Hi guys. I'm comedian, actress, and co-creator of 2 Broke Girls Whitney Cummings. I'm touring a lot in the fall, but in the meantime I have a comedy special airing on Comedy Central this Saturday night at 11 PM. And if you don't watch it, I will harm myself (just kidding, but here are some clips to check out):

Different Definitions of Love

Stuff Guys Don't Know

Marriage & Sex

And I Love You $5 Direct Download

I'm here with Victoria from reddit, so ask me anything!

https://twitter.com/reddit_AMA/status/481877200853954560

Well, thank you for caring, at all, enough to ask me questions. I hope this was somewhat interesting? I got up at 5 AM today, so it probably wasn't, and please watch my special this Saturday. That's what I'm good at, not questions.

Comments: 299 • Responses: 54  • Date: 

The_Best_Dong33 karma

Have you ever been personally hurt by a joke made at a roast?

RealWhitneyCummings54 karma

Oh yeah, I mean, yes. I think the big secret is that you know, I'm really super fragile and sensitive. And I'm secretly like, tough, but that's a lie. You know, I think that I was a writer on the roast, also, I know how the sausage is made, and we have to come up with so many jokes they stop being personal, but I think to be made fun of your appearance, like I would get jokes about looking older than I am, which hurt my feelings because as a comedian you work such crazy hours, I just sleep less, I'm on the road constantly, so i think to work so hard, and then to have someone tell you you look older than you are, I wanted to say "You'd look like this too if you had only 2 hours of a sleep a night." You wouldn't look so great either. I think anything appearance-based - because as a comedian, you don't sign up to be judged on your appearance, you should just be judged on how funny you are. So when people start judging my appearance, that definitely hurts my feelings.

UnderwearNinja27 karma

What made you decide to tweet the crotchshot?

I miss the Whitney TV show! I found your dysfunctions to be quite familiar. Thanks for being you.

Edit: So "fans" don't have to go searching: https://twitter.com/WhitneyCummings/status/481576394548604928/photo/1

RealWhitneyCummings34 karma

Just because it's funny, you don't see anything, you'd see the same thing at the beach if you were swimming. I just thought it was funny. Everybody was laughing and my job is to make people laugh. So that's why I did it.

Lumpy31415923 karma

Hey Whitney, big fan here. Just curious, how big is your vagina?

RealWhitneyCummings31 karma

Oh! I've never measured it. I don't know. My gynecologist says I have a "shallow" vagina, but that's pretty much all I know.

hyrusekki18 karma

Hi Whitney, I loved you and Chris in Whitney and thought the show was hilarious. Is there any chance you'll be making an appearance on Undateable?

RealWhitneyCummings16 karma

Maybe, I actually talked about that. They just started airing, so if the show goes to next season, I would love to do something with those guys, because the whole cast is comedians, I see them at the Comedy Store every night, and I love them.

BuffalosDeigo16 karma

Hey Whitney! I want to say you are my girlfriends favorite comedian and the only reason she watches stand-up with me so thank you!

When are you going to have more stand-up/material on Netflix?

RealWhitneyCummings20 karma

On Netflix? Well, my new stand-up special airs this Saturday on Comedy Central, so be an adult and record it! And then it'll come out on iTunes, but you can actually watch it now if you want, you can watch it on direct.cc.com (which is Comedy Central's direct download). So you can watch it with your girlfriend lying in bed or something. And your girlfriend has great taste.

BrushGoodDar13 karma

If you were in a naked cage fight to the death with Amy Schumer, who would win?

RealWhitneyCummings18 karma

I don't know, I really like Amy. I think we would both just get drunk and pass out. We get along great. There's like this impression that female comedians don't like each other, which I think is so weird. Amy's busy, so I don't spend a ton of time with her, but we're on good terms and friends so I never quite understand that.

But she would probably win. I'd give up pretty easy in a cage fight. I'd just let it happen. I'd just succumb to it.

ositola12 karma

Who are your favourite comics?

RealWhitneyCummings20 karma

Oh man, my favorites! that's a difficult question. I would have to say Bill Burr. I love Dave Attell, Chelsea Handler (I know she's my friend but she makes me laugh so much).

-intylerwetrust-12 karma

Hi Whitney, loved your interview on Howard!

Something I've wondered about professional comics such as yourself...

When you're with friends and family, is there an expectation for you to be funny or the life of the party?

