- He was good then and he's good now.
- Okay.
- Even my mother was like
finally she's getting
some decent dick in her life.
(laughing)
- Getting dicked down like she deserves.
- Right.
That's just something that I'm happy
for the Netflix audience to know.
- Hi, I'm Gena, I'm here
with comedian Katherine Ryan,
and these are her Netflix nine.
Okay so before we start,
because I was a big fan
of your special, Glitter Room,
and you speak a lot about day wine.
And so, because you're a special guest
I've bought you some wine, if you will.
- I will.
- Have some, here's for you.
- Day wine, thank you so much.
- Any time.
- Cheers, thank you so much, Gena.
- Of course, lovely to have you.
Lovely to have you.
I love that you speak a
lot about being single,
you're sort of talking
about single in the special,
being a single mother, all
things that are really great,
and then you recently
revealed that you have
rekindled with an ex of
yours, your first love.
- So all along, I think
that there's vulnerability
in the way that I talk about being single,
because I carry on falling
in love with men by accident.
In this special I am
very happy to be single,
I'm just loving it, and then yeah,
I bumped into my first love
from when I was like 16,
and I did really always like him.
So now we're sort of back together,
but again, I do have issues.
When I was 16 I didn't own
a home that he could wreck,
but now I do.
- Exactly.
What was that experience
like, also, running into...
- Sexually it was amazing.
(laughing)
Because we dated each
other when we were 16
and I don't really think 16 year olds
should be sexually active necessarily.
Looking back I'm a bit like--
- 100% agree, also looking back.
- Yeah, I'm like oh what were we doing?
But he was good then and he's good now.
- Okay.
- Like, great.
And even my mother was
like finally she's getting
some decent dick in her life.
(laughing)
- Getting dicked down like she deserves.
- Right.
(sharp exhales)
And like that's just
something that I'm happy
for the Netflix audience to know.
- [Gena] I'm so happy for you.
- Thank you.
- So what's a British word or phrase
that you've adopted
since living in the UK?
- Ooh, I love taking the mick.
- [Gena] Oh yeah taking the
mick is a really good one.
- I love a piss take.
- [Gena] Oh yeah, yeah.
- This is just how I speak now.
I don't have a British
accent but I definitely
say British things.
- Yeah it's interesting.
Actually earlier you said slagging off
and I was like that is very British.
- Oh, love slagging off.
I love wind your neck in.
When people are like she really
needs to wind her neck in.
- Who are you hanging out with?
(laughing)
- A lot of people who put me in my place.
Wind your neck in.
Love that one.
- All right, so, imagine this.
This is actually not that hard to imagine.
The world is ending.
World is ending, you
have one last meal to eat
before you die, right,
before you're out the game.
Catch is you're in England, so
it has to be a British meal.
What's the last meal you're eating?
- Well I think the national
dish is curry isn't it?
So does that count?
And it's not super British.
- No, not at all.
- But they have it...
It is their national dish.
I would not eat like speckled
dick or whatever it's called.
- Yeah, spotted dick.
- Yeah I mean I wouldn't eat that.
I don't eat ever bread ever, I
would never eat a scotch egg,
I don't eat pork, I wouldn't eat red meat.
- You don't eat any bread?
- No.
- What about like a sandwich?
- No.
- What about different types of bread?
Ciabatta.
- I've never had it, I won't have pizza,
I just really hate bread.
I know.
I should be a lot skinnier.
- No!
(laughing)
- I don't eat it.
No pastries, no doughnuts, like...
(gasps)
No, I hate it, I really hate it.
It gives me--
- Chocolate croissant from Pret.
- Never had it.
- I can't, I actually can't believe that.
- No I don't like it.
- That's amazing.
- It's cool, right?
- Yeah it is quite cool.
- It's like a really
interesting quirk about me.
No, but I've been like that
since I was a little kid.
- One of the things that
myself and many people
say that they really like about you,
and they're inspired by, is
your amount of confidence,
you have a lot of confidence.
- Oh I do, yeah.
- And it seems to me
that you give many fucks
but you also don't give many fucks at all,
you're like I'm me and that's it.
So what advice would you give someone
who's looking to give less of a fuck?
Asking for a friend, also me.
- Also you.
Okay so you should
definitely give all the fucks
about the things that are important.
You know, like your
values and your friends
and your family, you know,
that's good to give fucks about.
But I think my confidence
comes from ambivalence,
like I don't care about
most things, I really don't.
I know that if this special goes out
and everyone hates it, then
that would be a bad thing,
but in the end I would
still live another day.
And I just feel so
grateful, it's not funny,
but I just feel like grateful
everyday that I'm alive,
I just feel really happy,
genuinely all the time.
Sometimes I'm in a bad mood,
you know, I menstruate.
But I just feel like I never worry about
the things that won't matter.
I used to argue with partners and go,
"But you don't understand
because you slept with
a hooker and that was wrong."
And now I think I don't
care if he knows it's wrong.
- That's a very specific example.
- Yeah that happened.
And then also, the reason that I have
confidence on stage to do this
job, is just that my mother,
she didn't realize her full potential,
and she feels really
like oh I can't do that,
I shouldn't do that.
And that always bothered
me, I thought we're like
dying on a spinning rock,
you might as well just try
to do everything that makes you happy,
everything that you wanna do,
try to be a good person, and that's it.
- That was so nice and positive.
- It's so true.
- So much positivity without eating bread,
like I need to be like you.
