Wild West Comedy Festival: Aisha Tyler on ‘Archer,’ ‘The Talk,’ drinking, late … – The Huntsville Times

Lana Kane, the super-spy role Aisha Tyler voices on FX
Network’s edgy and hilarious animated comedy “Archer,” is known to sport glam lingerie, slinky designer-ware and state-of-the-art firearms.

But when Tyler is in the vocal booth recording her “Archer” lines she’s
decidedly less decked-out. “Sweatpants. Flip-flops. I look as undone as possible,”
Tyler says, calling from her dressing room on CBS’s Studio City, Calif. lot
getting ready to host daytime show “The Talk,” one of her many other gigs.

“That’s the great thing about voice work – other than, for
me, ‘Archer” is this kind of really wonderful set of comedic math problems I
have to solve because you don’t have the set, the props or another actor to play off
of so it’s really about, ‘How do I make each line as funny as I can?’ But there’s no
hair, no makeup, so I
just step in and go until I hit the wall. And then I walk out.”

Tyler will perform a set of stand-up comedy, her first love,
7 p.m. May 17 at Zanies Comedy Club in Nashville, located at 2025 8^th Ave. S.
Tickets are $25 and available via nashville.zanies.com. The show is part of the
inaugural Wild West Comedy Festival, which runs May 14 – 18 and boasts an insanely awesome lineup
also featuring Demetri Martin, Lonely Island, Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, BJ Novak,
Rodney Carrington and Dennis Miller. 

Additional Wild West Comedy Festival
programming includes a live taping of the popular podcast “WTF with Mark
Maron” featuring an interview with Vince Vaughn. Chris Hardwick will film
an episode of his Comedy Central internet-centric improv comedy show ”@midnight” in front of a live Nashville audience as part of Wild
West.

It’s basically the Bonnaroo of comedy, minus the four days
without a shower part. Venues include the Ryman Auditorium,
Third Man Records and Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Individual show tickets
and VIP packages, which start at $350, are available at wildwestcomedyfestival.com.

Tyler’s current and recent projects also include: hosting CW’s
reboot of the improv show “Whose Line Is It Anyway”; her best-selling memoir
“Self Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation”; award-winning
podcast “Girl on Guy,” various guest-starring roles including a memorable turn
on “Modern Family.”

But despite all those high-profile gigs, she’s never stopped
doing stand-up.  Most years she does at
least 30 shows. “I love it,” Tyler says. “It’s how I got into the business, how
I got my start and it’s incredibly important to me to always be onstage and always
be performing and always be writing. If anything, my stand-up informs the rest
of my work because it keeps me mentally and creatively sharp, and it’s the way
I work out new ideas and stay connected to my audience.”

As much as you work,
when you do get some time off, where are some of your go-to places to get away
to? And do you ever just turn your phone off?

Every Sunday I turn my phone off, which is a new thing to
me. I’m so attached to all of my devices and it’s usually not a totally
technology-free day because I like to play a lot of video games, but I try to
look at my email or the internet on Sundays.

I’m a scuba diver so I do like to go to somewhere in the
Pacific Ocean, like Fiji, or the Caribbean and dive, but I think people know
because I’ve done a bunch of stuff on it and I just did an episode of the
Anthony Bourdain-produced show “The Getaway,” on the Esquire Network, probably my
favorite place is Paris. I speak fluent French and I’ve been to France five times
and just did a travel show from Paris where I got to be Anthony Bourdain, which
is pretty amazing and that was really, really fun

One big plan I have is to spend more time in the Nordic
counties, because I went to Stockholm a couple years ago and that was
incredible and I would say that’s probably one of the only cities in the world where
you could walk into a bar and not know anybody and 20 minutes later you’re
singing songs in Swedish. And you don’t know any Swedish.

How much coffee do you consume each morning before shooting “The Talk”?

[Laughs.] I’m always caffeinated. I wake up with my engine on 90 or so, that being said I love coffee but I don’t have to rev up for the speed I hit when I do the show. People always ask me, “How much coffee have you had today?” And, “No, actually I’ve had none yet.” I was born an Energizer Rabbit which is probably why I have so many jobs.

View full sizeAisha Tyler. (Courtesy photo)

In addition to
hosting to E! Network’s “Talk Soup” in 2001, you first showed up on a lot of
people’s radar in 2003 during you’re an extended arc as Charlie Wheeler, on the
ninth and tenth season of the sitcom “Friends.” Before that I can’t recall any
recurring black characters being on that show. If you could insert a white
character into any mostly black sitcom ever, which would it be?

