Lauren Weedman is a chameleonic solo performer who spent years catching Seattle off guard with her sense of life’s absurdities: Amsterdam, her last major piece in town before she moved to New York, concerned a misfit American tourist’s adventures overseas, including a visit with a Dutch performance artist whose rock band’s name translated into “Teeth Meat.” The world seems to have finally caught a clue about this comic divinity—last week, after struggling through “various dive cabarets,” Weedman began a six-week trial period as a correspondent for Jon Stewart‘s acclaimed media send-up The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
“Mostly I’ve been trying to bond with the other folks there and find out what I need to do to not get fired,” she says of her current chores. “I will soon be sent out on some assignments. But I have no idea yet what. Or when. Or what to wear. Or who would be best to sleep with on staff.”
Would it be so wrong for us to recommend a tryst with Stewart himself? Apologies to her loving husband, but we just want Weedman to be able to tell us all about it later. And how cute is Jon Stewart in person, by the way?
“Quite,” she says. “And everyone has asked me that—he is a wanted man.”
Like anybody else at a new job, she has found a few choice ways in which to embarrass herself during the first week of work.
“Oh my god,” she recalls. “I realized that every person I met I was trying to give a little compliment to. I didn’t even know I was doing it until the end of the day when I heard myself tell the stage manager he had a nice speaking voice.”
It gets worse—or better, depending on your take.
“The best thing was when the taping was over,” she continues. “I had a Holly Hunter Moment, like in Broadcast News where she just breaks and sobs for a minute and gets the stress out. I sat on the steps [and] just broke from the intensity of the first day. And suddenly the door I was sitting by busted open and the entire audience from the show came streaming out. They were all “There she is!” and I was like “Motherfucker” and I quickly got up and ran to a bar. To sit and watch myself, by myself. Which I did. Maybe that story isn’t funny—maybe it’s just pathetic. It’s hard to tell.”
