When Nikki Glaser did her stand-up special One day you will dieshe foresaw critical acclaim in the future. “I just knew it would be nominated for an Emmy – I don’t want to sound crazy,” she says THR just hours after receiving her first Emmy nomination.
The 40-year-old comedian has had a big year. Her second HBO special has garnered over 3 million viewers since its May 11 release and was nominated for an Emmy in the taped variety special category.
But even before it was published, The Roast of Tom Brady changed everything for Glaser and her career. The live-streamed Netflix special, which received its own Emmy nomination in the Live Variety Show category, premiered just six days before Glaser’s special. The live comedy show at the Kia Forum in LA as part of the platform’s comedy festival “Netflix Is a Joke” was a hit and Glaser emerged as the evening’s MVP.
“The roast was such a big moment for me and my life changed overnight in terms of being recognizable and people knowing who I am,” she says.
Glaziers at roasting.
Adam Rose/Netflix
Glaser, a roast veteran long before the Brady special, brought her no-holds-barred jokes, starting with a jab at the movies and the greatness of host Kevin Hart (“Did you know that Kevin gets up at 4 a.m. every morning to make a crappy movie? No, I love your movies, or as I call them, ‘short films.'”) She also took aim at Brady’s former teammate Rob Gronkowski (“Is it true that you’re the first person born with CTE? Is that true?”).
“It was not intended that the roast would boost this special – that was never the plan,” Glaser says of the seemingly fateful timing that likely helped make her special the best opening night of an HBO comedy special in the last two years.
According to Glaser, she had been planning it for months. “I was really fixated on the manifestation in the fall when I was putting this all together,” she explains. “I just kept saying, ‘My special that’s going to get nominated… my special that’s going to win an Emmy.’ I guess I have to win for this manifestation to really happen.”
Glaser credits her collaborators on the special as a major factor in its success. Her boyfriend Chris Convy served as executive producer on the project. Longtime Super Bowl halftime show director Hamish Hamilton directed the special. And Guy Harding served as editor—for which he also received an Emmy nomination.
Apart from the manifestations, the success of One day you will die was arguably driven by the transparency of her humor. The hour-long stand-up performance covers Glaser’s decision not to have children, as well as her friends’ fertility issues and the bittersweet relationship between the two. “It took me a while to shape the material to work the way I wanted it to, because of the nature of the things I was talking about,” she admits. “It’s not like I’m constructing a special to fit what I think people need to hear, or where there’s a gap in cultural awareness,” Glaser explains. (Note: This interview took place before Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s comment about “childless cat ladies” blew up the internet.)
Although Glaser had joked “here and there” in previous specials about not wanting children, reactions to her material like “You’ll change your mind” or “It’s too early for you to be saying that” resonated with her as a woman in her 20s. “I couldn’t take myself seriously because I thought, ‘You know, maybe I’ll do it after all,'” she says.
Now that the comedian, who is currently on a new stand-up tour, has lived more of the life, she is more confident in her personal and comedic choices. “I’m kind of doing it like Malcolm Gladwell, I’m getting close to 10,000 hours,” she jokes of her kid-free material, adding that she’s now moved to asking herself, “What do I really want to say?”
The topic of fertility found its way into her stand-up routine because it became a hot topic in a group chat with nine of her best friends, from fellow comedians to childhood friends.
“Literally 24 hours a day, there is someone there to help you with your problems,” says Glaser about the women, who vacation together three times a year.
The most discussed topic in the group chat – her friends’ desire to have children – was one she couldn’t relate to. “I usually have the wishes and desires of my friends that I’ve had my whole life, but not here. I couldn’t understand why someone would want to have children,” she admits. “And I just felt left out. This is the first time I’ve felt the way someone who isn’t a Taylor Swift fan must feel towards Taylor Swift fans,” she jokes, pointing out that she is a hardcore fan. “When people say to me, ‘I just don’t get it, can you explain it to me?’ I don’t know how to explain it to those people, because the feelings I have for Taylor Swift are indescribable.”
Still, Glaser says she “dug deep” and asked her friends to help her better understand what they were going through, something she says she would have done regardless of her particular situation. “It was really hard because I joke about the feelings I have when I wish my friend would have a miscarriage, but that’s the joke, right? Because I’m happy she’s not having a baby because it means I get to spend more time with my friends,” she says, explaining a part that comes up early in her routine.
“It was the touch of a real feeling,” she says. “Just like I’ve lost friends to drugs or toxic men, I felt like the fertility process was stealing my friends’ souls, and I was really angry about it.”
Although Glaser’s jokes inevitably hit emotionally, she stresses that she never meant to put her friends – or other women who are making their own decisions on the matter – under the bus. “It was hard to hear those jokes about not wanting my friends to have kids and to have my friends see those jokes,” she admits. “I wrote those jokes before I told my friends that those jokes were going to be on the special, but they understand,” she says, stressing that her jokes had “no impact” on her friends’ pregnancies.
“I just thought, ‘I need to get this out there,’ not just to make other women who don’t want children feel seen, but also to show empathy, to understand the women who do want children, and not just criticize them, but to really understand where the root of the problem lies,” says Glaser. The experience even led to something new.
“I joke on stage now that the difference between me and women who want children is sense. My joke is that you have better sense than I will ever have,” she explains. “My sense now is talking to Conan O’Brien about my labia.”
This story first appeared in the August 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
