Birthplace: Newton, N.J.
Current residence: New York City.
Family information: Single.
Appearing in: Her own HBO comedy special at 9 p.m. Saturday. Garofalo performs her stand-up act before a live audience at the Hudson Theater in New York City. As with virtually all comics, she draws her material from the topics she knows best, such as being in the entertainment industry, dating in the ’90s and struggling to stay fit. HBO will follow that hourlong program with a showing of Garofalo’s 1996 movie “The Truth About Cats Ch. 7 Dogs” (10 p.m.), also starring Uma Thurman and Ben Chaplin.
On getting her latest TV showcase: “I did HBO’s ‘Young Comedians Special’ about seven years ago, then I did a half-hour special for HBO two years ago, so you get a full hour after that. It kind of goes in steps, but this is something I wanted, a special as informal as when people come and see me perform live. I dress casually and bring a notebook on stage with me, and if something comes up, I just go with the moment extemporaneously.”
On having cameras in front of her while doing her stand-up act: “You’re so overwhelmed, you forget they’re there. Obviously, you know you’re being taped, but it’s not as if you’re constantly conscious of the cameras moving around the floor. I never saw them.”
On assembling her new special: “We taped two 80-minute shows back-to-back, with a 15-minute break in-between, and those were edited down to the 60-minute special. After I was done that night, all I could think was, ‘Boy, am I done with stand-up for a while!’ I didn’t even want to look at a microphone, but I was back at it the following week.”
On her continuation of stand-up work around her movie schedule: “I’ve kept at it pretty consistently. I perform somewhere every other Monday and every other Wednesday at least, then sometimes on weekends. If anything, the stand-up helps me to not be nervous when I’m acting.”
On her current role in “Cop Land”: “It’s a very small part, but it was nice to be in that company. I was glad to have been asked to do that movie, because it’s something dramatic. I’m in another movie called ‘Clay Pigeons’ that will be out next year, and that’s also a drama. I also did ‘The Matchmaker,’ a romantic comedy that comes out in November, so it’s nice to be able to have variety.”
