Its brief but powerful, at once voluntary and completely out of her control. Sarcastic with a hint of wistful self-deprecation. A comedic tic.
Shes recalling her first audience. You see, Kate Berlant was a flasher when she was young, and apparently people found the sight of a little girl lifting her shirt hilarious. Looking back, it might not sound like the most tactful foray into performing. But hey. A laughs a laugh, right?
Berlants eye will twitch a few more times as we eat lunch on a sizzling Thursday in West Hollywood, just like it did when she parodied Marina Abramovi on Netflix s The Characters. And like it did when she and John Early her professional accomplice and platonic life partner aced a six-minute bit on The Tonight Show in which they feigned shock at being on The Tonight Show. She also did it when they doled out holiday gift advice next to Jimmy Fallon, her eyes crossing before the right one shuttered. And again during a Comedy Central stand-up routine proclaiming that women should get to steal cosmetics. (If you dont have certain creams, powders, lotions, the state wont recognize you.) In a YouTube video , she twitched while reminiscing about the french fries shed devoured in Paris. And she twitched as a conceited, kiss-ass Hollywood agent in the satirical Vimeo series 555 , produced by Adult Swim veterans Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.
Somehow, she managed to avoid the twitch on High Maintenance and BoJack Horseman (animation helps) and in the fantastic new movie Sorry to Bother You , which opens in theaters July 6 after being the toast of Sundance in January.
Berlant has been in showbiz only a few years, if we dont count her stand-up rounds as an undergrad at New York University or her line on Lizzie McGuire at age 15. But she already has a signature that perfectly accentuates her surreal brand of humor. The twitch says more about the world around her than it does about Berlant. Its a spasm that winks at the nutty words pouring from her mouth. It can make a harsh blow more palatable. It mocks anything too serious. It externalizes the reactions we typically muffle when faced with disappointment, embarrassment, marginalization, pretentiousness.
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Not much thought goes into the twitch, Berlant swears the mark of a natural performer, someone who was raised around capital-A Artists with big personalities.
Maybe I should think about doing it less, she half-jokes.
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