Interview: After the Netflix of It All, Hannah Gadsby Gets Back to Their Roots With Woof!

The comedian Hannah Gadsby is not resting on their laurels. The boundary-pushing, now internationally renowned artist behind Nanette is back onstage in a new stand-up show titled Woof! at Abrons Arts Center after several engagements around the world.

Gadsby enigmatically describes Woof! as a companion piece to the show that made them famous, but also as its “dark and twisted doppelgänger.” But what they’re really looking forward to is performing a show without the idea that there’s a constant pressure on them; they want to be able to enjoy the experience. And hopefully, they will.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I saw Nanette at SoHo Playhouse right before it went on Netflix, and —
What was that like for you? I’m intrigued because I think I was fully disassociating at that time in my life.

Because you had an inkling of what was about to happen, or … ?
No, no. I had a lived-in experience of what it was like to tour that show for over 12 months, and that was the breakout. Everything up until that point in Nanette‘s life had followed the same path as all my other shows, but with wildly different results.

The run in New York, for me, was the moment where I’m like, “This is different.” And I had no idea what the Netflix of it all was going to mean. Absolutely no idea. We had already filmed it. It was the experience of doing an off-Broadway run in New York, which is a big deal, and it was selling out, and the show wasn’t easy. Part of the reason why we’re coming back is because I want to be able to enjoy a run.

I was going to say, I love watching performers at the height of their powers, and you were clearly at the height of your power, right before everyone else discovered you. It felt like a secret becoming public and then exploding.
I think a career of being underestimated and overlooked meant that I was able to get myself in the position of being incredibly ready while being incredibly unknown. This tour is getting me back to that. I want to do a sit-down where I’ve got this show and I’m not yet bored of it and it’s not designed to go on screen. I don’t care about its life after this. I am a big fan of live performance, and the Netflix of it all has been gravy. I’ve been able to expand my audience, which means I can tour. But with this show, I’m just really belligerently going, “I don’t care about the screen.”

How do you describe Woof! in a nutshell?
Uh, let’s see if I can do this elevator pitch. It’s a deceptively complicated show. It’s pushing back on a lot of things that perhaps people expect from me. My best description of it is, “The dark and twisted doppelgänger of Nanette.” In a lot of ways, it’s a companion piece to that show.

How so?
It’s taken me a long time to understand what’s happened. The success of Nanette, on one hand, happened, and my life got odd and big and different and pushed me into a new world. At the same time, the world went through something and we’re not looking at the same world. In the post-pandemic world, we’re all at sea.

It’s been seven years since Nanette [started], so I’m recalibrating in a world where success depends on, let’s call it effective branding. I’m being willfully belligerent in the other direction.

What was it like to be back at the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time since Nanette?
Nanette is a contentious show amongst my peers. I think it’s a pretty heady mix of being about the work and professional jealousy. A lot of me was nervous about heading back into that, knowing so many of my peers are bitter, and rightly so. It’s a tough industry. I’m not emotional about it, but I was nervous.

It did feel good. I got to reconnect with peers, and also connect with younger performers who’ve come up since Nanette. It’s a different landscape out there now, which is exciting. When you have achieved a little bit of success, you tend to get on this touring schedule that puts you in isolation to what is actually happening on the ground. Honestly, what’s happening on the ground is always much more exciting than people doing victory laps.

Building off of that, you have that Netflix showcase of genderqueer comics like Jes Tom, whose work I’ve seen in person too. What does it mean to you to have that platform and introduce the world to artists they’ve never experienced before?
It was sort of the only thing I could think of to make something constructive out of the transphobic mess that Netflix created. It’s good because these comics are at such different points in their career and capabilities.

The conversation around gender had become so narrow and boring; just, like, old people not thinking that things can change. Like, that’s the conversation: “I have an idea and I don’t like that people have other ideas.” That’s pretty boring. But there’s no point in me standing up and saying that; that’s just one other person with a narrow viewpoint.

I felt like it would be fun to create an experience for the actual performers, to create a sense of camaraderie. I believe they’re all in touch with each other now. I didn’t participate in that — I’m still autistic — but I put them together and we did a run of shows at the Soho Theatre in London, and it did work to create a sense of community. And then, at the end of that, they get a paycheck, which is incredibly important, and they have a nice clip that they can send out and hopefully build their career.

What are you most looking forward to about coming back to New York with Woof!?
I’m just really looking forward to doing a show that I’m physically and psychologically able to enjoy. Success is a suck-hole. It has an element of addiction to it where you want more, and the mechanisms of that make it almost impossible to enjoy. I’ve worked very hard on scaling back that ambition.

This is not cookie-cutter; every night is new, not in terms of material, but in terms of the performance. And New York audiences, it goes without saying, are incredibly smart. It is the place to take a smart show. I don’t mean that in an arrogant sense, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s a show designed to be a live experience, and the way I’m approaching it when I finish touring is that it’s dead. It won’t exist anywhere else.