Abbi Jacobson Discusses “Broad City” and Her New Memoir

JACOBSON: Well, you know, it took me so long to find this title. I think I — this book of essays is just very vulnerable. I was writing very personally. And, you know, Broad City in a way is personal but I get to kind of hide behind this character the whole time. And this just feels very much I’m putting much more of myself out there. I don’t think I regret it. But that’s the feeling I had while writing it, was a little bit like what am I doing.

AMANPOUR: Well, it’s nerve-wracking, isn’t it?

JACOBSON: Yes.

AMANPOUR: I mean vulnerability, intimacy, all of that is just plain nerve- wracking.

JACOBSON: Yes.

AMANPOUR: Why did you go there?

JACOBSON: I think I was feeling — so I went on this road trip. We had wrapped Broad City Season 4. I was feeling so overwhelmed with work and I was also really heartbroken. I had just basically been dumped a couple months so I was very heartbroken and I needed to get away from anything that I knew was like my routine life. And I needed to be in L.A. for work and so I planned this road trip by myself. And I think it’s a mix of me writing in this longer format. I’ve never really written essays or a longer format other than scripts. And it was a mix of being nervous about that and being nervous about just opening up so much.

AMANPOUR: You say about, you know, writing in the book, “I became a writer because being a working actor wasn’t really happening. I had no control of my career being just an actor. And as I’ve said before, I enjoyed being in control. So in a bizarre turn of events, I ended up in the driver’s seat of my acting experience by creating a part for myself.”

JACOBSON: Yes. I entered the world of comedy and was like trying to audition and just could not — I couldn’t get parts on the stage there and I couldn’t even get terrible commercials. Like I wrote about in the book – –

AMANPOUR: Not even terrible commercials? Forget (INAUDIBLE).

JACOBSON: This is so embarrassing. I was like so — I remember being upset that I didn’t get this commercial for foot fungus cream.

AMANPOUR: Foot fungus cream?

JACOBSON: Yes. Because it was so rare for me to even get an audition for a commercial. But I was like I can’t believe I didn’t get this commercial. It just was not working out. And then Ilana and I had been doing improv forever together for like three years and we had such a clear dynamic that felt different than anything else.