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The new Showtime series, Ziwe, is an adaptation of the comedienne's Instagram show. Her interviews are about putting her guests at unease with unexpected questions. Ziwe called into sway In The Morning to talk about the show and more.
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Exclusive interviews from Sway Calloway and the Sway In The Morning/ SwaysUniverse.com team with some of today's biggest celebrities, like Kevin Hart, Kanye West, Eminem, Usher, Jessica Alba, Steve Aoki, Torey Lanez, Julia Stiles and so much more.
Ziwe On Her Late Night Talk Show ‘Ziwe’ on Showtime | SWAY’S UNIVERSE
https://youtu.be/3fPU5PDh638
Sway’s Universe
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0:00
listen i've been talking about this all
0:01
morning i had a long conversation with
0:03
my daughter who's the
0:04
who's the the queen of generation z and
0:07
uh she and i stumbled on the show
0:11
we didn't even realize that we both
0:13
watched this show
0:15
and it was that we always suggest to
0:16
each other hey what are you watching
0:18
right now you're watching this you're
0:19
watching that
0:20
and one of the things i told her to
0:21
watch you gotta watch seaway
0:24
and she said daddy i i can't believe
0:26
that
0:27
you watched that on show time yes she
0:29
said i love z-way
0:30
i said why she said i finally feel like
0:34
i have representation on tv
0:36
that someone who understands my
0:38
perspective
0:39
and understands my humor so i
0:42
immediately said well we gotta get her
0:44
on the show
0:45
and so today this is one of the most
0:47
electrifying voices that i
0:49
enjoy watching and listening to db can
0:52
you do the honors
0:55
of course i can of course i can she's a
0:56
comedian she's a writer for shows like
0:58
diesel samara and stephen colbert
1:01
she's a podcast host she created the
1:02
show baited with z-way
1:04
and now she is the creator the writer
1:06
the executive producer
1:08
and the host of her own late night show
1:10
z-way on showtime please welcome
1:12
z-waves
1:14
[Applause]
1:18
yo thank you for having me y'all are
1:20
icons this is
1:21
historic for me oh come on man oh wow
1:24
yeah icons you're gonna go that far you
1:26
you put us on an iconic level
1:28
yeah i mean how could you not sway and
1:30
got the answers this is iconic moments
1:33
in pop culture
1:34
okay there you have it yo
1:37
that's my claim to fame z-way that's my
1:40
claim to fame
1:42
uh welcome to the show i want to play
1:44
this clip from your show real quick and
1:45
citizens i'm gonna open up the phone
1:47
lines if you happen to watch her
1:50
888-742-3345 and if you
1:52
if you don't get to know her take a
1:54
listen to this despite the country being
1:55
in the middle of a pandemic
1:57
plastic surgery procedures are actually
1:59
on the rise there is a long history of
2:01
women getting elective surgery on
2:03
television shows
2:04
i decided to follow in the footsteps of
2:06
my hero vicky gunvalson
2:08
and visit one of new york's most
2:09
prominent plastic surgeon
2:11
hi how are you dr greenberg i'm dr
2:14
greenberg nice to meet you
2:15
nice to meet you as well i'm looking to
2:17
get a whole new face whole new body
2:19
what augmentations would you recommend
2:21
for me
2:22
sometimes as we age not that you're
2:25
aging right how old do you think i am
2:27
24. black don't crack
2:31
nope yeah you looking great um how old
2:34
are you really no i'm not gonna tell you
2:35
on
2:36
camera okay well however old you are i
2:38
can make you look younger
2:40
thank you by the time you're done we're
2:41
giving you a bottle
2:44
ah that was funny
2:55
uh i love your show i'm trying to z-wave
2:58
is here
2:58
i i want to know where did this all
3:00
begin
3:01
like at what point in your life did you
3:04
think that you know what i want to talk
3:06
about race i want to talk about politics
3:08
in my
3:08
own way and share some insight on folks
3:11
through comedy
3:12
that they may not realize because i feel
3:14
like a lot of your guests
3:15
by the time they walk away have aha
3:18
moments
3:19
you know what i mean yeah
3:22
where did that begin honestly i mean i
3:26
am a black woman so people have been
3:28
bringing up rape to me
3:29
unprompted all my life to the point
3:31
where it's like why are you telling me
3:33
about your black friends this is a
3:34
wendy's sir
3:35
like i do not know you so i thought yo
3:38
if there was actually a camera in front
3:40
of this it would be
3:41
as entertaining as it is traumatic for
