A latest record-breaking “Celebrity Jeopardy!” victory meant Margaret Cho not solely received to stan host Ken Jennings, however the pioneering comic and actor additionally superior to the “Celebrity” semifinals on behalf of Pleasant Home LA, a nonprofit she described as “helping women with homelessness, mental health issues and addiction.” Cho provides “Helping women, trans women and nonbinary people in need of addiction recovery and treatment is very pricey and often out of the reach of a lot of people who are struggling. It’s a really, really important place.”
This month the five-time Grammy nominee for greatest comedy album additionally celebrates her new musical launch “Lucky Gift.” The album shall be obtainable on Valentine’s Day by way of her Clownery Information label, with a particular “Margaret Cho and Friends” present at Largo on Feb. 13.
The approaching yr sees Cho within the second season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” on Disney+, which she calls “super cool. I got to work with Kristen Schaal, who I love.” She “especially loved” appearing subsequent to “the incredible Sandra Bernhard. I am a Bernhardologist, and I was able to prove that when I got to spend all that time with her recounting all of the different things that I loved about her career and her life.”
Moreover, Cho reteams together with her “The Doom Generation” director Gregg Araki within the thriller “I Want Your Sex” alongside Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Charli XCX. Plus, she says, “Johnny Knoxville fell in love with my dog Lucia on set.”
The 2025 leg of Cho’s Reside and Furious tour started on the Brea Improv in January and continues at North American theaters and golf equipment by Might. Celebrating her fortieth anniversary in comedy, “It’s been great!” Cho stated emphatically throughout a latest dialog with The Occasions. “People are excited to hear a take on what’s going on, to hear a progressive woman’s perspective, a queer woman’s perspective, an Asian American woman’s perspective.”
“Music is a passion outside of any other kind of work,” Cho says.”So music is one thing that I all the time do, but it surely’s extra social and it’s rest. It’s like a type of remedy to jot down songs, as a technique to make sense of the way in which that my life goes.”
(Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions)
What have been your experiences in the course of the January fires?
I evacuated. I’m proper by the Eaton fireplace, and I’m again in my home now. I’ve three cats and a canine, so it was extremely hectic. It’s sort of laborious to get my cats of their carriers. However after I pulled the carriers out and I received the whole lot prepared, the cats have been already sitting within the carriers. They knew that my vitality was off; that I used to be being actually severe. I wasn’t messing round with them. It was intense, however so long as my cats and my canine are secure, I’m nice. I stated goodbye to my home. I’ve lived right here for 25 years. I didn’t convey something that has actual worth to me. And after I got here again, I used to be like, “Wow, I didn’t take any photographs, any documents, any money. I was just so into the cats.” I believe it’s a miracle that we’re nice. However it’s additionally an unlucky actuality, what’s taking place proper now.
The 2 primary charities I used to be supporting have been the Pasadena Humane Society — who have been reuniting individuals with their animals, serving to animals that have been misplaced within the fireplace, and housing animals for individuals in evacuation states who can’t have their animals with them — and Altadena Ladies, which is about therapeutic the psychological trauma of dropping your property in that very stunning, traumatic method. It was put collectively by a younger lady attempting to assist different teenagers. That’s so significant and delightful. There have been so many individuals who rose up out of this. The firefighters did an unimaginable job. I’ve a lot gratitude in the direction of Southern California, the generosity of people that reside right here. Individuals have a false thought of what L.A. is. It’s not all shallow individuals or people who find themselves solely out for themselves or Hollywood or showbiz. It’s actual individuals who have unimaginable generosity of their coronary heart. I believe that was confirmed.
You carried out on a Resort Cafe profit Jan. 31 for MusiCares. On the comedy aspect, how have you ever seen the group coming collectively?
It’s something we are able to do to assist our creative communities. Comedians are nice as a result of they’re so beneficiant, and numerous comedians have been actually affected by what occurred as properly. I additionally love the Resort Cafe. They’re all the time prepared to assist. We did one other profit there for Asheville, N.C. [following Hurricane Helene]. They’re so extremely beneficiant and considerate of different individuals. Musicians dropping devices, to me that’s significantly painful. Generally you may’t change this stuff.
Your final music album was launched eight years in the past. Why was this the suitable time for “Lucky Gift”?
A few of these songs I recorded a very long time in the past and didn’t have the thought to launch them. Then different songs have been newer, and I spotted they really got here collectively nice as an album. My regular life is targeted on being a humorist. That’s actually what I do. After which on high of that I’m an actor as properly. Music is a ardour outdoors of some other sort of work. So music is one thing that I all the time do, but it surely’s extra social and it’s rest. It’s like a type of remedy to jot down songs, as a technique to make sense of the way in which that my life goes.
What are you able to talk with music that you may’t talk with comedy?
It’s tonally the way in which that you simply paint the image with the devices that you simply use, the manufacturing, the way in which that the sound is processed and the place it sits in your ear because it’s stepping into. It’s very emotional, and also you react to it in a really primal method. At the least I do after I hearken to music. I hearken to it with my complete coronary heart. I’m moved by it, and I’m partaking with it on a stage that I don’t essentially have interaction with different artwork. Most individuals don’t essentially return to the identical favourite film or favourite comedy bit like they do with their favourite track. It’s one thing that I maintain going again to. My favourite songs stay my favourite songs, after which I revisit them extra typically than I do some other sort of artwork.
