THE QUEEN OF ALL MEDIA
With Her New NBC Sitcom, Are You There, Chelsea?, Chelsea Handler Proves Herself One of Hollywood’s Hottest Properties 
by Alex S. Morrison
She’s never starred in a hit movie or on a network TV show. Yet somehow, slowly but surely over the past 15 years, Chelsea Handler has established herself as one of the hottest comedians in show business.
Like many of the greatest comedians, Handler’s past was shadowed in darkness. Raised in the suburbs of New Jersey by a Mormon mother and a Jewish father, she lost her brother at the age of 9, had an abortion at age 16, and decided to become a standup comic after cracking up her fellow students in a DUI class at the age of 21.
Her rise to fame was hardly what you’d call meteoric. She schlepped around the country on the standup comedy circuit for years, ultimately getting small roles on forgettable shows such as Girls Behaving Badly, Weekends at the D.L. and My Wife & Kids. She hosted the reality TV show On The Lot, but quit during the first season when she saw that ship was sinking.
It was actually her hilariously confessional, self-deprecating debut novel, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, which ultimately earned Handler her first measure of national acclaim in 2005. In the years since, she’s written three more NY Times bestsellers, turned her late-night talk show Chelsea Lately into one of cable’s biggest cult hits and, now, secured a deal to turn her books into an NBC sitcom based on her life.
The twist with Are You There, Chelsea? is that Laura Prepon (of That ‘70s Show fame) plays Chelsea, while Handler surprisingly takes on the role of an uptight, conservative, born-again Christian mother. Borrowing its title from her book Are You There Vodka? It Me, Chelsea, the ensemble show fits well alongside NBC shows such as Whitney, offering Handler her biggest audience platform to date.
The 36-year-old comedian recently spoke with reporters to promote the show, discussing everything from what it was like having another actress play her to why she signed a contract to keep doing Chelsea Lately until the year 2014.
Why did you choose to play Sloane? She’s a conservative, born-again Christian mother, which is a total 180 from who you are.
I wanted to do something that was a little bit more challenging. I’ve been playing myself for 35 years now, so I’m not really getting as much out of it as I would playing something that’s completely against type. It’s been much more fun to put on a wig and play someone who’s very uptight, but still very sarcastic.
How did the show come together? Did NBC just reach out to you, or is there more of a story there?
No, I met with [executive producer] Tom Werner and his business partner, and they actually came to us. We talked about the books and how we would create the characters, and then they brought us some writers that we met with. We hit it off and I thought they would have a really good take on the show, formatting it to a multi-camera comedy. We’re all heavily involved, but we let them come up with the stories for each episode and mine whatever they want to from the books, and then we tweak it however we see fit.
How will this be different from your cable shows?
The process is very different. We tape Chelsea Lately in 22 minutes. After Lately is a different process, but it’s also single camera, so it’s very different than Are You There, Chelsea?, which takes four hours to tape one show. Then you get notes from the network and you get notes from the studio, so it’s much bigger and much more of a collaboration than anything I’m used to doing.
Between this, your cable shows, touring and writing books, you must be busy. When do you find time to sleep?
Well, I’m in bed right now having a cappuccino, if that answers your question. I could’ve done this call from my office, but I opted to do it from my bedroom!
What is it like to have someone else play you, and what was the casting process like?
It’s a dream come true! I’m so sick of playing myself, I can’t even tell you… NBC had narrowed the casting choices down pretty well, and as soon as we saw Laura we thought she was perfect. She’s very salty, very down to earth and very direct, which are three things that I identify with. It’s very nice to have somebody that’s just a normal girl– cool and laid back. There’s not a lot of drama. The thing about my books and my life is that drama’s always around me. So it gives me an excuse to look like the sanest person in the bunch, even though some of my actions are ridiculous. She kind of encapsulated that from the minute we saw her, so there was really no question.
How much of your relationship with your father will be explored on the show?
It’s a pretty sizeable component of the show. We cast Lenny Clarke, who is really hilarious. He doesn’t really look anything like my father, which is probably a favor to America, and it’s not a pure depiction. Every character isn’t a pure depiction of what you read in the book– we couldn’t have somebody actually going to the bathroom in public places without using toilets– but the essence is there.
In one of the interviews I read with you, you talked about being an outsider. Now that you’re a major success in various fields, does the outsider thing still eat away at you?
I’ve accomplished and experienced a lot in this industry. I’ve had amazing highs and I’ve definitely had big lows. I don’t feel like an outsider, but that voice is always there, and there are times where you think, “Do I really belong here?” But they’re very few and far between compared to ten years ago, or my childhood. I’m pretty good about not letting that ever get the best of me, and letting fleeting thoughts fleet.
Is there anything that you would tell your 20-year-old or 25-something self, knowing what you know now?
Yes: Do it all over and do it the same way, because a lot of good things come from it!
You recently signed on to do a couple more seasons of your E! show, which is great. But prior to that, you mentioned in the press that you wanted to do something serious. What made you decide to stay on?
I realized I was in a position at E! to make the show into whatever I wanted to make it into. If I want to get more serious about topics or talk more about politics or sports or whatever it may be, I have the audience already in place. So I figured I would rather just stay here, where I’ve built the loyal fan base, and use that as a jumping off point rather than starting fresh with another network. With this sitcom, I have three shows going on now, and that’s as much as I can do. With all these things happening, I’d like to get them off the ground before I start making different changes in my career. I’m happy at E!, and they’ve been really good to me, so it just made sense to stay.
On Chelsea Lately you bring in comics that normally don’t get a shot on TV. Are we going to have that same kind of awesome casting with this show?
Yes. I think the first thing you’ll notice is that a lot of these actors are unknown, and most of them come from a comedic background. We have a little person on the show; we have a comedian named Ali Wong who’s really funny on the show and plays Chelsea’s best friend; and then we also have Natasha Leggero, who’s been on a bunch of Chelsea Lately episodes, who joins the cast for about seven episodes. They’re all strong actors and strong characters unto themselves, which I think is really reflective of the books. When I watch TV, I like to see real people that all have something unique, and I think we’ve accomplished that.
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