In Jenny Slate's 'Lifeform,' She Has 'Things to Say,' But 'Little to Prove'

"I feel that I increasingly have things to say, but really little to prove."

Jenny Slate is ready to be herself. "I think what is [evident] in my work is that through my own journey, not just through motherhood, but my own connection with myself as a developing artist, is that I just don't feel myself flailing anymore." She's writing about this confidence in her new book of essays Lifeform (Little, Brown and Company, October 22), which depicts her unique journey into motherhood. She began writing the book out of a fear for losing her old self: "Just wanting to hold on to a life, my professional life and my identity within that, because I was very newly pregnant." She found that it wasn't her old self she was looking for, but this new person. "I feel that I increasingly have things to say, but really little to prove. And that is such a different thing. I don't feel a desperation that I felt in my 20s and 30s." And now, the comedian says, this new self is providing her with strength. "I have noticed whether I'm doing stand-up or I'm writing a book, I just have this sense, for the first time in my life, that there's a super nice, stable mommy in the room, and the mom is me."

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARTING SHOT WITH H. ALAN SCOTT
ON APPLE PODCASTS OR SPOTIFY

Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.

How proud are you of this second book?

I am very proud. I think many people would agree that when you return to try to do something again, and you want to do it better, and you're also saying something that's really important to you, you're trying to show how you've been living, how you've changed. A lot of my work, I'm often talking to myself, first and foremost. So it's such a relief and I feel so much gratitude just to be able to do it. You do something twice, and it does become doubly meaningful, because it's not just one thing that I did. It's not all just a series of weird, random one-offs. In fact, the book is called Lifeform not just because I was growing a life form in my body for part of it, but because it's this really nice acceptance of the fact that this weird shape that has no name, this is the form of my life, and I'm the life form in the form.

What really was the impetus to start collecting these stories?

I think part of it is the mystery of why do artists...why are they inclined to do art? Why say something about it? Why don't you just live it? Part of that is a lifelong inclination to catalog and to call out into the greater world what you see. For some reason, that is part of what I need in order to feel at ease in my own life. I really do think of it as a natural inclination, the way that birds know to migrate. It's something in me. But at first I got in touch with my publisher to just say, "I think that I should write a second book." And when I look back on it now, I think a lot of that was out of fear, just wanting to hold onto a life, my professional life and my identity within that, because I was very newly pregnant and it was the very start of COVID. And I think in general, it's something that people would understand this story, or recognize a story of an actor who is 40 and the age-old discussion of roles for women, and there's already so much fright and very real threat of there might not be more for you. You might be dwindling. Things might be getting narrower. You're gonna get stuck at the point that's not gonna feel good. There's all that threatening stuff. And even if I didn't really believe it, I didn't see otherwise, I didn't really know. And then I was looking at what we were all looking at, which was like, what the hell is the world during pandemic? What is this? What happens to all of us? How is it going to change for better, for worse? How will it be changed in a way that can't be unchanged? So anyway, I was like, I should write a book, but I actually didn't really have anything except for my own empty fear.

Which is a pretty normal sensation for most people.

I'm very privileged that they were like, "Sure." I was like, "I think it'll be about this." And it actually did end up being exactly what I told them it would be, essays on pregnancy and motherhood and creative life. But then I started to notice little snippets of my own personal mysticism that I seem to create in order to make sense of or cope or just get close to the unknown and uncontrollable within me. Religion's a great way to do that, too, I just don't happen to have a religion at this point in my life. But those little strips of mysticism started to be things that I wanted to expand on more. And a lot of that was wanting to ask questions and wanting to be really inappropriate, like wanting to be full-fledged.

A lot of times you can tell the second book is meant to match the success of the first book [Little Weirds], but Lifeform doesn't feel that way. It feels evolved in a way that makes it seem different. Like we're getting to know you in a different way.

I'm glad, yeah. And it is different than the other book. Like the way that I speak, I think that will, of course, always be in my in my voice, if I'm writing about myself, but I think that this book represents my own steps into my own self-defined legitimacy. And I think you can see that. Part of it is that while it is not traditional in form, it unfolds chronologically, and I've taken special care to label the different phases in my life, rather clinically, as a sort of way to contain the silliness or mysticism, or just [the] highly emotional nature of the pieces inside. I just think there's more focus in this book, not because my last book was unfocused, but because I, myself as a person, have become more focused. My process in all areas that I am creative in has become more defined. As an actor, my process is way more defined now. As a stand-up and as a writer, everything is defined. It's just in my own way.

Do you find it difficult to take that voice that so many people know from your stand-up and put it on the written page?

I don't really think about it honestly, not that I'm not considering it, it's more that it's gone beyond trusting myself. I just feel very tuned into what I'm doing. Sometimes I'm writing and I'm like, "I don't like this. This doesn't work." And it's not really about my voice, but more about I don't really have anything to say. But I think the best way to be is to to just divest oneself of desperation and contortion, and I just try to keep my eye on that. Like, does this feel free? Is there wind in my sails? A breeze blowing through this? If there is, if I feel that feeling, I just keep going. I will say, I tend to hyphenate a lot, make hybrid words that don't exist. And that is because that's what I think it is. And I'm not trying to do anything, but I've noticed that it's really annoying. So I don't think it's good to cling to anything, and I really don't. I'm not trying to do anything one way or another, but I don't want to hold myself back. If there's something that I really like how it sounds, and I want it to be that way, just put it on it that way.

How do you think motherhood in general changed you as an artist?