Or, do they just let you be yourself and not be "on"?

RealWhitneyCummings18 karma

Yeah, I mean, it depends. I'm lucky that my friends let me be "off" you know? But then again, a lot of my friends are comedians who are really funny, and I think we all just get to be together and just chill out and not make jokes for a minute. But yea, it just depends on how much performing I'm getting out of my system. I would say in general when I'm not doing standup, I'm not that funny because I'm not trying to be funny. It's like any job, you don't want to be doing your job when you're off the clock.

usafmike7611 karma

Do you write all of your own jokes...and will you let Hanzi take you out on a date and maybe lick on you a bit?

RealWhitneyCummings14 karma

I do write all my own material. Most of my material is very personal, autobiographical things that I don't necessarily like but they happen to me and I tell them. And Hanzi, he asked to go down on me and I said no to that, but a date, I'm not going to say no to a free dinner.

T-town0411 karma

Can you tell us a funny stand up moment or funny story from the road?

RealWhitneyCummings29 karma

Yes. One time, I always try to communicate with "fans" (I don't like to call them fans, but I always try to communicate and if someone emails for tickets or tweets me that they want to come to the show and they can't afford it, I try to help people get tickets) and one time there was a guy I was helping get tickets, he couldn't afford it and had a medical issue or something, and I put all this effort to making sure he could get to the show, bought him tickets, and halfway through the show he got wasted and heckled me the rest of the show- like profanities, mean insults, and security had to REMOVE HIM from the show, he made such a scene, the show came to a screeching halt, and there was a window before the comedy store in San Diego, and there's a window outside the show room and he stood outside and looked through the window the rest of the show. He was just staring at me the rest of the show, like he was going to kill me or something. And that was it, luckily he didn't murder me.

AmishAnders10 karma

What was your favorite moment while working with Punkd?

RealWhitneyCummings18 karma

Oh great question. I think it has to be we did one with Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, and we had to blow up his trailer, and there was a huge explosion and I had to be the wardrobe girl who had to confront him and tell him his trailer was on fire, it was SO crazy, there was a huge fire explosion, for me the closest I'll ever be to being in an action movie, so for me that was really cool, I felt like a Michael Bay star running around getting to be super dramatic.

aifranchise9 karma

What has your life been like with the last name Cummings? Especially in high school.

RealWhitneyCummings16 karma

Hahah. You know, I mean, I used to really resent my last name. But now I'm grateful for it, because I think it might be why I got funny, you know? because people were making jokes about my name, so I had to kind of learn to give it back, and retaliate. I got made fun of a lot, so I had to defend myself, so I don't know if it's an accident that I had to defend myself for a living.

PopeRaunchyIV8 karma

I don't want to forget all your great work in bigger personal achievements, but you had a part as a bridesmaid in my favorite movie--Made of Honor. What was it like lending your talent to the greatest chick-flick ever made?

I'm a man in my mid 20s with a full beard who has on multiple occasions been compared to a lumberjack, but I proudly quote my way through that movie while choking back tears. It feels awkward to say, but even that small role compared to your eponymous TV show and awesome writing credits has a strangely big impact on my life. Thanks for your work.

RealWhitneyCummings14 karma

Wow. That is so nice. That makes me feel better on days when I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I feel so lucky to have sort of worked on that movie, they just kind of randomly asked me to do the table read and the chemistry ended up working out, I met my dearest friend Busy Phillips who was in it, and it was my first big studio movie so i tried to shut my mouth and learn as much as I could. It was the last movie Sydney Pollack did before he died, and we were in England and Scotland, and I look back on it and I can't even believe I was lucky enough to have that experience. It was very cool. The only thing I regret were my bangs. I have very unfortunate bangs in that movie.

idiosyncrassy8 karma

I tried watching your eponymous show, and found it to be incredibly sexist and trite, to the point that it seemed like you'd made some sort of Faustian deal to objectify yourself in exchange for screen time.

Everyone has their price, I guess. But if you do find yourself in a position of more power in the future, do you think you'll do what Roseanne did, and use your comedy and talent to fight against stereotypes?

RealWhitneyCummings15 karma

I don't know. I mean, I don't think that i'm playing into it. I don't necessarily agree with what you said, I don't wake up every morning saying "I'm going to be a stereotype!" or "I'm going to fight against stereotypes." In my new standup special I talk about stereotypes and trying to debunk them.

