Ilana Glazer was already waiting for me at a restaurant in Brooklyn this spring when I sat down at her corner table. I took off my backpack and my jacket, put down my tote bag and placed my two phones on the table.
“Girl, what’s with the two phones?” Glazer asked without hesitation.
I explained one of the newest additions in my life — a work phone — and she nodded her head in approval. Still, to be “girl’ed” by Glazer before I even asked her any questions about her new standup tour, podcast and political organizing efforts felt like the first step in connecting with the comedian and actress. But I was hoping to connect with her in another way, one that was new to me.
I had watched Glazer navigate the wilds of being a 20-something in New York City as the star and co-creator of “Broad City,” which ran on Comedy Central from 2014 to 2019. Just as her character, Ilana Wexler, was figuring out adulthood, so was I. But in recent months, Glazer kept popping up all over my feeds talking about a very different topic: motherhood. This made sense for my algorithm given that I had just had a baby.
I reached out to Glazer to see if she was interested in talking about this stage in her life and work and how that was intersecting with being a parent. My article was published last month.
It was the first big interview I had done since returning to my reporting role from parental leave. I pored over interviews she had done with other news outlets, listened to her podcast and looked at her social media to try and develop thoughtful questions. I traveled up to Stamford, Conn., on a weekday, skipping bath and bedtime with my 9-month-old so I could see Glazer work out new comedy material.
When we finally sat down for our interview, she almost immediately started asking me about my experience as a new mom.
“OK, so I’m going to be interviewing you as well,” she said, clasping her hands. “I’m trying to feel our human spirits and contextualize in this moment who you and I are.”
I hadn’t planned to tell Ilana Glazer about my breastfeeding journey — about how my baby decided she was done as soon as I returned to work, how my hormones raged and how I cried on my commute every day for two weeks — but here I was, doing just that, because she was kind enough to ask.
As journalists, we strive to remain as impartial as possible in our reporting and writing. But there is also the adage: write what you know. I’m sure we would have had a full, winding conversation had I not revealed anything about my personal life. But by sharing a bit of myself I was able to present a common denominator.
I set up the interview at the top of our conversation with an overarching theme: How do all the different parts of your life — comedy, art, political activism and motherhood — feed off one another, or perhaps there is tension between those different identities?
“I am finding that there is enough room in me for all the parts of me to be me,” Glazer said. “And the wider I can open my arms to myself, the more aligned I realize I already am.”
It was a sentiment I had practiced like a mantra, almost in a fake-it-until-you-make-it mentality. I still do. It was only later I realized that I was asking the question for myself.
Typically, my interviewing process is researched and methodical. I prepare questions in advance and stand ready to pivot when the subject goes in an unexpected direction. Sometimes, I ask them to linger longer over a topic; other times, I can tell my question was a bust. But in my interview with Glazer, even though a part of me still felt like I was sweeping out the cobwebs of my brain coming back from parental leave, I knew I could fall back on the shared experience of motherhood and go deeper in some places. How would she feel, for instance, about raising a daughter in this particular moment in history?
After an hourlong conversation, I left Glazer in Brooklyn with a photographer and checked my personal phone for any messages. There was a text from my partner with my smiley, toothy baby. I smiled, tucked it away, and returned to work.
Remy Tumin is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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