[Laughs.] Well,
you know I don’t have an encyclopedic memory of sitcoms generally, and all the
obvious ones like “The Jeffersons” and “Sanford and Son” there always was a
token white character. That’s kind of how TV works, right? There’s always one
black guy on the white show or one white guy on the black show. I don’t know if
that has more to do with societal guilt or confusion or the more general
understanding that nobody’s walking around the planet only interacting only with people who look like them. Especially in this country. So
I don’t know, maybe plop a white guy into “227″? There probably was a white guy
on there but I never saw the show so I couldn’t tell you what he looked like.

What are some of the latest subjects to work their way into your stand-up show?

My shows are perennially about men and women and sex. But not in a loin-y way, more of a celebratory way. But you have to come and experience it for yourself. I think you should come to a comedy show and lay back and know mama’s got you covered, but I don’t like to tease my show. I think if you can put your show into a log line it’s probably not a very interesting show.

You’re a bit of a beer
and bourbon connoisseur. What’s the very first alcoholic drink you drank in
your life and what’s the last?

The very first alcoholic drink I ever had was a 20-ounce
Budweiser in a bathroom stall at my seventh-grade dance with three other girls.
We split three Budweiser 20s between six girls, so none of us got drunk and I
wondered what all of the fuss was about. The very last alcoholic beverage I had
was a boulevardier, which is bourbon, Campari and sweet vermouth and I drank it
in Hartford, Conn. after a nerd conference at the CT Forum, alongside (photographer)
Adam Savitch and (novelist and pop-culture writer) Chuck Klosterman.  

Your also an avid
gamer. If you had to give up every one your video games and only keep one to
play, which do you keep?

I don’t know. It’s hard for me because I do a lot of
multi-player and “Halo” is my multi-player game, but just for sheer enjoyment
and kind of long wall-to-wall play, probably “Fallout 3.” Right now I’m playing
“The Last Of Us,” and that’s pretty amazing so I may change my answer in a few
weeks when I finish it.

What’s your level of
interest, one to 10, in hosting CBS’ “The Late Late Show” or any of the other
late-night talk shows at some point in your career?

I can’t put a number on it.That’s probably ev ery stand-up comics dream, but I have
like 19 jobs right now so it almost becomes an academic question. Literally my
life is scheduled from five in the morning until midnight, so would be hard to
fit another job in.

Who are some guests you haven’t had yet on your “Girl on Guy” podcast you’d love to have on there?

I’m dying to get Dave Grohl. He’s been on my wish list for a long time. The Black Keys, I would really love to have. I’ve gotten a lot of people I wanted already, quite honestly. God, who else? Channing Tatum would be pretty amazing. Jonah Hill. Whoopi Goldberg. There’s a lot of old-school rock guys I’d like to get on. Steven Tyler. I’d love to get Ozzy (Osborne), and he would laugh at this and probably would Sharon (Osborne, Ozzy’s wife) but I’d probably have to subtitle the whole thing. 

When you play a show
in The South, like your upcoming Wild West Comedy slot in Nashville, is there
anything you try to bring back from your travels with you?

We just did “Archer Live!” in Nashville not too long ago,
which was pretty incredible – it was at the Grand Old Opry, which was a really
cool experience for all of us. Usually when I go into a
town I care as much about what I’m going to eat as where I’m going to stay or
perform, so (in Nashville) I’ll be coming in and getting some good barbecue and
good cocktails and that will be my souvenir.

What’s something you
haven’t done in your career yet you’d like to eventually get around to?

Probably Broadway. I think that would be pretty amazing to go
live in Manhattan and work on Broadway for a few months. I just have never had
that much time off. Maybe they can put me in the lead for that rag queen role
in “Kinky Boots.” I’ve got the size to
play a tranny.

CBS option a TV
adaptation of your “Self-Inflicted Wounds” book. What’s the status of that?

We’re working on finding writers and pitching out the story
and putting the show together. It’s going great.

And you also recently
shot an HBO pilot for a new Ryan Murphy project (“Glee,” “American Horror Story”).
How did that go?

It was an amazing effort and there are some great things
about it. I think it’s still in post (production), and it’s a Ryan Murphy
project so I think it has a very, very good chance of going. He’s amazing, it
was a great experience and we’re all waiting to hear.

More: aishatyler.com

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