3:43
me
3:44
so that's really the inspiration it's
3:45
just living and existing
3:47
living and existing and um i i saw
3:51
a uh episode uh that you did what i want
3:54
to say
3:54
adam pally yeah adam towers
3:58
yes adam pally and you you asked him to
4:01
out of a group of pictures um uh cast a
4:05
cast a movie about abolitionists you
4:08
know and
4:09
and he seemed so stressed out on it but
4:11
at the same time he played to it what do
4:13
you say to your guests
4:14
when they come to the show that this is
4:17
going to be unorthodox humor
4:19
you know take it as you receive it uh
4:22
what do you say to them
4:24
i tell them to just be themselves and
4:26
like and
4:27
you know i'm not trying to get them in
4:28
trouble anything super racist will cut
4:30
out
4:31
but like be yourself come on the show
4:33
have fun
4:34
and let's make something really cool
4:36
together and adam talley was
4:37
so game to cast tilda swinton as
4:40
frederick douglass so god bless us
4:42
god bless
4:47
oh wow man uh baited is something i
4:49
watched as well
4:51
i watch a lot of uh situations that you
4:54
put
4:54
that folks find themselves in i'm not
4:56
going to say you put them in
4:57
they find themselves in that you know
4:59
you can see people a little
5:01
uh apprehensive about maybe responding
5:04
because the council culture
5:05
man i know we here joking and we
5:07
cracking jokes but man i might say
5:09
something that might ruin my career
5:11
and we just heard kevin hart speak on
5:13
cancer culture we heard kat williams
5:15
speak on cancer culture kevin hart said
5:17
you know i'm not apologizing no more
5:19
what are your thoughts on it obviously
5:20
you don't worry about that sort of thing
5:23
no i don't really worry about cancer
5:25
culture it will come for us
5:26
all i don't know if it exists half of
5:28
cancer culture is just like
5:30
the justice system like people
5:31
committing crimes and the other half
5:34
are people reacting online so i try to
5:37
just
5:37
not not hurt any marginalized
5:39
communities and if i do i apologize
5:41
okay all right just straight like that
5:45
you know what z-way i feel like you
5:46
would also be an excellent
5:48
um consultant for a lot of people's
5:51
shows because we was having this
5:52
conversation
5:53
or films like in the heights i'm sure
5:55
that you are
5:56
well have well knowledge about the
5:58
colors and controversy there
6:00
with lynn maywell and the whole team and
6:02
the director
6:03
and when we were talking about the
6:04
director earlier this morning
6:07
and how he's mentioned that they did
6:09
have a lot of afro-latinos who
6:11
auditioned but it just so happened to
6:13
them the people who
6:15
best exemplified the characters were
6:18
lighter-skinned how would you
6:21
fix a situation like that
6:24
um i in that particular i would cast
6:28
black people that's what i would do um i
6:30
think women won't just apologize so
6:32
thank you to women well for that
6:34
but i think you just move forward and
6:36
say hey how can i make sure that i'm
6:38
actually addressing these communities
6:39
and helping them and employing them but
6:41
consulting again is not free so if you
6:43
want any more advice
6:44
you have to pay me hp
6:53
how you doing this is heather b nice to
6:55
talk to you thank you for uh calling
6:57
into the show today and giving us a
6:58
little bit of your time
6:59
i just want to give you props on
7:01
something totally you probably not
7:03
expecting but i received um
7:05
your gift box uh promoting the show
7:09
i was like yo this girl is after my
7:12
heart
7:13
i don't know if you had anything to do
7:14
with your promo gift box but i just want
7:16
to tell everybody it came with
7:18
a really nice little box of lemon poppy
7:21
shortbread cookies which i devoured it
7:23
came with the old school
7:25
bubble gum tape like you know the pink
7:27
little round circle
7:28
the tape that like it came with a bike
7:31
like did you
7:32
have anything to do with that and all of
7:34
the things that was in your gift box
7:36
a reflection of your personality it had
7:38
some personal meaning to you
7:40
oh a thousand percent there were ring
7:42
pops there were like old
7:43
school sunglasses yeah i came up in the
7:46
90s and the 2000s so
7:47
i am that child still with the bubble
7:51
gum blowing bubbles so yeah oh yeah
7:53
i loved it i like it uh z-way is here
7:56
eight seven four two three three four
7:59
five
8:00
robin feedy is also a citizen of sway in
8:02
