Cat Cohen, photographed by Dev Bowman.
Cat Cohen is holding my hand. She needs you to know that generally it is very important go locations you aren’t invited. Also, you deserve a shower, even in case you don’t clear your tub, and December in New York is for lovers. Cohen—chanteuse, comic, podcaster, poet, and actress—is having a yr for the books, embarking on her first nationwide tour together with her new present “Come For Me.” She additionally co-hosts the podcast Seek Treatment with Pat Regan, through which they focus on boy and physique issues with an addictive mixture of sarcasm, lobotomy comedy, and earnest craving. Cohen’s 2022 Netflix particular, The Twist…? She’s Gorgeous, was a glitter-drenched, postmodern burlesque, a neurotic, navel-gazing thrill trip by her twenties that bravely requested the questions that hang-out many people on darkish nights of the soul: Should I transfer upstate? Why are my mutuals working marathons? What if I used to be thinner??????
With “Come For Me,” Cohen pirouettes into her thirties and stares instantly into the void. Deploying track, dance, digressive asides, and mini-monologue delivered in a horny child voice, she confronts getting older, egg freezing, world-historic ranges of horniness, and physique dysmorphia with manic panache. After a sold-out run at Joe’s Pub this summer season, Cohen is taking the present on the street by May. Last month, we met up for martinis and talked boyfriends, guide offers, true meltdowns, Taylor Swift, Slenderman, and whether or not ladies actually can have all of it.
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EMMELINE CLEIN: Hi, Cat. It’s wonderful to see you.
CAT COHEN: Oh my god, I’m lifeless in a ditch with pleasure to satisfy you as a result of I’m obsessed together with your new guide. It’s going to truly change lives and everybody’s going to be hooked on it.
CLEIN: You’re method too form. So you’ve really left the normal triple menace mannequin lifeless in a ditch by being a podcaster, a poet, comic, and singer. What I actually wish to know is, can ladies have all of it?
COHEN: No.
CLEIN: Okay, cool.
COHEN: Actually, sure, while in ache.
CLEIN: Totally. I really feel like that basically brings us to your new present. How did you give you the musical facet? Have you at all times recognized you wished to be a vaudeville lady?
COHEN: I wished to be what each lady needs to be, which is an actress. I grew up doing musical theater. I cherished to sing. And then once I moved to New York, I began doing comedy however I actually missed singing. So I believed, “What if I could incorporate music into my act?” I began doing that with my first present on the Duplex in 2017. And then, that turned the Netflix particular. And now I’m embarking on my large US tour.
CLEIN: What does it really feel prefer to be kind of a brunette Taylor Swift?
COHEN: Thank you for asking. You know, we have been recognized to put on the identical Capezio Shimmer Tights on stage.
CLEIN: That’s wonderful.
COHEN: I went to Eras in Denver. Did you get to go?
CLEIN: I went in L.A.
COHEN: Oh, wow. Fabulous. She simply regarded so fucking good. I used to be like, “I’ve got to take notes.”
CLEIN: I’m now going to show to my extraordinarily skilled notes app of issues I wished to speak to you about. So you’re famously in love, which we hear about within the present. Does having a boyfriend resolve all of your issues?
COHEN: Not at all. Not even shut. Let me inform you this. I feel getting a boyfriend solves your issues for as much as six months.
CLEIN: That’s not nothing.
COHEN: It’s essentially the most wonderful distraction on the planet as a result of all you possibly can take into consideration is fucking.
CLEIN: What did you want higher, publishing a guide or getting a boyfriend?
COHEN: I’ve to say, the act of publishing my guide was actually anticlimactic as a result of it was the pandemic. It wasn’t like I obtained a guide deal. I had been writing poems for years after which I discovered this wonderful editor, shout-out to Deb Garrison, who helped me flip them right into a guide. And then when it got here out, it was all Zoom occasions. So it didn’t actually really feel significantly thrilling. It felt way more thrilling to be fucking in a closet. I’m going to say that getting a boyfriend was higher than publishing a guide however not as thrilling as having a Netflix particular. No disrespect to my boyfriend.
CLEIN: And that’s what we name a holy trinity.
COHEN: Getting a boyfriend will fuck up your mind for six months to a yr and you then’ll come again right down to earth and all of your unique issues will resurface. But you’ll have the ability to burden another person with these issues.
CLEIN: Totally. Speaking of males, and truly talking much less of them for as soon as––
COHEN: This is about to be a Bechdel second.
CLEIN: When I went to your present again in June with my sister and certainly one of my finest pals from school, I began to surprise, “Is my historically straight sister aggressively hitting on my best friend who she’s known for years in a way that is ultimately almost disruptive to the theatrical experience?” And the reply was sure. So my query is, are individuals continuously having sexual awakenings, particularly bisexual, at your present?
COHEN: I’d hope so. I’m at all times attempting to gauge if audiences are fucking or not, as a result of I really feel like, post-pandemic, persons are simply so frightened of the whole lot and nobody’s getting out and being messy and wild. Are you relationship somebody proper now?
CLEIN: I’m not.
COHEN: Okay. Well, December in New York is an incredible time to fall in love.
CLEIN: Okay, I’ll attempt. Anyway, there’s a bit of my notes app that I actually wish to get again to. I’m getting enormous camp vibes from you each on the extent of camp, as in The Met Gala, and likewise summer season camp. So, what would you put on to the Met? And did you go to summer season camp? I really feel such as you did.
