Chelsea Handler’s been around.
And we don’t just mean the one-night stands she wrote about in her first book, “My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One Night Stands.” Handler’s made the rounds on such notable shows as Oxygen’s “Girls Behaving Badly,” VH1’s “Dirty Famous,” MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
In July, the brutally honest and quick-witted comedienne debuted her late-night talk show, “Chelsea Lately,” on E! Entertainment Television, her second show for the network. The five-nights-a-week half-hour show takes on celebrity culture and entertainment news with a three-guest roundtable that includes fellow comedians, journalists and celebrities themselves. Like her first foray for E!, “The Chelsea Handler Show,” there are “field pieces” where the host hits the street to interact with real people, like a piece where she took a CPR class “just in case” so she can start sleeping with old men, or the tryout tape she made for “The Amazing Race” with her beloved little person assistant, Chuy.
Though she will be sans Chuy, Handler will take center stage when she brings her stand-up act to the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre this Saturday, Dec. 8.
The Weekender spoke to Handler last week while she was on route to work about her true feelings for Chuy, her five-year plan and growing up the youngest child of a Mormon mother and a Jewish father.
Weekender: You went from “The Chelsea Handler Show” to “Chelsea Lately.” Why the switch?
Handler: “The Chelsea Handler Show” was doing well, but E! wanted a late-night show that was on five nights a week that could be very current and tape that day and air that night. [The Chelsea Handler Show] wasn’t that, and I said “Why don’t we take some elements of that show and then combine it with some different elements so we can have it be more of a talk show but with some of the stuff we loved about the original show?” … I said to E! that I only want to do this and work this hard if we can take everything that E! reports all day long and just make fun of it.
Weekender: So they approve of you making fun of everything the network is about?
Handler: They approve. Obviously you have to have a sense of humor about it because it’s absurd how much attention we pay to celebrities and these girls. It’s completely unhealthy and disgusting so, at some point, we have to poke fun at ourselves. This show is kind of the perfect way to do that — for me anyway.
Weekender: Britney Spears is such fodder. What three questions would you ask her if she was on your show?
Handler: Can I have what you’re having, what’s your name and what’s your problem? [laughs]
Weekender: Have you ever tried to get her on the show?
Handler: I would love to have her. I said to my producers, “She’s so out of it, she might agree to come on the show. She’s made so many mistakes before I don’t understand why we can’t be one of them.” It’s highly unlikely she’ll be on, but I always welcome it.
Weekender: How do you pick the three roundtable guest?
Handler: From the beginning, we wanted people who have a real opinion and not just giving information. We want people to say what they think because I think that’s really the most interesting thing to hear. Or if they have inside scoop like journalists.
I really love Ken Baker [Us Weekly], Bonnie Fuller from Star, who really go out and tell you what happened. And that’s what people really want to know: some juicy, behind-the-scenes stuff that the regular person doesn’t have access to. So what we look for is someone who is really funny, really opinionated or has inside scoop. Comedians also are always fantastic guests. You never know with musicians, they’re either really good talkers or really not interesting
Weekender: How real are the field pieces, and where the hell do they come from?
Handler: My warped brain [laughs]. The producers come up with a lot of ideas, and together we decide which ones make sense and which ones don’t. We’ve done so many because of the last show so we have to keep it original and fresh, which is challenging, but they’re so much fun to do. We don’t really tell anyone anything; if they’re familiar with the show, they basically know it’s me making an ass out of myself. We’re not making fun of them, we’re making fun of me. It all pretty much comes down to me looking like an asshole, which I’m very comfortable doing.
Weekender: Most really have no idea?
Handler: Some know. … At some point, they’re always shocked by something I say or do, and that’s great because it’s the reaction I want. We try not to prep them too much. We just say, “She’s taking a CPR class and taping it for her show.” If they don’t know the show, that’s even better.
Weekender: Tell us about your relationship with Chuy.
Handler: Chuy is my fat, nugget baby boy and I love him. He is the f---ing cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I can’t keep my hands off of him. Although he did put on a little weight on Thanksgiving, so we’re getting him back down to size because I like him corpulent, but not over corpulent.