StateofWA7 karma

With a name like "Cummings" and you being in comedy, what's your best comeback when someone makes fun of your name?

RealWhitneyCummings11 karma

I usually just tell them their age. Like, if someone's like "Oh you're last name's Cumming" I'm like "Oh, you're 40, and you're making jokes about semen." that's the only thing you can say when someone makes such a juvenile joke, you know?

judomonkeykyle7 karma

How many people tried out for the role of Alex on “Whitney”, before you found Chris D’Elia? And also, being that I live right outside of Washington, D.C., do you have a favorite restaurant from growing up you would recommend checking out in the city?

RealWhitneyCummings19 karma

You know, I actually wrote the part for Chris. We came up as friends in standup, and I always loved him, and we always had such a good time together, and when I wrote the pilot, I had him in mind, I wrote every joke because I knew how he'd deliver it, I wrote a lot of physical stuff with his delivery in mind. We had to audition a lot of actors, i remember it was a nightmare because he wore neon pink sneakers to the audition and I was like "Chris I am trying to get you a job, why are you dressing like an idiot?"

Sisiwakanamaru7 karma

Hello, I watched Money Shot on Netflix few months ago and I liked it

I have some questions for you:

  • What are some of the differences between 'I Love you' and 'Money Shot' from material perspectives?

  • Who is your favorite characters on Orange is The New Black?

  • What is your favorite dessert?

Thank you

RealWhitneyCummings10 karma

Great question. You know, there's a huge difference in terms of the material. I think Money Shot, I thought I knew everything and had it all together, I think I was tough and had all the answers, and then in this new special, it's much more that I got my heart broken, went through some tough times in my life, and the TV shows, and I got more humbled, broken-down and raw. It's much more exploratory and vulnerable than the first one. And I think I'm much more in my body, you know? in the first one, I was much more high energy and had a lot to prove, I didn't know how to do a special, I was doing in the way I did standup in a club, and performing for an audience is a bit different than performing for cameras. So in this one, I was more conscious of performing for the cameras rather than having the person in the last row of the venue hear me. So just a different pacing, and I'm a little more comfortable in my skin.

Oh my god! OH that is a really tough question!! I love Morello. I love Morello, I don't know what that says about me, that I either relate to her or want to be her. I love all of them. I love Morello but I would have to say Laverne Cox, I am just obsessed with her.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. I like, there's this thing I had at a restaurant recently, it was a meringue that was crushed together with berries, and whipped cream. It's crunchy and basically a big bucket of sugar. So probably that, and anything with peanut butter.

derekfor_real6 karma

Whitney, love your stand-ups and work on the roasts. My questions is, would you ever do an episode of "drunk history"? I feel like you'd have a pretty funny one.

RealWhitneyCummings12 karma

Oh I would LOVE to do that show! I'm a big fan of that show. And I actually know Derek Waters a little bit. Yes, send him a tweet and tell him that I should be on it.

RealWhitneyCummings5 karma

Ambush him! He goes to my Starbucks!

Call_Me_Jimmy6 karma

Hey Whitney, Big fan

I enjoyed the show "Whitney" maybe a little more then my other friends, who cares shit was funny?

Anyway with such a tight cast with people like Chris D'Elia, Maulik Pancholy and yourself, did you have a lot of room for improvisation on the show?

Also what's a joke someone said to you at a roast that stuck with you as really funny or really mean?

Best of luck in the future and have a pleasant day

RealWhitneyCummings13 karma

Not really, unfortunately. You know, we definitely improvised but a TV show that's multi cam, there's a really rigid formula that you kind of have to follow. You have act breaks, you've got to fit everything into 24 minutes or something, you have to fit story in and jokes aren't usually as important, but yeah, we definitely got to improvise a bit but not as much as I would like to. There's a lot of math involved in television, a lot of continuity, behind-the-curtain stuff, every time you deliver a line you have to do the same thing every time, and if you improvise, you're messing with continuity and it gets you in all kinds of trouble. So the answer is not as much as I would like.

I would feel like everything was really funny. The first roast I did for Joan Rivers, Greg Geraldo (who I always thought was the funniest), he said, it was so subtle, when he got to me he said "Whitney Cummings is here, for some reason." I always thought that was so funny. It wasn't edgy, or dirty, it was just such a subtle dig. That always just made me laugh, because it was always such a curveball.

