Yahoo Movies Nicole Byer on the audition that changed her career, why filming Nailed It! season 1 'felt like a trick'
Nicole Byer made a kid cry.
"At Comic-Con, after I did an episode of [my podcast] Newcomers — which I didn't know there was kids in the crowd and we did say a bunch of not kid-friendly stuff," Byer explains with a laugh on the latest episode of EW's The Awardist podcast, "but there was this little boy [who] asked me for a photo and he wouldn't speak to me. I was like, 'Do you hate me? What's happening?' Then he burst into tears and I was like, 'Do you need a hug?' And then he was like, 'I want a hug.' So yeah, it's cool and it's really special that kids like me so much."
Kids aren't the only ones, of course, but the comedian admits it was weird at first to discover she had so many young fans who watch her on Netflix's culinary competition Nailed It!, for which she has two Emmy nominations as host and executive producer. But then she realized her job on the show perhaps isn't all that different from another she once had.
"I was a nanny for a long time, so I would play with kids. I was like, oh, it makes sense: [Nailed It!] is a bunch of adults having fun, and most adults and kids lives are telling them to do stuff and making them go to school and saying they can't do that, can't do this," she says. "And this is a show where adults are like, you can do that. I can roll off a table. I can eat cookies whenever I want. It's bright and poppy, so I think that's why kids like it so much."
Netflix Nicole Byer hosts 'Nailed It!'
Byer, who has a third Emmy nomination for writing her comedy special Nicole Byer: BBW (Big Beautiful Weirdo), says she was "confused" while filming the first season of her first hosting job, noting that she kept getting the direction, "Just do whatever you want." "I was like, 'I don't know what that means,'" she says, laughing. Even though she ultimately enjoyed having the freedom to be herself, she found it hard to believe she had free reign. "It felt like a trick. When does that ever f---ing happen? When do you ever get a job where someone says, 'Do whatever you want?' You're like, 'They're going to trick me. Something bad [is going to happen]. This isn't funny.'"
But she has committed to being herself ever since an audition for a McDonald's commercial where she says, "the casting director asked me to be more street, more urban, which is a euphemism for what white people think a Black person should sound like. Just full-blown like a caricature is what they wanted," Byer recalls. "So at that moment I was like, I don't want to change who I am to appease what a casting actor wants."
And it's worked to her advantage. Byer has a legion of fans not just from Nailed It! but from her stand-up comedy tour, her co-starring role on NBC's Grand Crew, her various voice-over roles on shows and films including Tuca & Bertie, the Boss Baby series, The Great North, and The Bob's Burgers Movie, as co-host of Wipeout, and from her four podcasts — Best Friends With Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata, Why Won't You Date Me?, Newcomers, and 90 Day Bae (exclusively on Patreon) about the 90 Day Fiancé franchise.
"It's wild. These people are nuts. It's perfect comedy because you have these two lunatics who've only known each other for a couple of months and then each family is like, 'We don't support it,' and they're like, 'Cool. So do you want to come to our wedding?' And then they fight and fight," she says, recapping the basics of the TLC series. "The best ones are the [couples who] have refused to learn their partner's language and then they speak in Google Translate. I'm like, 'This is how you want to live? You want Google to be your mediator?' I love it."
You can hear our full interview with Byer in the video above or the podcast episode below. Plus, check out the full episode to hear our chat with Hacks stars Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, and series creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky. And EW editor in chief Patrick Gomez is Awardist guest host, breaking down this year's reality category nominees.
Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV.
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