AP: You don’t shy away from making jokes about faith. I wondered if you have felt like people are kind of holding their breath when you do that or if it’s like a welcome topic. YOUSSEF: I think there was a bit of a breath-holding when I first started talking about my spiritual inclinations on stage. And I think that’s what made me realize it was really ripe for something in comedy. I would say atheism or a certain mocking of religion is almost like a baseline feature of a comedy set, as much as like going on a date is, you know? God’s a punch line. Jesus is a punch line. It’s funny, like when you’re raised as a Muslim, it’s like you never make fun of Jesus, you know, which would probably surprise people too, right?I’m obviously not a puritan in any sense. I mean the whole point is that I totally get the culture that I sit in. But I just kind of like to analyze it from a different way. And so it doesn’t come from any sort of, truly there’s no holier than thou. It’s more, you know, watch me kind of drown in the act of trying to be holy. You know, I’m failing and I’ll let you in on my failures. But I think I realized, pretty early on that there was a type of a gasp that made it fun to explore because it is so clear to me that it wasn’t being explored with any sort of sincerity.AP: That’s fascinating. Do you kind of relish making people squirm a little bit? YOUSSEF: Probably, yeah. But again, not to be sensational. It’s not like ambulance chasing. It’s just kind of this feeling of this is how I feel and I wonder what it would look like if we felt it together and then kind of did something with that feeling, you know? So let’s bring that up and then kind of look at it and then toss it away and kind of get into something else.AP: You also talk a lot about politics in the special. Did somebody from Joe Biden’s campaign really reach out to you in 2020? YOUSSEF: Yeah, we had a Zoom. I mean they’re very nice people, by the way. Like, they’re really good. And I think, you know, obviously in the special, it’s kind of fun to play with those situations. We’re in a really interesting predicament where it’s kind of like, “Hey are you sure you want to complain about Biden? Because Trump is worse.” And then it’s kind of like OK, you know that’s kind of that’s like textbook abuse, right? You know, don’t say anything because then it’s going to get worse. And you say, “OK, I thought we’re in a democracy. Aren’t we supposed to kind of question it and poke at it?”And then I’m feeling an interesting thing where we’re kind of voicing, you know, what I think is an incredibly fair argument and also starting to feel this feeling of, “Hey, you might blow this election for us.” It’s kind of like, you know, I think you might blow it for you. And I don’t want that. I actually don’t want that. I want this to work. I love being an American. I really want this to work out.AP: And then I have to ask about Taylor Swift coming to your show. I think people didn’t really know she was into comedy. YOUSSEF: You gotta see her “Saturday Night Live.” Her “SNL” was great.AP: So were you guys already friends? YOUSSEF: It’s so funny. It’s kind of like it’s just one of those things where I think because she’s one of the biggest people, I mean, she was like person of the year, that it kind of becomes this huge talking point or whatever. I kind of have a throwaway joke about it, but for the most part, it’s like we just met, you know? Like she was a big fan of the movie, of “Poor Things.” But there’s almost something slightly embarrassing about like talking about it too much because it’s just like we just met, you know? So I don’t have like a ton to say, but she’s just a really cool person.
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