StubsKubik6 karma

Hi Whitney big fan here.

A few questions.

When you did the Joan Rivers Roast was there an after party back stage ? If so can you tell us if any pranks or anything strange that had happened there ?

2: Would you ever do a Howard Stern roast on his show and how brutal would you go if you accepted?

RealWhitneyCummings6 karma

Well, there was an after party. I think I spent most of the party apologizing to people. That's what happens after a roast, is people saying "Sorry, sorry, I hope you're not mad." It's kind of everybody trying to rebuild the bridges we just burned down. Joan Rivers, I was just so nervous. I think I blacked out for most of that roast. Jeff Ross also had something up his sleeve. He's always pulling some kind of prank. Joan Rivers was one my heroes, and the first time I met her I was throwing jokes at her, so I think I was mostly trying to make her like me.

Howard would be tough. I feel like Howard is the one person who is off-limits, he's like this sacred deity that no one wants to make fun of. And there's not much to make fun of, he's never altered or made a bad move, you know? He doesn't have a lot of weaknesses, what are you going to make fun of. He's not an ideal target because he's so revered. So that would be a tough one, and I also know Howard from his show, you know that he's vulnerable and sensitive, and knowing all that about him, I know I would feel terrible.

you_ruin_everything5 karma

WHITNEY!!! Please be honest because there is $20 riding on this, do you ever fart while you're on stage? And if so, do you ever get caught?

RealWhitneyCummings7 karma

I've never gotten caught. I'm sure I have. But I don't like, make a point of it. I hope you didn't lose your money.

Zijien5 karma

Whisky?

RealWhitneyCummings3 karma

I do like Whisky. I don't think Whisky likes my liver, but I like it.

NotABoyNotYetAWoman4 karma

Which celebrity is the biggest asshole?

RealWhitneyCummings8 karma

That is a good question. A-Rod seems like a pretty big asshole. He seems like a big tool. He just seems arrogant. And Lance Armstrong is a loser. I watched a documentary, he's an amaazing athlete, no one can take that away from him, but he seems like a sociopath.

bbtfan134 karma

Hey Whitney, thanks for doing this AMA. I'm looking forward to seeing your special and "The Wedding Ringer". Who's funnier, you or Mr. Hart?

RealWhitneyCummings7 karma

Oh man. That's probably not for me to answer, but Kevin is definitely funnier in the movie. He's so funny. I mean, I think Kevin's going to win this round. Also he's just as funny as an actor as a standup. A lot of standup comedians, it doesn't translate to acting, but he is so funny in this movie. He's very subtle, he underplays things, his facial expressions - and by the way, off camera he is just as funny, he was cracking us up.

MrSwearword4 karma

Do you intend on doing another Comedy Central Roast?

RealWhitneyCummings7 karma

I don't have another one planned, I'm not planning on doing another one unless it's a close friend because it gets too uncomfortable otherwise. I'm secretly a really sensitive person, and they're getting so mean - every roast has to be meaner and edgier than the last, so it's gotten to the point where you have to be so harsh so I would only do that to someone I knew well.

smashdude504 karma

Who were your role models growing up?

RealWhitneyCummings7 karma

Wow. Um, I had this weird, as a kid I wasn't really conscious of comedians, like I didn't know comedians were comedians, I just thought they were real people. When I was 12, I found a book written by Paul Reiser, and I found it at a yard sale, and I got OBSESSED with this book. It was the book that eventually became Mad about You the sitcom. So I would just obsessed, it was just so observational and smart, and then it was Roseanne Barr, and I used to watch Roseanne and that was the first show I could relate to because they were poor, because all other sitcom families were rich and lived in fancy houses, and Roseanne was outspoken and said things that women just didn't say, she just didn't care. So I really looked up to her. I thought she was such a badass. I also loved, I don't know if this is someone I looked up to per se, but I loved Three's Company, I loved Janet, I always related to Janet, because she was so anal-retentive and neurotic and always trying to control everything.

Bug20004 karma

I love hearing you on Stern and that's where I first got exposed to you. Speaking of exposure, was rubbing your vagina on Seinfeld's couch as hot as it sounded?

