TaylorOrtegaonRevenge,ReligionandtheSicknessBehindComedy

In conversation with Caleb Hearon, Taylor talks about the horrifying audition that landed her a starring role, finding purpose in the 2012 improv boom and why she’s actually doing okay.

 

WORDS Olive Walton

 

Interview taken from IMAGINE Magazine Issue Three Pre Order here

 

Quick-witted, dry-humoured, and a product of the improv boom of 2012, comedian and actor Taylor Ortega meets her comedic match in actor, podcaster and comedian Caleb Hearon. As Caleb hosts a Knicks watch party and Taylor heads to an improv show in New York City, the longtime friends trade the kind of gleeful contempt reserved for people who genuinely adore each other.

 

Between debates about God, death and whether Taylor gives off unmistakable New Jersey energy, the conversation veers from revenge fantasies to career anxieties to the peculiar “sickness” that drives performers. They reminisce about meeting over Zoom in 2020, unpack the reality behind Taylor’s seemingly relentless work ethic, celebrate the second season of Big Mistakes and ask the truly important questions: Is Taylor finally in her normal era? And would she ever show up at an ex-lover’s house carrying a knife?

 

Caleb Hearon: I think we should get down to business. Taylor, you believe in God? What do you think happens when we die? Well… Answer. I’m interviewing, you have to answer.

 

Taylor Ortega: Well, I went to Catholic school, so I was told all of the right information probably. But my partner read me a poem recently, or a short story – I’m so sorry for not remembering anything about it except that – the takeaway was that all of us are God, have God within us, and that’s why we have to be less judgmental and more kind to one another because we’re all from the same source and I think that’s pretty beautiful and confronting at the same time.

 

CH: It’s gorgeous and confronting. I had an older gay man that I’m friends with tell me at lunch recently that he thinks all of us are God and none of us are separate, and then 20 seconds later, he called me a loudmouth queen…

 

How do we, how do we know each other? When, how did we meet? Do you remember?

 

TO: We met on a work thing in the middle of the pandemic. I learned some things about you that I never forgot.

 

CH: What was the work thing and what did you learn?

 

TO: Who knows? We were on a Zoom like this, but everything was a Zoom like this at that point. It was summertime 2020, and it was something like you had said that they were driving tractors on the roads where you grew up and I said, “What a rural individual.” Yeah and then we didn’t meet in person for a couple more months when you were doing your halfway house for Midwestern gay people that you were running in your yard. When I moved out to LA, I kind of moved into your backyard. And then we would go house hunting, me, you, and Holmes, and we would say, “Oh, we saw this beautiful place,” and sometimes you would come with us. There was this one spot that we went to see that had just the most sinister vibes, but it was really big, and you were like, “You guys have to take this place.” But we kept finding a scary tool shed full of knives, and you were like, “But it’s big, and it’s local and it’s in a really central spot.”

 

CH: I’d stand by that. You need a lot of space. Our friend group in LA, was sort of a revolving clown car of lesbians and queer people with issues. You need the space.

 

CH: You started in improv, this I know about you, you’ve done a million jobs. You’re one of the most working people of our friend group. I feel like you have been, just for years, kind of in twelve things a year. Do you feel that?

 

TO: I do feel that, but it’s not really true. Like, I guess I’m in things, but it’s a bit of a juggling act of, I will film them all within a tight period of time, or they’ll take a really long time to come to fruition, or I’ll meet someone and then two years later you get it or whatever. So everything kind of is thrown at you around the same time. Then it all gets released in a way where it looks like you’re working every single month. But actually there’s a two-year stretch where I’m sort of wondering sometimes if I’m even in this business at all.

 

“…all of us are God, have God within us, and that’s why we have to be less judgmental and more kind to one another because we’re all from the same source and I think that’s pretty beautiful and confronting at the same time.”

 

CH: I wanna talk a little bit about Dan Levy, negatively. I know that you know, he’s a sick individual. He really likes to play with people. I know that your audition process, from both of you actually, was pretty much like the movie Saw. Tell me about getting this role.

 

TO: He’s so creative in that way. Dan is like Jigsaw in the sense that they’re both creative workaholics and they’re world builders. I was working in Italy on a Paul Feig movie, and I got the audition for Big Mistakes, and I said, “This is absolutely perfect for me. It will never happen.” Because there is timing in this business, and the more you audition, the more you learn. There’re roles that you could conceivably book and then there’re roles you could conceivably audition for so I was like this is a cool thing to be considered for. This project looks really good. This character seems like me, but I do not think the timing is right. I don’t think that I will book this, and I likely think that it will go to someone more experienced and established. Then, six months later my circumstances had changed. Our manager, Tovah, is a very proactive manager and checked back in and noticed it wasn’t cast and made them bring me back. And thank God.

 

CH:  Tovah Silbermann, she’s a really malevolent person. She has a really kind heart. She’s an entity in this business. People hear who my manager is and they run.

 

TO: And what’s so funny is I do feel like that she’s a very rule-abiding person, and someone who’s very aware of the rules as they exist. But then in moments like that, I think of many of my life-saving moments in this business, times where I had no money and had to be really creative. Times where it didn’t seem like a job was going to go to me or it didn’t make sense, she’s made it make sense or scrounged up work for me in a way where I go, “She also really doesn’t believe in the rules”. She also has a very anything can happen Ellie Goulding sort of  magical way of thinking in this business. She really convinces people.

CH: Is there something that’s making you feel hopeful lately?

 

TO: Being in New York right now is kind of amazing. We have to take, I don’t wanna say small wins because there are amazing things happening, but in my 20s if you had told me that the mayor balancing a budget was gonna be life-changing news, I’d be like, “The who balancing the what?” But little moments like that where things can work, and the things that you were told could never happen, and you don’t understand it, and it’s too complicated. Sometimes things are simpler than you think. Living in a city where things are little by little going well here and there, when it feels like at large the whole country feels pretty unsafe and scary, is a nice feeling. That is making me feel hopeful.

