Hannah Gadsby: The Obamas watched Nanette as a family. I apologize for spoiling their evening’ | Hannah Gadsby

She recently released a free special called Woof!, in which she plays a sock puppet. I think the question would be – why?

I’m just tired of seeing you. Well, well, there are a lot of different reasons. I’m a little tired of seeing myself reflected. Also, there are a lot of situations now and everything seems the same. People don’t watch stand-up comedy anymore, it’s usually second or third screen. It’s happening in the background. That’s why I wrote an album – if you’re not going to watch it, why bother filming the whole thing?

And the sock puppet… I wanted something homemade, because we’re entering the age of artificial intelligence and I cringe when I see that. What the internet has taught me is that we will watch anything and it doesn’t have to be high quality. So I thought, what if I made something that anyone could make – like Play School, I got into the useful box, so to speak – and put together a fairly average sock puppet. This is my hand. This is my sock.

i mean it He is strange.

It was a vague nightmare.

Yes thank you! Its theme is anxiety and I thought we could reflect that aesthetically. I think we nailed it.

I understand that you’re looking for spoilers when you watch a movie or TV show because you find the plot twists terrifying. Was there any plot twist where you thought, “I’m sorry I didn’t get to experience the surprise of that”?

No, no, no! When people get angry about spoiler alerts, I don’t understand them. I think I’ll get more out of the story the second time around anyway. The first time I was just nervous. When everything is going well, you know there’s a group of writers wondering, “How do we ruin this?” Because we have to watch people’s worlds collapse all the time.

I get really sad when people’s worlds fall apart, so I stay away from that. I know how it’s going to happen and I’m less nervous. One of my favorite movies is Get Out. Have you watched Exodus? I didn’t, but I think it’s a great movie. I’ve read all about it. I read other people’s thoughts on this topic and watched some clips and said, this is a great movie. I have no desire to watch it. I can’t do that.

What are you secretly good at?

Sex. No, I mean interior design. Interior design. Very good at placing jewelry.

Does good interior design sometimes lead to sex?

This is my experience.

What do you think is the most controversial thing in popular culture? She says in love! You don’t get Taylor Swift…

Yes, I can’t get carried away. I look at the fandom in general and I don’t seem able to really participate in it. I don’t think I’m capable of having semi-social relationships. If I don’t meet someone, I fail to form an attachment. Although, sometimes I look at a rock and feel sad. But sometimes they look sad. Have you seen a rock that’s just…?

However, I have a lot of controversial opinions about popular culture. I can’t watch reality TV. This went on for a while. It feels like it’s here to stay. And I can’t.

Your next show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is The Evening Muse, where you will be working as a late night host. I’ve been to all the late night shows in America. Who was the best?

Stephen Colbert. Although I did a Conan podcast which is also phenomenal. The premise of my show tonight is that I’m completely unqualified to host the tonight show. I have a suit and an ego, but I can’t speak and listen well at the same time, which is an essential skill set for interviews. It’s basically like one of my stand-up shows, but I’ll have guests from the festival and ask them questions from the 1981 edition of Trivial Pursuit.

I understand that you have a special connection to Trivial Pursuit.

I do. Old trivia really calms me down. Now that we have access to the Internet, we feel like we have all the information in the world, and I grew up at a time when we didn’t have any. My brain has been trained for scarcity of information. You could have chosen any country to write a project about in high school, and I chose East and West Germany in 1994. That’s how modern our library is. When the Internet first came out, I loved it. I’m very curious. But now I feel like I’m being waterboarded with information, so I’ve backed off.

Who was Nanette’s most surprising admirer?

There were a lot of surprised fans. The Obamas come to mind. I never met them but I found out that they sat down as a family and watched the movie. If I meet them, I will apologize for ruining their evening. But they enjoyed it. Well, I don’t think so Enjoy It’s the word, but they saw it. What a family movie night.

What’s the messiest thing that’s ever happened to you while on stage?

One time, someone threw a potato on stage. I ignored that – I’m very professional. But at the end of the show, we picked it up and it was hollow. In the potato hole was a piece of paper rolled up into a small roll. It was a vessel for a message, and the message was pretty much asking me to participate in a threesome.

But the person had an accomplice and admitted it in the note [Gadsby’s wife Jenny] Gino’s presence – and he asked for a threesome. I don’t know who is missing. We never called. I don’t know if they can’t count or if they don’t know if there is a word for four. Or they just thought about leaving Jeno! Maybe I was the one who wasn’t supposed to participate. We will never know.

She appeared on the show Sex Education. What remains with you from your sex education?

Not much. Maybe that’s why I’m a lesbian. Stick to what you know. It was the Dark Ages when I went to school. It was the 1980s in Tasmania, and the population was small. But a lot of Tasmanians are leaving, so we’re doing more than we can when it comes to having kids. So there it was some Sex education was constant when I was growing up. Someone was doing it right – or a lot of good guesses.

The thing that stuck with me was that we broke up – the girls didn’t have to know about the boys and the boys didn’t have to know about the girls. In my mind, that seemed counterintuitive.

What is your least favorite bird and why?

It’s a really great question. I don’t trust birds in general. Little freaks are hollow-boned. But I never thought to classify them.

I’m afraid of cassowaries. When I was a child, I was afraid of crows because they sounded like my mother’s voice. Crows are cool, just so you know.

What is your most embarrassing situation with a famous person?

I was at the US Open with my publicist, who was an incredible force for women. I was new to this world – we were watching tennis matches on the Billie Jean King box, which is a cool thing to say, and we were watching Serena Williams. And they do this thing at the Open where they put celebrities in the audience on screen and everyone says, “Oh, there’s a famous person.” So there’s Anna Wintour and I think Neil Sedaka was there. Then they put Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow, and I don’t know who they are. I missed the Pitch Perfect movies. Sorry Rebel – I’ve since caught up. But I wasn’t sure who Anna Kendrick was.

So I Googled a little bit and said, “Oh, okay, I get it, they’re in these movies.” And it was the trolls that stuck with me – that’s not what she put at the top of her list, but it’s what jumped out at me when I was doing a quick search.

When we came out, we saw her leaving at the same time. And I said to Jenny, “Oh, there’s Anna Kendrick.” Because now I know who he is. But my publicist heard it and thought I’d always loved Anna Kendrick and wanted to meet her. She said would you like to meet her? I said: No, by God. But she works in advertising, so of course she does!

And she went and said, “Anna Kendrick, Hannah Gadsby wants to meet you.” Anna Kendrick turned around and said, “Close the front door! I really want to meet Hannah Gadsby.” And I don’t know how to process that because you shouldn’t know who I am and I should know who you are. My mistake.

I don’t remember my wording exactly, but when you meet someone, you’re supposed to compliment them on a job you enjoyed. And I just looked it up. “You were great at ogre,” I said.

Just imagine that. It’s trolls, for starters. She’s so good in Pitch Perfect. And she was also great at that moment. There’s a great photo of me with these two very talented, but young, women. I felt like an ogre in that.