RealWhitneyCummings6 karma

Yeah, I was so wasted, I'm not exactly sure. People want to know the details of what happened, and Howard seems to be the only one who recalls it in a sober way. It wasn't sexy, it was more clumsy and sad than anything else.

bbtfan134 karma

I don't remember your episode of House MD but was it lupus?

RealWhitneyCummings4 karma

I was, but I don't ever remember seeing it or knowing it was on? It was an episode where I was having an affair with one of the doctors, and that's all I really remember. I don't know.

snapper19713 karma

Hi,

I have always wanted to get to an AMA early, and so I have today, but I have no idea who you are. What's the best question to ask you?

Thanks for doing this AMA anyway.

RealWhitneyCummings4 karma

Best question to ask me would be, I guess "Who are you?"

I don't find myself that interesting, so I wouldn't ask myself anything.

MrConservationGuy3 karma

Are you single?

RealWhitneyCummings9 karma

I am! Yep!

Honourably-Disagree3 karma

Hi Whitney,

What was it like working with Chris D'Elia? He seems like he'd be really fun to be around.

And what do you think are some of the biggest challenges that women comedians have to face that male comedians don't?

RealWhitneyCummings12 karma

Okay, so Chris D'Elia is hilarious. He's so funny it's like, frustrating. Like he just had us laughing all the time, he was a blast to work with because he would make lines that weren't even jokes funny, he could make anything funny, even straight lines, so that made it easier to write a TV show. However, as you know, Chris loves making videos on his own of himself, so every now and then we'd be trying to work and he'd make selfie videos. But that worked out for him, obviously America likes them.

And the challenges as a female, the biggest one is that you have to be in hair and makeup longer, so my call time would be 5 AM, and the guys on the show would have to be 8 AM, so I'd have to be in makeup for 3 hours. That would be frustrating, because I'd literally have 3 hours less time that i could be writing jokes. Girls just have less time in the day, you know? 3 hours.

kcidol20023 karma

Steve Byrne said in his recent AMA that he loves you and really liked Whitney (the show, not just your first name). Do you like Sullivan & Son? Also what is your favorite stand-up comedian led show? (i.e. Louie, Inside Amy Schumer, Sullivan & Son, Undateable, etc.)

RealWhitneyCummings6 karma

I love Sullivan & Son. I love Steve Byrne, there's a bunch of comedians on that show. I love Louie with Louis CK, I love the Kroll show on Comedy Central, I love Key & Peele on Comedy Central, it almost seems like every successful show has some great comedians. Like, Bill Burr was on Breaking Bad. Anytime a comedian is on a show, I'm happy.

hannahbee83 karma

If you could play any lead female role in the history of movies, which would it be and why?

RealWhitneyCummings3 karma

I feel like it would be something like a wicked witch or something, like Angelina Jolie in Maleficent. I would want to play someone super evil with magic powers, like the Wicked Witch of the West or something.

jonemillard3 karma

Hey Whitney, thanks to Chelsea Handler, every time I see you I think of 'granny panties.' How did this come about? I'm thinking this is most likely an interesting story Anyway, thank you for doing this?

RealWhitneyCummings5 karma

I don't wear granny panties as much anymore. I wear them around the house or to sleep, but i have graduated to thongs, I'll have you know. I'm trying to be an adult. But I do miss my granny panties, I got to say.

Apologician3 karma

Hey Whitney, loved listening to you on Howard today (not sure if it was rerun) and you were a riot. What is the most awkward position you have been in while having sex?

RealWhitneyCummings5 karma

They're all awkward aren't they? One time my boyfriend at the time and I tried to have sex in a steam room. It was horrible and awkward and I kept slipping and almost broke my neck like 4 times.

TheGreatPastaWars3 karma

At what point do you never have to do dishes again? Sometimes I see celebrities that was dishes in tv shows or movies and I'm like, hey man, the reason why I got all famous was so I wouldn't have to wash dishes ever again.

RealWhitneyCummings3 karma

I don't wash dishes, I put them in the dishwasher. And I'm pretty good at that, but I don't wash them very much. Sometimes I will rinse them before i put them in the dishwasher. Hey, stars - they're just like us! I like doing cleaning, it's meditative.

gogojack3 karma

Hi there, Whitney. Big fan of the roasts and what not, plus (insert creepy guy stuff here). On that topic, my question is this:

Based upon her facial expressions, how many creepy guy questions would you estimate Victoria has not passed onto you?

