What's Up, Samantha Bee? The Daily Show Correspondent Finds Love Off-B'way

Samantha Bee is leading a double life. By day, the Canadian-born funny lady is hard at work as a faux news correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but by night, the mom of two is part of a quintet of actresses in Nora and Delia Ephron’s delightful comedy Love, Loss and What I Wore. Despite her insane schedule, (“I stink at balance. I am totally overwhelmed,” she says cheerily), Bee made time to chat with Broadway.com about the show in which clothing triggers memories—and a childhood outfit that still haunts her.

What do you love about doing this show?
The whole thing is like a big pinch-me moment. The rest of my life is moving quickly, but I find it very relaxing when I get to the theater. It’s like a little vacation. It’s weird to think of time in front of audience as time to myself, but it is in a strange way. It’s kind of meditative.

You are a famous fake newscaster…
Thank you for saying so.

What do you think of female newscasters and their outfits?
I don’t look at their outfits—I’m too distracted by their makeup and hair. They’re so primped.

As you know, Diane Sawyer is becoming an anchor. Will you follow the trend and push Jon Stewart aside to take over as The Daily Show anchor?
Oh, I think I’ll take it all the way. Why not go big? Why not take over at NBC or something?

Are you enjoying the girly atmosphere of Love, Loss and What I Wore?
It’s totally a girls’ club, but there are men, too. There is nothing more fun than looking at the audience. I hope I’m not making people uncomfortable, but I do like to look at them. I love when the men are clapping. It’s not like men don’t wear clothes. We’re all clothed. Nobody is immune to these kinds of stories.

Let’s talk about clothes. As a transplanted New Yorker, have you accepted black as the uniform?
Absolutely. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I completely identify with that line from the play: “I feel sorry for people in places like Phoenix and Dallas, where people wear pink and blue.”

Do you dress your kids in black?
My daughter looks like Pippi Longstocking vomited rainbow tights on her. She’s just covered in stripes and prints and crazy things. But for her class picture last year, I put her in a black turtleneck. She looked fabulous! Very chic.

Speaking of chic, I recently watched The Daily Show and you were rocking a green cow costume.
Not one of my favorite outfits. I got into that thing so many times, the first thing I wanted to do when it came off was torch it. I will never set foot in it again unless my work requires me to do so.

Not even for Halloween?
No! I’m not going to outshine my kid like that. She wants to be a nice witch and wear a frilly pink dress. I’m not going to dress as a giant green spotted cow with huge pink vinyl udders. Talk about stealing someone’s thunder! I’m going to wear sweatpants so she feels special.

I love the part in the play where the performers discuss how their mothers dressed them. Did your mother dress you funny?
Everybody’s mother dressed them funny. I wonder if my daughter is going to think I dressed her funny. Because I think I dress her great. I mean, I’m very proud of myself. I dress her like a child who looks happy. I just don’t see what possible objection she could have to the way I dress her, yet I know that she will have one. She’ll be like, “What’s with all the stripes? Holy shit, couldn’t I have just worn solid colors?” She really has nothing to bellyache about. I, on the other hand, have a lot to be sorry for.

What was your worst childhood outfit?
Well, actually, my grandmother dressed me, and she dressed me in her own image. She dressed me as grandmother, and I was just a little girl! I basically wore cowl neck sweaters and slacks. I wore walking shoes—like nurse shoes. Really terrible old lady clothes. One outfit my grandmother put me in was a cashmere sweatertard.

A sweatertard? What’s that?
It was a full-body sweater that I wore to gym class while all the other kids ran around in shorts. From a distance maybe it could pass as sweatsuit material, but it wasn’t. It was a sweater. She made me go to gym class in a one-piece puffy-sleeved cashmere unitard with a belt. With a BELT.

Oh my God.
Yeah. Well, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t going to break a sweat. It’s not like I was actually going to run.