Weekender: So it’s the same relationship with the cameras off as it is with them on?
Handler: Totally! He comes to my dressing room every day and to my office every day when he gets there at noon — the rest of us get there at 9:30, but he’s on Mexican time — he gives me a kiss and a hug, sits down, stares at the wall for about 15 seconds until I say “Chuy, do you want something to eat?” and he’s like “No, I’m not hungry.” Every time I ask him, he’s not hungry, but obviously he’s not keeping that weight up by not eating. He’s such a liar.
Weekender: Where do you see the show in five years?
Handler: I want to do this for another couple years and go on and do it on one of the major networks. That’s what I’d really like to think of myself doing in the next five years.
Weekender: You are also an author. Why start your writing career with a book about one-night stands?
Handler: I would totally tell stories of me having sex or hooking up with little people, and my friends were like, “Chelsea, nobody’s ever hooked up with a little person, you need to be writing these stories down.” And I’m like “Write them down? For who?” I wrote a few chapters about one-night stands and sent it to my agent. Three days later, he said we had three offers from three publishers. It was the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but I was told I had to write 10 more chapters and was like “Ten more chapters? Does that mean I have to sleep with 10 more people?”
It was really fun, and the book did really well in like 26 countries. My brothers and sisters are all professional — one’s a nurse, one’s a lawyer, one’s an accountant, one’s a chef — and they’re like “You wrote a book?” and I said “Yes, assholes, I did write a book, and I didn’t even go to college.” So this is like the biggest joke of all [laughs].
Weekender: When will your second book, “Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea?” be released?
Handler: April. Chuy’s on the cover with me. I love this book so much; I think it’s so much better than the first one, obviously it’s better written. It’s also just a story. It’s not all sexual, there’s some dating stories in there, but it has childhood stories from my screwed-up family and really personal stories.
Weekender: What was a childhood Chelsea like?
Handler: I was like, “Listen, what’s the story with our budget?” I was the youngest of six, getting hand-me-downs from my sister who was five and a half years older than me. I wanted a pair of Guess jeans, and my mom’s like, “Nobody’s paying $60 on a pair of jeans, Chelsea.” And I was like, “Listen! If you are raising me in this Jewish neighborhood with kids riding around in Mercedes and BMWs, I’m going to need a pair of Guess jeans to get my reputation up to where it needs to be.” I would ask what our financial plan for the next five years was and looked for my own apartment when I was eight. It was time for me to spread out.
I was so embarrassed by them. Obviously, I love my family so much, but when I was a little kid, it was all about materialism and we didn’t have any. My father’s driveway looked like the set of “Sanford and Son,” and we lived next to all these nice houses, I was so embarrassed by him. And I still am, because he’s a hot mess.
Weekender: How did you get your start in entertainment?
Handler: I came out here to be an actress and would go on auditions and had to wait for someone to decide you’re perfect for some part. That was really frustrating. All these actresses were just so skinny and so pretty, and I was never really into that because I was such a tomboy. I know I’m not ugly or anything, but that was never my focal point. I came out here, and that’s all anybody cared about. I really needed to something opposite because I will totally fall apart at the seams.
People told me to do stand-up because I’m a loudmouth, and I did it one night. I had like 15 margaritas and got up on stage, did a bunch of jokes, and it actually went really well. That’s when I was 21, and I’ve been doing it ever since, about 11 and a half years because I’ll be 33 in February. It’s been the greatest thing ever because it’s so different from being an actress because everyone knows me for me. That’s me on my show, that’s my personality. Now the people that are fans of me are fans because of what they see, and that’s exactly who I am. It’s kind of nice.
w
go:
Who: Chelsea Handler
When: Saturday, Dec. 8, 8 p.m.
Where: F.M. Kirby Center, Public Square, Wilkes-Barre
Tickets: $18.50-$26.50, available through all
Ticketmaster outlets or at the Kirby Box Office
or by calling 570.826.1100