RealWhitneyCummings5 karma

I feel like these questions aren't very creepy at all?

emhig3 karma

I'm very excited to see you in The Wedding Ringer and for your upcoming special. Are you looking into doing more scripted stuff or are you focusing on stand-up for the time being? What's your process for choosing what you want to appear in, both scripted and in terms of talk shows and clip shows? Your career is incredible because you've never been pigeonholed into one thing and you seem to create roles and opportunities for yourself.

PS: You are my favorite person to see around the Laugh Factory and you make working there a joy! And I love seeing pictures of Ramona on your Instagram.

-Emily

RealWhitneyCummings4 karma

You know, the work tends to choose me. There's only so much opportunities, and when the timing kind of works out, I think for me I end up doing projects I would do for free (which I'm sure you've heard before, but working can be so all-consuming doing a TV show, so anything you do has to fill you up, so I try to stick with things that i would do for free on a Sunday, that i am just like obsessed with ). So 2 Broke Girls came around because Michael Patrick King was looking to do a tv show, he had done Sex and the City and it was a total no-brainer to say yes to. I only do things that are no-brainers.

SlightlyStable2 karma

Do you prefer smooth or crunchy peanut butter?

RealWhitneyCummings5 karma

Oooh! Smooth. But I kind of forgot about chunky. Now I remember it...

im-a-poopy-head2 karma

Hi, Whitney. My question is: if you hadn't become a comedian/actor, what would you have most likely chose in life as your career ?

RealWhitneyCummings3 karma

I wanted to be a journalist, before I became a comedian. Like I thought I would be doing stories on injustice and conspiracy theories and I wanted to like, change the world with journalism and then I couldn't be objective, because the most important thing about journalism is being objective and i had too many of my own ideas and judgements. But mainly I would try that.

im-a-poopy-head2 karma

Thank you for the reply! I admire your honesty. Yes, it can be difficult to get past our own biases. If I may reply with a follow up question: Who, as a journalist do you admire the most?

RealWhitneyCummings7 karma

I really liked Maureen Dowd, I don't always agree with her, but she puts forth such cogent arguments, and she's always said things even if they're polarizing. I think anyone who's brave enough to get people talking and has strong opinions. I think that the people who initially inspired me were Katha Pollitt and Naomi Wolf, they started as journalists and ended up writing these game-changing, muck-racking sort of books that sort of changed my paradigm, how I looked at the world. That's the kind of stuff I wanted to do, talk about things no one is talking about or point out injustices. Those are the kind of people I looked up to.

Johansbutt2 karma

Whitney, what is your favorite horror movie?

RealWhitneyCummings11 karma

I mean, there's this old B&W movie that was based on a play, it's called The Bad Seed. I don't really know who's in it, I think it was made in the 40's or 50's and it's about this little girl who's evil, and I watched it with an ex-boyfriend or something. It used to be a play, and it's just very, very well written the way everything unfolds. It's more of a mystery, I don't like graphic horror at all, I spend my life trying to not be scary, and I don't understand people who pay to be scared, it's super confusing. So The Bad Seed.

SWIMsfriend2 karma

Do you have any pictures of yourself from when you were a model?

RealWhitneyCummings2 karma

That's been blown out of proportion on my wikipedia page, I believe. I do, my mom has some really corny photos of me posing like a model and they are horrible and i look older than I look now.

RealWhitneyCummings2 karma

I was like 14 and just would wear so much makeup, it was not cute. I just used to be one of those annoying people who just walk around department stores in clothes and say "Third floor! Sale" like it was not real.

Mutt12232 karma

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

RealWhitneyCummings11 karma

Mint chocolate chip.

caraozlek2 karma

What was it like working with Chelsea Handler?

RealWhitneyCummings4 karma

Oh, she's the best. Chelsea is notoriously a complete asshole. But the secret is that she's actually the nicest person on the planet. On TV she's sarcastic and makes fun of people, but she's also the most thoughtful, loving, caring best friend you could ask for. So it's good, my liver's not in as good shape, but it's worth it.

kingsmokey2 karma

Hi Whitney! I'm also an alum of St. Andrew's Episcopal School, and was wondering to what extent your work was influenced by/a product of your time growing up in Montgomery County? You're great!

