Sarah Silverman on Bringing the Drama in 'Smile,' That Jennifer Lawrence Letter and Feeling The Bern

Sarah Silverman wasn’t looking for heavy drama, the heavy drama found her. After hearing Silverman open up about her struggles with depression — an issue she recently addressed with a powerful essay on Glamour — author Amy Koppelman sent the comedian-actress her novel I Smile Back, which Koppelman was adapting into a film.

The story focuses on a self-destructive, upper-class Long Island housewife named Laney who isn’t just depressed, but battles mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. She cheats on her husband (played by Josh Charles) while the kids are in school and sniffs cocaine in the bathroom while they’re home. There’s nothing funny about Laney, and the bleak drama marks a major departure for the 44-year-old Silverman, best known for delivering hilariously edgy witticisms in her standup and landing laughs in movies like A Million Ways to Die in the West and School of Rock.

Silverman was enthused by the opportunity to branch out into something so dramatic, but as the film approached production, terrified: “I didn’t think it would get made,” she told us this week at the film’s Los Angeles press day. “Most movies don’t get made, you have to realize. But when it became a reality, that’s when it became scary for me. I thought, ‘Oh my God, can I do this?’ I had a full-body anxiety attack on my bathroom floor…. But then I realized that’s kind of Laney’s whole headspace. That terror of 'What if?’”

While Silverman didn’t take on the role to alter peoples’ perception of her, ever since the film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, that has been a side effect. Silverman has gotten major props for carrying a grim drama and delivering a bold, fierce performance. “I’m letting it make me feel nice,” she said of the positive response. “I’ve worked hard in therapy to not let my self-esteem be dictated by what outside forces think of me. I’m not wildly successful at it but I’m working on it. This kind of veers away from that but f–k it, I’m going to let this make me feel nice.”

Watch the trailer for ‘I Smile Back’:

Silverman acknowledges that turning over this new leaf on her career fuels the belief that behind every funny comedian exists some deep-seeded blues. As Mark Twain noted, “[the] secret source of humor is sorrow, not joy.” She thinks there’s truth to that. “I think that probably most comedians come from a place of darkness. They became funny as a defense mechanism, or as a means of surviving their childhood in one way or another.” Her own depression, she wrote in Glamour, started when she was 13.

Filming I Smile Back, she said, was therapeutic. “Even this has been therapeutic, talking about it,” she added. “Because I think it is the kind of movie that you process after… Everyone has been on one side or the other of mental illness, or depression, or addiction. So how you feel about this character is pretty much entirely dependent on the life experience you’re bringing into the theater when you go and see it.”

The actress is also proud to star in a film written about a woman by women; Koppelman adapted her book for the screen along with Paige Dylan (the drama was directed by Adam Salky). “I think it’s a really good time for women in film and television. Maybe not so coincidentally because it’s a time where women are writing film and television more than ever. So the female experience is being expressed and reflected in art. It’s not just all big fat guys with model girlfriends.”

She sees progress. “When I first moved [to Los Angeles] the casting descriptions would be like, 'Frederick, an introvert who is dealing with depression but finds an outlet outside himself through the art of whatever,’ some really detailed description. And then it would say, 'Shelly, twenties.’”

“You know, you can sit and complain about inequality or you can just be undeniable. And loud. And I think that women have been doing that, and it’s good.”

Still, the issue of gender pay inequality looms large in Hollywood, and Silverman stoked with a video in which she recalled getting paid less money than fellow standup/friend Todd Barry for an identical set (though after the club’s owner fired back that Silverman got the facts wrong, she issued an apology).

“Women should be paid the same as men,” Silverman said in manner that acknowledged the obviousness of her statement. “Show business is tricky because it’s supply and demand. But Jennifer Lawrence is surely the biggest box office draw right now and she should be getting the most money.” She called the Hunger Games star’s recent Lenny Letter about the wage divide between her and her male American Hustle costars “brilliant.”

“Good for her for being aloud about it,” she said. “And not, like she said, trying to find the most adorable way to express herself. I was really impressed by that. I think what’s important about it, it’s that she gets what she deserves. When you’re talking about $20 million people, start to lose a little empathy. But it’s not just about that, it’s about women all over the country being paid 78 cents to the dollar. It’s simply not OK.”

Related: Jennifer Lawrence Opens Up About Making Less Money Than Her Male Co-Stars

It’s at that point our conversation turns political. “There are laws against it [like the Equal Pay Act of 1963], which is why a lot of Republicans are against any new laws enforcing it. But when a law is just ignored, then it’s not a law.”

Silverman has been a major proponent of Democratic presidential candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whom she introduced at an L.A. appearance in August. Asked if Sanders would be aggressive in his policies to even the wage gap, the actress was unequivocal.

“A hundred percent,” she said. “This guy is running on a platform to take down the very people that are putting people in office [ignoring saw law]. This is like slaying the dragon times a thousand. It’s balls out, and it’s what bravery is. The first thing he wants to do kill Citizens United [the controversial conservative candidate advocacy group], which is f–king bullshit evil, s–tty un-American.

"I love Bernie because he is not for sale, period. And I think he is a hero.”

I Smile Back is now playing select theaters and will be available on video-on-demand Nov. 6.