I think that one of the things that I'm concerned with the most in parenthood is to not be manipulative. I don't think of myself as a very manipulative person, but I think of myself as sometimes someone who's telling myself that's too much of a need, that if you express that need, you're gonna get slapped down for it. And so sometimes that means that, in the past—I wouldn't call it passive aggression—but I've been indirect about what I really need. Afraid to make a direct request. And I think that parenthood has afforded me a lot and a lot of growth. But one of the main things is that there is no use for manipulation.

I find it to be really refreshing to be in direct discussion with the little person in my life. And by manipulation, I mean saying things like, "It's gonna make me really sad if you don't put on your shoes. It's gonna make me really sad if we're late." Like making a child responsible for emotions that are too big for them, and also you're an adult, what are you gonna be sad [about]? Because I just remember people saying that to me, and really feeling endowed with something that was too large for me to handle, and making me feel at once powerful and powerless. I talk about this in my book, because I think it still remains, I have this sense of myself as powerful enough to do massive destruction, but somehow not powerful enough to be helpful, and that's a really bad setup.

I think that it's also made me more direct as an artist, and it's made me more comfortable with direct requests, whether that's on set being like, "I don't think I understand what you're saying, but I really want to give you the performance that you're looking for. So are you talking about this, or am I just off?" And not taking it personally. Because taking a toddler personally is definitely something that I do sometimes, but I try not to express that. Like, if my daughter is just like, "No, I'm not wearing pants," or whatever, that is not because she thinks I'm a loser. You know? It's not because she wants to fire me as her mom. It's because, in her toddler brain, she is working out defiance. She's working out empowerment. She's also developing her own sense of what feels good for her, and she has no sense of how time really passes, or consequences in the way that I might, and she's just doing her best, she's doing her thing. And I think reacting to that directly and understanding her makeup and my makeup has allowed me to refocus that when I'm in my work and being like, "Oh, right, I'm not a toddler," but I am someone with a pretty distinct makeup. It doesn't mean I'm better or worse than anyone else or very special. It just means I have my own thing, and in order to preserve that and not denigrate that, I need to learn how to be direct. And that has just really helped me. And I do feel that it shows up in this book, and I feel like it showed up a lot in my special, just me screaming at myself on stage. Do something else. Try another thing. And it feels good. And it shows.

I've always thought, just talk to a kid directly. Don't baby them, don't underestimate them. You know what I mean?

I do. I mean, there's some stuff that you're like, "Oh, right. This is weird." We're not gonna scare a child for no reason or something. Like, you don't need to go to my daughter asking about earthquakes. I'm not going to be like, "Hey, when we go back to L.A., the earth might split apart." I'm not gonna say that to her, but I do feel it's one of the things I've learned in parenthood that I have also taken into my work is, did you think you were going to be someone else when you did this? I think you did. I think you thought maybe that for some reason, I think you both thought it would happen and feared it wouldn't. That motherhood Jenny. Like mama Jenny. Sh**** Instagram Mama Jenny. The person that just knows how to do everything would just show up and that's never happened before. Never happened. Didn't happen the first time I became someone's girlfriend, that I was really confident and I wasn't that either. Like you're only ever you in your experiences, but you have the opportunity to grow within them and make decisions and be thoughtful and be empowered in that space. It's a relief and a wonderment that I, as Jenny, am the mom. It's allowed me to lean into all of these things about myself. This is just me.

That's the hidden power you've been looking for all along. It's just being you.

Oh my God, and it's so cliche, and it's sort of silly, but there can be a confusion, and one that I certainly deal with, like you're not supposed to change yourself in order to do something, you're supposed to be yourself and find out what are the strengths that you have that can support you while you do the thing? That's it. How do you grow within the thing? And just having to allow myself to give up on waiting for a easier to understand, normal, whatever version of myself to arrive so that I can do the thing that I want to do is something that I'm really over. And in fact, in the first piece of Lifeform, which is a letter to the doctor being like, "I think I might be this thing that I've always thought that I might be, and I'm now gonna just start to be it."

And that's big. Simple, but huge. And you see it in everything you've done lately. From the book to the special to the way you navigated the press tour for It Ends With Us. Are you surprised at how well you've been able to navigate all these things?

I've noticed over the last year, and I really noticed this filming a limited series in the spring called Dying for Sex, and one thing I've noticed is that, I don't doubt my own sense of flexibility and stillness at once anymore. I think what is in evidence in any interviews and in my work is that through my own journey, not just through motherhood, but my own connection with myself as a developing artist is that I just don't feel myself flailing anymore.

I feel that I increasingly have things to say, but really little to prove. And that is such a different thing. I don't feel a desperation that I felt in my 20s and 30s. And I've said this before, but part of that is finally just sailing away from the pressure of becoming an ingenue and realizing that now I can just play a beautiful person. A lot of that is just misogyny. Anyway, I'm just here to do that now. And it's such a lovely distinction to be like, "I'm really here to express myself." I used to have a joke about how I jump up everybody's butts all the time. Even in my first special, I did an impression of myself walking into a room, and it's just so fraught. It's so fraught. If I ever do another comedy special, it'll totally be about attachment theory and attachment issues. I think what you're seeing is that my becoming a parent, I got really into what is attachment theory? What's my issue? Oh, my God, that's my issue. That's why a lot of my relationships have gone a certain way. Now I can see myself. I have noticed whether I'm doing stand-up, or I'm writing a book, I just have this sense, for the first time in my life that there's a super nice, stable mommy in the room, and the mom is me.