RealWhitneyCummings5 karma

Wow. yeah, Specifically St. Andrew's my high school had a teacher named Mr. Whitman. He was this amazing teacher who always encouraged us to make connections. He was a history teacher and he would make us connect something that happened in the news today with something 50 years ago, he called them "links," he was obsessed with links, and as a standup today, that's what I do - I link one idea to another idea and try to connect everything and make something meaningful out of a lot of different things until it feels like a theory or an idea. So he helped train my brain to think in a perspective that is conducive to comedy, as not funny as that answer is.

EclipseNine2 karma

I love your stand-up, and am very much looking forward to your special. Your jokes are not exactly what I would call "family friendly," and I was wondering if working with NBC on "Whitney" was difficult. Did you have a lot of issues with standards coming to you with "you can't do a joke about that, or you can't say this?"

RealWhitneyCummings6 karma

Yeah, you'd be surprised, you know? Doing a sitcom, my goal is not to offend people or be dirty or edgy. In standup, the things I talk about are sex and anatomy and things like that, but in a sitcom I'm telling stories. So there was a huge struggle, because people don't talk like that all the time. The only surprising thing that happened to me with standards was that on network television you can't say "Jesus Chris" or "Goddamn it," those were the most surprising things, and you can't hold up jerseys for NFL teams, and you can't drink a coke or a pepsi, I wanted everything to be as real as possible and you had to use fake props, which I thought made everything look more fake. So those were the biggest challenges, getting around that.

MehPsh2 karma

Congrats on being pretty and funny, which is the perfect combo for guys to love you. Whats the creepiest thing anyones said to you?

Mind you, this is reddit. Someone may out creep that here.

RealWhitneyCummings9 karma

Hahaha! Um, I did have one time, I was at a show and a guy yelled that he wanted to do a sexual act to me with a knife. I remember thinking that was like - I'm okay with creepy, I'm good with that, but that was the first time I was disturbed. I'm normally just flattered. But that was the first time I was like "Oh god, who would even think of that?"

And we've been dating ever since.

alexsf0072 karma

How was your experience with 2 Broke Girls different than Whitney?

RealWhitneyCummings4 karma

You know, Whitney was kind of a show about a couple, and a guy and a girl, and 2 Broke Girls is a couple that's a girl and a girl, it's a love story between two friends, like a rom-com between two girls. And there's also more of an ensemble, we have this colorful cast of funny people at the diner, so there's a much bigger ensemble show, and CBS is very lenient of our being able to make jokes, so it gets to be more shocking than the NBC show was.

snowboo2 karma

Was it a conscious decision to change your approach to comedy after losing your show? Do you think leaning towards hypersexualized comedy evens the playing field for women comedians or does it set women back? Also, how do you feel about Chris d'Elia's show doing alright when it's basically nearly the same as your show but focused on the man instead of the woman?

RealWhitneyCummings7 karma

In terms of hypersexualizing, that's a projection, I don't feel it's hypersexual because my standards are different, so it's subjective to put judgement on it. Some comedians talk about politics (Jon Stewart, Bill Maher), some talk about race (Chris Rock) and some talk about sex and relationships, like me. I talk about relationships far more than sex, and your focus on the sex says more about you. And in terms of Chris' show, television is in a weird spot. My sitcom was getting better ratings than that show now, so I don't feel like Chris' show is doing better than my show, I just think that for me I don't get competitive with other shows, I don't think that way, I think everything happens exactly as it should and I hope that show does well. Comedies and multi-cams succeeding on television, one person gets lifted up, everyone gets lifted up.

RealWhitneyCummings6 karma

There's enough for everybody, there are so many places to do comedy, I don't have that scarcity mentality.

JenLikesCats2 karma

Hey I'm a huge fan, I just bought your new special!

What are your favorite books?

Thanks for doing the AMA!

RealWhitneyCummings8 karma

My favorite books: a lot of them are self-help books, so I'm not going to tell you them. I love the book called The Female Brain, which actually inspired a lot of my standup. And I just finished a book called Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. And oh my god, I couldn't put it down, like every sentence is a work of art in that book. It's unspeakably, like a dystopian satire of what the world's going to be like in the future - it's really, really interesting and really plausible. And really funny. I had to have a dictionary with me, because every sentence had a word in it I didn't understand.

And I read the whole Tupac thing recently, I read a book called Holler if You Hear Me by Michael Eric Dyson that was really interesting. So it was basically a Tupac biography.

As a comedian, I try to expose myself to influences all over the place.