because it was like, if I don't achieve the goal of being on TV regularly or being famous, whatever the goal used to be, I'll die if that doesn't happen. As grim as that is, that really was the reality of it. I was like, that's the only reason I'm on this earth. And now I realize that's obviously not true, there are other things that I would enjoy doing besides this.

I feel like a lot of people can relate to feeling the imposter syndrome. It's difficult to find that lane where you're just content.

Yeah, I would say it's 50/50 where I vacillate between feeling like an imposter and feeling pretty content and being like, I don't really need much more. I don't. There's not a lot of time in my life spent being jealous of other people for career achievements. I feel like if someone gets Saturday Night Live or something, I haven't done that. That would be a nice achievement, to host SNL. I just go, "Well, It's not my time yet." I kind of have a more healthy reaction to that. But I do still suffer with jealousy of people's talent. I might be able to achieve more than that person because I just work hard and I'm shifty, and I can get people to hire me because they want to have sex with me, whatever gymnastics my mind does for why people give me things, it's not because I'm talented. It's because I've manipulated [them] somehow, even though I don't do that. Consciously, I don't, but there's a part of me that just goes, you're not actually talented and you've had to manufacture your talent and you're a charlatan. Saying that about myself right now doesn't make sense, but I know that is something I say to myself quite often when I get in those depressive wormholes.

There was just nothing else I could have done than perform. It was narcissistic and it is crazy to be like, people should watch me. But I think even being proud of yourself is kind of gross. It's just like, you just got lucky, you were born with talent, or you were born with parents that could support you enough financially so you could struggle through the lean years. You're not really that special, get off your high horse. I really don't think anyone's that special. We're all just lucky to be born with what we have. So I was lucky to be born with a brain that is kind of good at putting together jokes and doing stand-up. And I'm lucky to have been born in an age where stand-up is even a thing that anyone can do, let alone a woman can do. And I'm lucky that I can freely talk about sex, which is something that most people struggle to talk about freely. And I'm lucky that I'm in an age where women can even talk freely about sex. I got really lucky with how things lined up. Even being born a decade later, I would have been probably mystified by YouTube and TikTok and all those things. I don't think I have a brain for that. I don't know I would have been as successful 10 years later. So it's really timing. I don't really like to bask too much in my achievements, because I'm just lucky.

A lot of people are going to be coming to your special Someday You'll Die because they're fans of you in lots of ways, either because of your podcast The Nikki Glaser Podcast or your show FBoy Island. What can they expect from your comedy special?

It's just perfectly my sense of humor. My podcast is the most me thing out there. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm not performative at all. I look like sh** on it. I can't even believe the hours of YouTube video of me doing a podcast just looking puffy-face, no makeup, just unrecognizable. So the podcast is very much me and I think the stand-up [special] is just that with jokes. I just refined it with jokes. It's a lot of honest, harsh truths. I never want to say offensive or raunchy or pushing the envelope, because that speaks to some kind of comedian who wants to rile people up or offend people. I guess some people could be offended by things I say, but it's just really honest, and really funny, precise, acute jokes throughout.

It's about depression. It's about the desire to have kids and how I don't have that desire and exploring why do people want kids? I think it's narcissistic, and that's okay. I don't want to buy a home, but I wanna want to buy a home. I don't want to learn home decor or care about thread counts on sheets, but I want to want to because it seems like that's what makes a woman the most desirable and feminine and that a real woman smells good and her home smells good. That is a thing I know other girls get. I'm just never that girl. And in speaking of it I'm getting worked up because I have this anger in me that I wasn't born lucky in those ways; I see other girls don't struggle with these decisions as much as me. But maybe I want some of the ignorance that I see they have because it does seem blissful, to plan a wedding and believe that your life is going to be happily ever after and get pregnant and think of all the things your baby is going to be, that they're not going to be and ignore all the things that are going to be hard about that kind of life. And of course, I've done that with my own career and glamorized it and daydreamed about what it's going to be like, when I have this career that I do have now and now all I do is b**** about it. So, I relate to motherhood in that way.

But the special really is just me trying to figure it out at the precipice of 40. Like, why can I still not be the girl that I've always wanted to be? The girl that I admired in high school? I'm almost stuck in high school, struggling with trying to be my authentic self, but also molding to what other people want of me. I also highlight [in the special] the vanity that goes on in this business and just being a woman in general.

One thing I will say is it's really easy to go the easy route with sex humor, but yours is elevated, because in a way it's about a message, your perspective gives it a different angle. And that's why you hosting a show like FBoy Island works, because of the way you handle sex humor. What about this iteration of your career excites you?

Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for that compliment about being able to make raunchy stuff more cerebral. Someone said recently to me, "If you think that Nikki's humor is dumb, then you're dumb." If you think it's just dumb sex jokes, then you're not smart, because you're not getting it because I am a smart person. I know that I am not the smartest person by any means, I'm not the smartest comedian by any means, but I am not doing sex jokes just because it's easy and people always laugh about sex because it's so naughty or because I want to titillate or anything. It's just because that's what I'm drawn to talk about. And I feel like I have been able to present sexual material in a different way than it's been done before comedically.

But I think hosting a reality show was just another opportunity for me to be myself. I'm trying to really keep everything I do, [because I do] so much, that I try to keep it pretty easy. When I agree to do something I'm like, "How hard is this gonna be?" And really, the show is a cakewalk. Because I'm not involved in the planning of the show or the production. I'm a producer on it but I really don't really have any hand on that because I like to play the game with the contestants and not know who is who or who's there for the right reason and who's [there] for the wrong reasons. I just get to walk into scenes and be like, "What's going on today?" I don't have to memorize lines. It's so easy. I do write scripts right before eliminations and we write jokes. So that part I like about it, it's always last minute and that's how I work in my career anyway. I'm packing for a month right now. My flight is in two hours and I'm in the middle of packing. I wait till last minute to do everything.

What is it about us? Why do we do that?

I think it's fear of being bad. Yeah. And not actually feeling you're good because if you tried really hard, like I said, if you have all the hair and makeup team do it, and then you get to the end and you're like, this is still not good. It's like, well, this is the best it could be. But if you start late and procrastinate, when it's bad, if it's not as good as it could be, you go, "Oh, well, if I would have started sooner, it would be really good. And you always leave that kind of space. At least that is for me. But I do wait for the last second for everything, and it works for stand-up. I mean, that's why I like stand-up, it's live, and I don't have to review it. And I don't have to really think before I go on stage that much anymore. I used to have to prepare a lot more, it was harder. But now I can just walk on stage and start talking.

I think there really is something to not being over-prepared. You want that spontaneity.

I think you're right. I think I do benefit from that spontaneity. But the reason I do it is solely because I'm scared to look at my talent and be alone with it and have to prepare something and learn that I'm not as good as I want to be when I prepare. So if I never prepare, I always can convince myself I'd be better if I did. And that's always why I do it. But it's worked for my career. When I do prepare for things, and I've been forced to, I'm always so much better. But I don't need to be much more famous. I don't need more money. Here in St. Louis, I'm doing the Fox Theater, that's the pinnacle, I don't need to do the Enterprise Center, I don't need to do some arena. I don't even like to see comedians in arenas. I know that would be millions of dollars in one night or whatever, which would be a cool thing to just be like I made that much. I don't really need that. I'm a single girl, and I live in an apartment. I have no interest in home ownership. I don't like cool cars. I don't like cool bags. I'm not trying to sound cool by being like, "I'm just so easy. I'm a different kind of girl. I don't have kids." I have parents that I want to get into a good nursing home. I have a niece and nephew, but they're being taken care of pretty well by their parents. You hear every person who's achieved any level of fame be like, "I thought this would be the answer to happiness. And it's not." So that is not a new thing that I'm saying. But it is true. I'm not interested in learning it over and over. I got the message. I would like to sustain what I have now. I don't want to work more. I'm a little overworked. That's the business though, you have to say yes to everything and you have to keep up. Once you get a million dollars, you need to get $10 million, then you got $20 million, then you need $100 million, then it's a billion dollars. Taylor Swift just made the billionaire list, and I swear to God, I heard someone going over the list on a radio show and they were like, "But she has the least amount of all the billionaires," and I'm like, "Oh, great. Now let's punish her because she didn't earn enough." Is this what are we doing?

Speaking of Taylor Swift, you went to so many of her shows this past year and documented it on social media. I was both excited for you and concerned for you.

Totally. If I was watching myself, I'd be like, "Who is this girl? Such a go getter. Like she loves doing that." I might be jealous of the person that I portray myself to be when I'm at those shows because I'd be like, "Wow, she does stuff and she has a passion." I'm not the person that likes crowds either. But there's something about being around Taylor Swift fans that feels like that's my family.

You know it's love when you're willing to fly Southwest for Taylor Swift.

I will fly Spirit. I'll fly in a hot air balloon, which I'm terrified of. I'll do anything to be at a Taylor Swift concert. It's that's the one thing that's brought my life so much joy. The fact that she has albums that are coming out that I need to be around for some days gets me out of bed. Becoming a Swifty was just a crucial part of my life. She's a part of my life every single day. It's an identity. I resonate with being a Swifty more than maybe a comedian or even a woman most days. Definitely the woman thing.