“There’s a lot of mental health problems in comedians. So I wanted to address that melancholy that comedians have, because comedy is a form of coping,” Cho says.
(Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions)
On first hear your track “Funny Man” is clearly a few troubled comic, however you’ve not too long ago specified that it’s addressed to Robin Williams.
I all the time needed to comply with him, which I believe is basically horrible and wretched for a younger comic to should comply with Robin Williams. He was the key proprietor of the comedy membership that I lived throughout the road from referred to as the Holy Metropolis Zoo. He would trip his bike throughout the Golden Gate Bridge and do these exhibits each evening. All of the comics have been there, Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, all of those comics that we all know now. However we have been all simply youngsters. And everyone would go to the membership on the finish of the evening to see Robin performing. We have been there each evening, simply laughing.
His loss of life was so horrible that folks nonetheless don’t speak about it. They usually didn’t need to speak about him as an artist, even. It’s nearly as if he by no means existed in numerous methods, due to the trauma that all of us felt at his loss. Which is basically unhappy, as a result of he was a fantastic artist and in addition a fantastic humanitarian. The track was written round when he died [in 2014]. I shaped an outreach for individuals experiencing homelessness in San Francisco referred to as BeRobin, which was to imitate Comedian Aid, which is what Robin was doing within the ’80s with Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, this huge homeless outreach charity all comedians did. So we did that in San Francisco, we collected numerous donations, we’d steal electrical energy and play in encampments and provides out meals and provides and cash and all kinds of issues, and play these songs.
This is likely one of the songs that was performed, and I had an enormous band, so everyone wished to play. Bob Mould got here and performed exhibits out on the road. Roger Rocha, who I wrote that track with, was our band chief. Boots Riley got here. We had horns; we had drag queens. It was simply phenomenal. So I really like that I lastly get to launch the track. It’s actually emotional, however I speak about Robin and humorous individuals who don’t really feel so good inside. It’s a fairly frequent factor in my trade. There’s numerous psychological well being issues in comedians. So I wished to handle that melancholy that comedians have, as a result of comedy is a type of coping. Laughter and making jokes is a trauma response. It does make sense that individuals who have a extremely developed humorousness do this, as a result of they’re individuals who have been in ache.
The track “You Can Be You” appears to be delivering a really wanted message for an unsure time we’re all discovering ourselves in.
That track is about Nex Benedict, who’s the nonbinary teenager who died. It was a horrible scenario that occurred in Oklahoma. They have been getting bullied at their college, and so they have been beat up. The federal government failed them, academics failed them, the group failed them. And proper now, we’ve got a horrible scenario the place these trans, nonbinary and queer youngsters are underneath siege by our authorities, which is senseless. The track is about speaking to queer youngsters on this scenario and urging them that they are often themselves, they need to be themselves, and it’s OK to be themselves. It’s a accountability for queer adults to attempt to attain out in no matter method that we are able to. For me, it’s going to be artwork. I do it in my comedy, however I believed it was efficient in a track. In order that was my response to “What can we do to help younger people feel like they’re being understood and seen?”
The “Lucky Gift” album artwork has a retro really feel. There’s a vinyl format fashion to it. Are you referencing a greater period?
It’s just like the ’90s does the ’60s. It’s additionally just a little little bit of comedians doing music, like Tracey Ullman, who I really like. I additionally love the yé-yé women of the Sixties. I just like the aesthetics. It was that vibe. And numerous the devices that we use have been fairly outdated. To me, it was very retro feeling, the place it felt like a brand new optimism. That was my purpose.
Is optimism a part of your political mindset heading into the subsequent 4 years?
It’s about “How can we make fun of them?” They hate when they’re laughed at. They can’t stand it. They’re quite humorless. I believe that Trump and Elon Musk need nothing greater than to be humorous, and so they’re so not. They only can’t. That’s the one factor we’ve got that actually does drive them loopy. So make jokes at their expense. You may be the richest individual, but when a joke is made at your expense, it’s laborious to pay for. So I respect that.
Celebrating her fortieth anniversary in comedy, “It’s been great!” Cho stated emphatically throughout a latest dialog with The Occasions.
(Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions)
You canceled understanding your new “Mommy: A One-Woman Cho” Jan. 10 and 11 on the Elysian. Has the present continued progressing?
I’ve been writing about my mom and her sisters. I play my mom, her two sisters, and myself within the present. And I’ve been engaged on this for legit 10 years. Sadly we needed to postpone due to the fires, however we shall be again. It’ll return up in April, as of now. That’s one other course I’m sort of shifting into: theater. It’s a special area; it’s a special method of writing.
I’ll be doing my present on the Elysian, which is one other favourite. They’ve a lot selection. I like to go see exhibits there. I like to carry out at exhibits there. It’s a particular place.
Any Valentine’s Day plans that you simply’re wanting ahead to?
I’m doing a present at Largo to launch the report on the thirteenth, the day earlier than. My animals are my Valentines all the time, so I’ll be positively kissing them on a regular basis. To me, it’s simply one other day as a result of I really like each day. It looks as if not a enjoyable time to should be loving solely on that at some point. I need to have romance each day.