the morning she's been on the show
8:03
plenty of times i love her i feel like
8:05
you know for a while i feel like
8:07
you know she's she's in spaces that we
8:10
don't see a lot of us
8:11
in but you know now we're starting to
8:12
see more of us in especially in the
8:14
terms of black women
8:15
and you worked on the daily show the
8:17
colbert report
8:19
even with robin uh what's your
8:21
experience been like in these rooms
8:23
like do you find yourself being the only
8:25
representation or has it gotten better
8:28
not at robin city and jesus camero that
8:31
was quite the opposite where there were
8:32
so many black and brown people that it
8:34
was like it felt like
8:35
how i grew up and that was really really
8:37
a blessing honestly
8:38
and so when you go to when you go to
8:40
rooms like this is robin
8:41
you you take that information you're
8:43
like okay how do i hire people
8:44
and give them the same opportunities
8:46
that i got so that was my plan with my
8:48
show
8:50
okay okay i like that um your history is
8:53
it runs deep
8:55
uh some people think because you know
8:57
they are block vloggers or they they
8:59
make content for social media that
9:01
they're equipped to handle
9:02
being in your position because they've
9:04
seen you do it but
9:05
can you tell your story a little bit
9:07
some of the things you did
9:09
before you got in those rooms to kind of
9:11
bring attention to yourself
9:13
how did i get to this point in my life
9:15
yeah well you know you were doing a lot
9:17
of uh you did a lot of things
9:18
outside of working at the colbert report
9:20
and the daily showing
9:22
jesus mural so what sort of things did
9:24
you do to lead to this point
9:26
where so you i mean it's all a hustle
9:29
right because
9:29
i don't know about you guys i was very
9:31
broke after i graduated college
9:33
was working at a restaurant was doing
9:35
shows on the side
9:36
was writing was tweeting trying to go
9:38
viral so people can
9:39
notice my stuff was producing on my own
9:42
operating at a loss like
9:44
the first baited youtube episodes you've
9:46
ever seen those were all things that i
9:47
subproduced
9:49
lost money no one saw them got two dozen
9:51
views um but you just keep
9:53
working and working until eventually 10
9:55
years later it hits
9:56
and suddenly your overnight success even
9:58
though you've been grinding for a decade
10:00
so all of the work that i'm doing today
10:02
is a testament to the hustle
10:04
i had for the last couple years so so
10:07
basically
10:08
to to those who just started and see
10:10
what you're doing they love what you're
10:12
doing
10:12
you can't walk into her you can't fit
10:14
her shoes until you walk into them
10:16
you can't just jump on and have your own
10:18
show on showtime
10:19
all right um a critically acclaimed show
10:22
i'm curious about your writing process
10:24
cause one of the things i admire about
10:26
you most is i can't guess where you're
10:27
gonna come from
10:29
you know what i mean facts i can't and i
10:32
love that
10:33
i'm just i'm just in the open floating
10:35
when i watch you what is your writing
10:36
process
10:38
you know i am an agent of chaos my
10:41
writing process
10:42
is that i write a lot like at one point
10:45
during the season we were writing 50
10:46
pages a week
10:47
as writers on coral school legit
10:49
michelle davis damon washington jordan
10:51
mendoza
10:52
um and ultimately it's just whatever is
10:54
hot and we're still laughing
10:56
at after we've read it six or seven or
10:58
eight times that's what's going
11:00
in the show but a lot of the shows also
11:02
improvise so we take
11:03
the writing and then we go into the
11:05
doctor's office the plastic surgeon or
11:06
we talk to friendly voice for adam pali
11:08
and we like kind of throw caution to the
11:10
wind and just stay in the moment with
11:12
the
11:12
respective person so you don't know
11:14
where i'm coming from because i don't
11:15
know where i'm coming from at any given
11:16
time
11:17
i love it
11:18
[Laughter]
11:22
have you ever had anything you've said
11:24
that looking back on it now you're like
11:26
dang i actually am not attached to that
11:27
statement anymore like you've outgrown
11:29
something that you've said
11:32
yeah all the time i i mean every single
11:34
day we grow
11:35
and become smarter people so i am i am
11:38
susceptible to that as well
11:40
and so all i do with that is just bury
11:41
those videos and pretend they didn't
11:42
exist
11:43
[Laughter]
11:46
noted
11:51