 

CH: Look, the mayor of New York City is a socialist, the Knicks are in the finals, and Laurie Metcalf just won a Tony. Don’t ever kill yourself.

 

TO: I have actually watched a couple of Knicks games. I don’t know what’s going on. But I am not about to miss the collective excitement.

 

CH: I’ve been really lucky to be a little tiny part of the Big Mistakes press run. I got to do the screening with Dan and now I get to do this with you.

 

TO: You’re kind of doing half of our interviews.

 

CH: It’s how I want it. I said, “Dan, whatever you do, don’t cast me in your big Netflix show. But make sure that I get to do free press.” and he was sweet enough to do that for me. You’ve said that your character Morgan is a lot like you, Taylor, in the real world. In what ways is she, and in what ways is she different?

 

TO: I think that she’s pretty funny and reactive, which I’ve spent many years trying to be less reactive, but we are who we are, you know? And I think on a low vibrational day I really still do relate to her. I also think she’s making some good points, but I think ultimately she’s someone who thinks life is totally pointless until she’s kind of found some purpose for herself. I think in my 20s that was really where I was at. I was just sort of like, “Ugh, what am I gonna do now? Like, for the rest of forever what am I supposed to do?” And then I ultimately did end up finding purpose in the improv boom of 2012. Which many people did.

 

CH: It happened to the worst of us.

 

TO: It happened to the absolute most unsufferable people alive. But who’s to say? Those people need purpose more than anyone.

 

CH: People don’t understand. The New York and Chicago improv boom of the 2010s, you don’t know what it saved us from. You don’t know how many crimes, how many violent thieving people were preoccupied with that.

 

CH: Big Mistakes getting a second season. Congratulations. Can you tell us what’s gonna happen? I’ve heard rumours that we’re getting you and Jack both full frontal. Can you confirm, deny?

 

TO: I’m begging for that. They keep saying, “No, just Jack [Innanen]. No, we’re all good on you. Just Jack.”

 

CH: Okay. That’s beautiful. Is there anything you do know that you can actually tell us, or not really?

 

TO: Well, I know that Dan is thrilled. He’s sort of coming from the room every day with a light in his eyes that’s making me feel really excited to shoot. I really loved shooting the first season. So this can only mean that it’s gonna be maybe even better, maybe even a more fun experience. But I don’t know. I’m kind of just excited to be back with everyone. Right now, Dan’s writing in LA. Laurie [Metcalf]’s doing 5,000 shows a week on Broadway. I am excited to be back with everyone and see everyone every day. I think that’s really nice. We’re all sort of far-flung and working on eight million different things at the moment, so it’ll be kind of sweet to be kind of back there.

 

“In my 20s that was really where I was at. I was just sort of like, “Ugh, what am I gonna do now? Like, for the rest of forever what am I supposed to do?” And then I ultimately did end up finding purpose in the improv boom of 2012.”

 

CH: When are you guys gonna start filming again? Do you know yet?

 

TO: Yeah, end of the summer. We shoot everything in New Jersey in my dad’s hometown, how cute is that? He’s from Jersey. We shoot a lot of it in Cranford, Edison,

 

CH: I shot in Cranford for a while.

 

TO:  You did? That’s where he’s from.

 

CH: We shot Sweethearts for HBO there years ago. Also you, by the way, never had to tell me your dad was from New Jersey. I knew that before I met you in many ways.

 

TO: How did you know that?

 

CH: I just know your vibe gives dad from New Jersey. Does that make sense to you?

 

TO: Yeah. Well, I’m also from New Jersey.

 

CH: Right… made sense to me that you weren’t the first.

 

TO: Do I have a regional accent?

 

CH: No. There’s something, I don’t wanna say scary- but there’s something that radiates from you that is very serious, and it can only be produced in New Jersey.

 

TO: Wait, serious? I don’t get that a lot. But you know what is funny is that my dad did say that I’m a scary person.

 

CH: No, see, and I wouldn’t… See, I think he’s also misplacing something that he probably shares with you and is blind to, which is a few primordial dynamics. It’s not serious like da, da, da, let me go to the office- and punch you in the stomach serious. Mm-mm. Like, if I were your lover and I wronged you, you might show up at my house with a knife. Does that make sense?

 

TO: Yes, and it does, and what’s so crazy about that is I would only show up at an ex-lover’s house with a knife, day of. Like, I’m not serving revenge as a cold dish. If the spirit moves me for revenge, it’s gonna be instantly. It’s probably gonna be verbal, but mostly no. I’m forgetting a lot.

 

CH: Well, and just to say also for the readers, the knife, she’s never planning on using it. It’s for show. It’s theatrical. It’s not for harm.

 

The last question I wanted to ask you, it’s my belief that everyone who does what we do is fundamentally sick. And everyone has a different kind of sickness. Mine’s that I was fat and gay as a child and so I was never liked. Do you know what your sickness is or why you’re doing all of this?

 

TO: I’ve always been a little odd, so to me it’s not surprising. I have never had social ease. So as an adult I feel the most normal I’ve felt. So it’s kind of backwards. You had, we all know, amazing grades, good student. For me, it was always kind of freak vibes, and now I’m sort of in my normal era.

 

CH: You went from freak vibes to your normal era, and that’s where we find you now.

 

TO: Yeah.

 

CH: All right. I love it, dude. Thanks for letting me do this with you.

 

TO: Yeah, thanks for doing this. You’re the best. I appreciate it, and I’ll see you tonight. Go Knicks.

 

CH: Go Knicks. I love you more than the world. Love you.