LISA GILROY

To hear her tell it, Lisa Gilroy’s rise in the comedy world is the result of a series of happy and often unexpected events. One day, she’s hosting a children’s show where the cast pulls pranks on unsuspecting high school students; the next, she’s appearing in the Netflix series Glamorous alongside Kim Cattrall. 

Now Gilroy is making repeated forays into American TV, including the new Taika Waititi–directed series Interior Chinatown and the comedy series The Studio, created by Seth Rogen. Speaking from a café in the Larchmont neighborhood of Los Angeles, she shares how she made the move from her hometown of Edmonton (“I am legally obligated to tell you the biggest mall in Canada exists there”), why she found success on YouTube, and the first time she got a really big laugh.

ROBERT ITO: You grew up in Edmonton. Is there an Edmontonian sense of humor?

LISA GILROY: I guess, like any Canadian humor, it will be riddled with “sorry’s” and “I love you’s.” It’s just maybe a bit on the nicer side, which is great. That’s totally my flavor. 

RI: Who were your comedy idols? 

LG: I watched a lot of Saturday Night Live. When I was growing up, it was Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig and Amy Poehler and Tina Fey. That was when the girls were really having their time.

RI: Do you remember the first time you got a big laugh?

LG: Yes! It was in seventh grade. I got cast in a play, which was huge because I normally wouldn’t be trusted to learn lines and show up to rehearsals because of my attention problems. But my teacher really believed in me, and so he put me in this play called The Godmother, which was a parody of The Godfather. I played the housekeeper of a motel where all these mafia bosses were hiding out from the cops. The motel was called The Heat is On, and the mob bosses were always asking about turning up the heat—it was too cold in there or something—and my line was “The heat is on. The heat is always on.”

RI: I don’t think I get it. 

LG: Yeah, I don’t really get it either.

RI: But it got a big laugh, and you were hooked?

LG: Yes, definitely. Everybody laughing at the same time? Can you imagine? Especially as I was a child who was universally hated by authority figures. It was the first time I experienced that feeling of power. I kept taking drama as my elective, and then in college I studied to become a teacher so I could teach drama. I figured being a drama teacher was the closest I could get to just goofing around and being playful all day.

RI: And then you got a hosting gig on Undercover High.

LG: That was my first on-camera job and it was a blast. We would have a cosmetologist come in and teach the kids how to do a face mask on someone, and then the actress would break out in this terrible rash. Just silly stuff. One time we brought in a llama to the cooking class and we were basically like: You are going to execute this llama and cook it. The kids were so upset. A lot of them cried. That one didn’t end up airing…. I thought it wouldn’t lead anywhere. I was living in Edmonton at the time, crashing at a family friend’s place. I kept thinking: Once this is done and my free ride is over and people stop handing me these wonderful opportunities, I’ll go back to teaching and then I’ll die. That was my big two-step plan.

RI: Did you ever think about not doing comedy at all?

LG: The pandemic was a really hard time. I keep a little spreadsheet on my computer of all the auditions I’ve done, and there was a stretch of, like, 57 auditions without booking anything. Things were getting pretty dire, and then the pandemic turned everything to self-tape. You would hobble to the kitchen, put your little curtain up, film your thing and then throw it into the ether, which essentially felt like throwing it into a garbage can. But that’s what got me started making videos for the internet, which is part of what led me here today. Because then people started following me out of nowhere; suddenly lots of people were watching my videos and sharing them. 

RI: How important is it to use social media platforms as a comedian? Is it something you just have to do now?

LG: I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been really lucky. I’m still kind of riding that momentum of having made all that when I had nothing else to do during the pandemic, and I was making two or three videos a week. Some of those are still banging around on the TikTok algorithm and I get views all the time. Now I feel like I have some momentum in the TV world,¹ knock on wood, but maybe when that dies down, I’ll start making some weird videos again. That’ll be my first cry for help.

RI: What are you working on now? 

LG: I did Interior Chinatown—I get to play a detective and kick down doors and chase perps and all that stuff. The last thing I played was an influencer on Glamorous, so it couldn’t be more night and day.

RI: Do you have a dream role?

LG: I would like to play something disgusting, something gross, like that guy in The Goonies. The kids go hunting for the lost pirate treasure and they find Sloth deep in the caves. He’s being held there by his mean older brothers and the kids rescue him. He’s a misunderstood monster. 

RI: Do you see comedy as a calling? Do you think you’ve been called to be a funny person?

LG: I’m really lucky to have made a career out of this. But I think in any job I would have found a way to be playful and fun with it. That’s why I was leaning toward being a drama teacher, because there are some jobs that make more sense than others to be playful and fun and goofy. But I’m pretty sure even if I was a brain surgeon, I’d be doing bits (and maybe I’d be fired immediately!). But I just think if that’s who you are, if you want to have fun and be funny, there’s lots of ways to do it.