The fabulous funny lady Julie Goldman gets serious about her new projects, The Real L Word and taking on mainstream Hollywood.
Sexy butch comic Julie Goldman of Big Gay Sketch Show fame may be single, but hold your hormones: she isn’t looking. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy her in her many hilarious (and subversive) incarnations.
The Boston-born performer has relocated to Hollywood where she is making inroads into the straight, sexist movie industry and trying to put lesbians on the non-Real L Word chart. Catch her live in your neck of the woods, on an Olivia cruise, in her own web series or look out for her at your local multiplex (fingers crossed).
On a lesbian cruise do you go single, solo or slutty?
I don’t have a partner so I’ll be going single. I don’t go anywhere slutty. I’m weird. I’m like Fort Knox.
So what do we have to do to break in?
You have to not talk to me and then maybe I’ll come around.
So we won’t see you at a speed dating night?
No, I don’t do that but I love watching it. I like to be on the sidelines and then, you know, put my toe in the water, see what’s going on, slowly, like a…what kind of animal?
A sloth?
Yeah. I’m like a sloth. A real handsome sloth. Just waiting. Especially on those trips I don’t like to mix. The truth is I like to keep a little professional boundary.
So you have a captive audience of 1,300 seasick—or lovesick—lesbians. What are you going to do for them?
I’m going to put on a great show and hopefully just get those lesbians into a frenzy. I like to get people worked up in any direction.
How do you plan on working them up?
I don’t believe in political correctness. When lesbians are all together we can be very serious and righteous and we kind of want to strip that away a little bit. We’re on a cruise, let’s have some fun, we’re drinking, just let loose.
But I read your Wikipedia entry and it’s pretty serious. It says: Julie Goldman is Jewish and an open lesbian.
That is true.
How is being a lesbian and Jewish funny?
The best comedians come from a place of oppression. So being a woman, Jewish, lesbian, of course I’m going to be hilarious. Jews have a great sense of humor.
I got a lot of my humor from my Jewish mother who’s loud and annoying and irritated. Jews in general are irritated, everything’s questioned. That’s the foundation of Jewish religion, and that’s the foundation of comedy.
You have a few new projects. What are they?
I have this web series called In Your Box Office. It’s a movie review show and then we re-enact the movie ourselves. We’re hoping to bring attention to ourselves and the whole idea that there needs to be more cinema and gay storylines.
There are no really good lesbian comedies, where it’s just a sweet romantic, funny, mainstream lesbian storyline I’m working on a project and there’s no sex in it, and with things like The Real L Word, producers feel like the reason people go see lesbian-oriented stuff is for the sex. What we’re trying to do is encourage the community to say, Sex is great, obviously, but we’re more than that.
No we’re not!
[Laughs] No we’re not.
Kidding! Do we need a lesbian Judd Apatow?
That’s what this is.
It has drinking, if not sex?
We have the movie. But I can’t tell you how many times people have said, “Where’s the sex?” So now we’ve written a gay zombie movie with full frontal nudity. The fact of the matter is, we’re still under-represented in the media. My next year is shaping up to be this idea that with our movies and with my standup and my whole being in Hollywood and auditioning and trying to get into things, that I want more and different and varied stories for us. I’m tired of the same old thing all the time.
The Real L Word: Love it or hate it?
I hate it. I don’t begrudge anyone for trying to make a living and I hope all those girls parlay that show into making money and careers and do something.
I’ve never seen so much primetime scissoring.
[Laughs] That show to me is a slap in the face. But for whatever reason, the power brokers can only see us in that light. And I’m disappointed. Thanks Ilene. Thanks for that.
So if you are blacklisted by the Hollywood power brokers, what will you do?
I will continue doing standup, doing my movies, trying to change the landscape. That’s my goal. I don’t want to kick anyone out from the dinner table. I just want to add more seats.