COHEN: What an incredible query. First of all, they stole the theme from me as a result of I went to StraightioLab’s Halloween Spectacular dressed as a sleepy lady, and now the theme is actually “Sleeping Beauty,” so put that in writing. And I did go to Christian summer season camp.
CLEIN: Wow. What was occurring over there?
COHEN: They all informed me that if I had intercourse, it might be the worst factor I might ever do, after which I’d go straight to hell. And that they informed me that every one my Jewish members of the family had been additionally going straight to hell. It was actually tragic and it made me actually scared to ever interact with my physique for therefore lengthy. But then, I principally obtained so sexy that I didn’t care anymore and I went to varsity, the place I met different individuals and thought, “Let’s do the damn thing.”
CLEIN: Meeting different individuals is big.
COHEN: But it nonetheless took my first yr in school, I used to be like, “I’m not having sex, I’m going to be a virgin until marriage.” Then I used to be simply blowing everybody in sight. I used to be like, “This doesn’t count.”
CLEIN: So I additionally want your opinion on sure cultural would-you-rathers…
COHEN: Amazing.
CLEIN: Gossip Girl or The O.C.?
COHEN: The O.C. First of all, I like that your complete guide is about The O.C.
CLEIN: Yeah, it’s actually all about Mischa herself. With a contact of Adam Brody, as a result of that was vital to me.
COHEN: Of course. I’ll always remember that I watched The O.C. on my flooring on a 12-inch TV that I’d plug in whereas I labored on my seventh grade science mission. Which was, prepare for this, “Which Eye Makeup Remover Works the Best?”
CLEIN: Wait, so which one?
COHEN: I nonetheless don’t know.
CLEIN: Did you win an award?
COHEN: I didn’t win something, however I made a trifold whereas watching Adam Brody do the Jeff Buckley model of “Hallelujah.”
CLEIN: That’s stunning. The subsequent one is, true meltdown or existential disaster?
COHEN: True meltdown.
CLEIN: Like, in public?
COHEN: Yeah. When issues go fallacious for me, I don’t maintain something inward.
CLEIN: Same. I wish to be somebody that’s mysterious however I’m writing a 5,000-word textual content to 6 individuals.
COHEN: Same.
CLEIN: In phrases of teenage romance, do you favor a plot the place a nasty boy offers up womanizing with blondes for a extremely fucked-up brunette, like Blair and Chuck? Or do you favor one the place the moody poet falls for the basic standard lady?
COHEN: I identical to each. I actually preferred that one week when Jenny Slate dated Chris Evans. That week was so vital for us.
CLEIN: That was the perfect. Okay, Lena Dunham or Greta Gerwig?
COHEN: It’s unattainable to decide on between my two kids. But on the finish of the day, Lena, Lena, Lena. But each Girls and Frances Ha modified my life. And you understand what? Maybe that’s sufficient.
CLEIN: That is sufficient. Ok, this one isn’t which you want higher however which one is extra culturally influential: “Slenderman” or “2 Girls 1 Cup”?
COHEN: That’s such a superb query. What’s extra culturally influential? “2 Girls 1 Cup.” Although I obtained so frightened of “Slenderman.”
CLEIN: It’s scary stuff. So, on the subject of scary stuff I do know out of your poetry guide that you’ve PCOS. I even have it.
COHEN: Do you actually?
CLEIN: Yeah, as a result of we hate ladies in our society, they kind of simply give something that’s bizarre about your ovaries the title of “PCOS.” I don’t have conventional PCOS, however they couldn’t determine what was occurring as a result of I’d have all these—
COHEN: Cysts in your ovaries?
CLEIN: I get them tremendous hardly ever however I’d have these horrible horrific painful intervals and the medical doctors did the factor the place they do the amazingly enormous ultrasound with the large dildo. And they had been like, “Your follicles on your ovaries are the weirdest size ever and we don’t actually have a diagnosis for that.” So they had been like, “If you want to fix it, you can go on a diet maybe?” And I used to be like, “Awesome.”
COHEN: I’ve at all times been informed what I ought to do is simply not eat white bread or any carbs.
CLEIN: It’s so fucked up. Have you ever had a extremely scary hypochondria expertise? One time, I went to my physician and was like, “My left arm has felt heavier than my right arm for like four days. I have early onset MS.” And he prescribed me a lavender tub.
COHEN: Are you a shower lady?
CLEIN: Yeah. But I don’t maintain my tub clear sufficient.
COHEN: My tub’s disgusting however I exploit it seven instances a day.
CLEIN: That sounds wonderful.
COHEN: In my new present, I discuss going to the emergency room in school to be recognized solely with acid reflux disease. And whereas I used to be mendacity on the hospital mattress, the film Crazy, Stupid, Love was taking part in. And I used to be like, “This is such a good movie.”
CLEIN: That film is wonderful.
COHEN: And nobody talks about it.
CLEIN: No one talks about it.
COHEN: I’m now feeling actually what they’d name “tipsy” within the medical group..
CLEIN: So possibly we should always finish right here. Unless you will have any remaining ideas.
COHEN: If I had been a health care provider, this might be my prescription for the ladies on the planet. Come to my present, have a martini and a burger and fries. Go to mattress, get up, be cozy on the sofa and learn Emmeline’s guide with a sizzling tea or a lavender latte. That’s medication.