you just do this naturally huh see way
11:53
to say you don't even need a camera for
11:55
this
11:56
you get folks laughing what's your
11:58
social life like now when you walk
12:00
outside
12:00
do people recognize you more people
12:03
recognize me
12:04
um and so now i started brushing my hair
12:07
putting on makeup so people don't touch
12:09
me
12:09
and you selfies looking goofy so yeah
12:12
so what's your take on the whole bonnet
12:14
situation then
12:17
oh where about it who am i to judge i
12:19
don't i don't want to brush my hair
12:20
sometimes it takes a long time it takes
12:22
like
12:22
hours i break combs because my hair's
12:24
snappy and nigerian
12:25
like it's tough out here so like
12:27
literally tougher than nigerian hair
12:29
that's a little way
12:30
right so if you want to wear a bonnet
12:32
wear a bonnet
12:33
cool who cares guys
12:36
we're about so you would you wear you
12:38
will wear a bonnet to the airport and
12:40
on the airplane don't matter if you felt
12:42
that bond that you wearing that bonnet
12:45
if it was customs it was designers it
12:46
was luxury
12:49
a telford bonnet you know i'd do that
12:50
hold
12:52
who are you listening to right now
12:53
musically who am i
12:55
uh i listen to willow smith i love her
12:59
she's really good
13:02
she's very talented willow's
13:09
i wanted to ask you though because your
13:11
personality is is super
13:13
upbeat and and you seem happy and if
13:15
anybody that's listening right now would
13:17
be like
13:17
wow she got it all together life is
13:20
perfect but we all know
13:21
as an artist you know especially as a
13:23
writer man
13:25
like this you're gonna suffer from
13:26
writer's block you're gonna suffer from
13:28
days where you'll be like people just
13:30
don't freaking get it like what am i
13:32
doing wrong how can i make this whole
13:34
thing come together
13:35
what do you do to kind of shake that a
13:37
little bit get rid of it maybe i
13:39
maybe i'll go in so far to say kind of
13:41
shake off some of the fear a little bit
13:43
of it not working out
13:44
what do you do to kind of bring it back
13:46
around i'm sorry go ahead sure well just
13:48
to speak to y'all's show
13:50
your show is an institution right like
13:52
it's been on for
13:53
years like it's a staple but not every
13:56
episode
13:57
is perfect and that's the same with my
13:58
stuff right not everything i do
14:00
is good but i give my pers myself
14:03
permission to fail
14:04
and then i come back the next day and go
14:05
even harder and learn from my mistakes
14:08
so my life isn't perfect but what is
14:10
perfect is my ability
14:12
to just reset and it's a new day try
14:15
something different
14:16
keep working keep hustling so that's i
14:19
think that's how you build something
14:20
like your show
14:21
which is such a staple and so respected
14:25
the reset button you hit the reset i got
14:27
it i love it
14:28
i love it and i like that last sentence
14:30
she said too heather she got me feeling
14:32
good she got it we should be saluting
14:33
her for that thank you
14:34
we are staple z-way said we're a
14:37
staple that means
14:39
i appreciate no i appreciate it too sway
14:41
because that's the side sometimes that
14:43
folks don't see they don't see the side
14:45
of the artist where
14:46
you like to her point yo all right this
14:48
wasn't a honey but i'm gonna just keep
14:50
cracking at it i'll keep going i'll hit
14:51
the reset
14:52
so thank you for sharing that of course
14:55
thank you for having me on this
14:57
institution
14:59
absolutely uh what you got coming up i
15:02
know you're writing a book correct
15:04
yes i'm writing a book yeah a book of
15:06
essays about race and
15:08
culture and pop culture yeah man okay
15:11
well congratulations on everything when
15:13
when our when our building opens up we
15:15
love to just have you come in the studio
15:17
and sit and just chop it up with us
15:18
if you're open to doing that i would
15:21
love to come through and please stop
15:22
being poor
15:23
yeah you know how it is okay that's what
15:25
that's what's up z-wave thank you for
15:26
being on the show she's a citizen
15:29
the creator the writer the executive
15:32
producer the host of the late night talk
15:34
show z-way on showtime
15:36
make sure y'all go check it out play it
15:38
back over and over again
15:40
keep rising queen keep rising okay
15:44
thank you guys you guys are awesome
15:49
take care all right
15:55
[Music]
16:05
[Music]
16:07
you
#Arts & Entertainment