- Yeah, I mean I'm very happy,
but maybe it's 'cause I drink in the day.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
What's a topic that you could talk about
for hours and hours and never get bored?
- I think the Kardashians
are a subject that
I keep talking about,
only because it bothers me
so much that it's
fashionable to dislike them.
It's so fashionable to be like,
"Uh, what do they even do?"
I can't listen to that anymore,
because each of them
have multiple companies
and corporations that they are CEOs of.
The Kardashians are far more benevolent
than any politician right now,
most any politician right now.
And now Kim Kardashian is getting like
wrongfully incarcerated
people out of jail,
to make up for the fact that her father
got O. J. Simpson not in jail.
(laughing)
- You're so funny.
- Do you know what I mean?
Kim's like uh-oh.
- She's like I gotta right some wrongs.
- Yeah yeah.
She's like I can get
murderers out of jail if I...
Yeah.
- What's a common assumption
that's made about you?
- I think people...
Sometimes I'll do shows that
aren't necessarily stand up.
I'll do some presenting and they'll say,
"Now we know you're really mean,
"try not to be so mean and so aggressive
"and so nasty."
And I'm really not.
I mean I don't even
think my standup is mean.
You know if I were a woman singing a song,
people would be able to digest that better
than a woman...
Like as soon as you hold a microphone
and you're in an alpha position,
it's not a man position to be a comedian,
but it is certainly alpha.
You're the only one in
the room allowed to talk
and you're speaking about political things
or just your opinions.
That right away is like
oh well she's really...
Or they think I'm like hard work.
Like hard work?
My boyfriends have not
had hard work from me,
like the worst thing that can happen
to any one of my boyfriends
is that like what,
my driver was rude to them?
My like thread count's too high
on the sheets they sleep in for free?
Like I'm zero work, zero maintenance.
And like I just don't understand why
we get painted with that brush so easily.
I mean it's fine, people
can think what they want,
but I mean, I'm easy.
Easy.
- You seem easy going.
- Yeah.
- Kind, collected, you know.
How much of your comedy and the things
that you speak about, in
the special and otherwise,
how much of that is real, how
much of that is exaggerated?
Because I really would like to know
whether you actually called
your grandmother a whore.
- Oh, well that story is true, yeah.
I didn't know what a whore was
and I overheard my parents arguing.
And the word whore, I
mean, was thrown around.
I didn't know what it
meant, I could tell my mom
didn't like being called
it, and I thought to myself,
well what would be a good
thing to say right now?
So I said to my dad, "Nana's a whore,
"what do you think of that?"
And I was wrong, my nana's
totally not a whore.
And my comparison my mother
definitely was a whore,
so that was my bad on that occasion.
A lot of my special is
definitely true about me,
so I think the challenge
that I've always found
in comedy is to tell the truth, my truth,
and I just try to change like
things about other people
that still tell a central truth.
I always feel like it's the opposite
of what a politician does.
So a politician will tell like tiny things
that are sort of true if you pick them out
to illustrate this big lie,
to help them tell a big lie.
I'm always telling a big truth
and then sort of changing,
like Japan, I talk about Japan,
it wasn't Japan but it was somewhere else.
- [Gena] Oh, interesting.
But I mean, I kinda wanna--
- [Gena] But it's still the same story.
- It's the same story, I
just wanna protect people.
Yeah.
- Do you have a favorite Netflix show?
- Oh yeah, I have so many
favorite Netflix shows.
I really love Dead To Me.
- Oh my gosh, same!
- And I love Christina Applegate.
I've loved her--
- Yeah, she's so good in it.
- She's incredible in everything.
- [Gena] Yeah, that's very true.
- They have a little dance sequence.
Just pulls all her talents out of the bag.
I fully believe that she was like,
"By the way, I'm a great dancer."
And then they were like let's add that in.
She's just such a like,
a child star that didn't
go off the rails.
Just so mentally well by the looks of it.
- What is something that people would be
surprised to know about you?
- I don't know.
I pretty much like, I lay
it out on the table don't I?
- [Gena] Yeah you do to be honest,
you're quite open and honest.
- I am.
I think I'm less fun than people assume.
Or people will say, "I'd
love a night out with you.
"Love to go out drinking with you."
They think I'm promiscuous and I go out
and drink a lot and I'm loud.
I never go out and drink, ever.
If I do it'll be like once a
year for my friend's birthday,
and then I get ejected for dancing on...
I always like to dance up high.
- Yeah so like a table, bar.
- Yeah, but you know, they're like,
"Ma'am, you're in a Greggs."
(laughing)
I just like to dance up high.
- This is a Burger King, please.
- Get out of here.
And I don't, yeah, I've never taken drugs
and I don't like party, I'm just at home.
And that's why I like
to have a glass of wine
at lunch or something.
Yeah.
But maybe we shouldn't tell people that,
maybe they should think I'm fun.
- Yeah, let's keep the illusion.
- Yeah, I'm really fun.
I'm crazy.
I don't even know, like, I
was wearing this last night
and then I just rocked up here today.
Yeah I'm so crazy and fun.
- This was a pleasure chatting with you.
- Yeah, pleasure talking
to you, Gena, thank you.
- Thank you so much, cheers.
- Cheers.
You asked me questions that
no one's asked me before.
- You hear that?
Give me a raise, do you know what I mean?
(laughing)
Thank you so much.
- [Katherine] Thank you.
