Heather McMahon knows she can share too much, but she uses comedy in her own life

Heather McMann is convinced that you can learn a lot about the community at any Chili’s airport location.

It’s peak people watching and there also happens to be mozzarella sticks, lava cake, margaritas and a salsa trio with chips. For McMahan, it’s about the benefits of getting around the country and her love of travel. What’s more, it fuels McMahan’s love of observing ordinary human beings who are “funny, silly, troubled, unfiltered, messy, right and wrong.”

“Yes, you’re on the road, writing material, performing all the time, honing your craft, but you also have to go sit at Chili’s sometimes and just eat a mozzarella stick and a margarita and wonder, ‘What is life?'” McMahan said. “Because you can immerse yourself in your own story and your own stories – all the time, you get to get out, that’s why I travel a lot… I like to just live life [because] You’ll never get new material if you’re not out there making mistakes.

McMahan’s Bamboozled tour, coming to the Orpheum Theater on November 1, is her third national tour and she tackles new material that she adds, builds and moves with each show, sometimes changing from city to city. The comedian and actress has had two comedy specials in recent years, including Netflix’s “Son I Never Have,” where she talked about her journey with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and Hulu’s “Breadwinner.”

The Times caught up with McMahon to talk about her tour, the intersection between comedy and politics, how she lets her emotions out on stage and how she thinks about authenticity.

What are you most excited about being involved in this upcoming set of shows that you have?

I’m having a lot of fun on this tour. It’s my favorite set of materials. The Bamboozle tour was lights out, out of control, and obviously played some of my favorite cities. I’ll be playing Dallas, and I’ll be back in Lexington, Kentucky, where I filmed my first Netflix special. Now I’m going back to the Orpheum in Los Angeles, which is one of my favorite places ever. I just had fun. My first comedy special was about losing my father and I twisted it in a comedic way. And then the last special was about the ins and outs of my first year of marriage and my big honeymoon, and this very big wedding. And this is really just a mixture of the most vulnerable people – in a very funny way.

People don’t always want to talk about politics, and I decided to get involved in that fight a little. What gives you the confidence to go out there and try to make a joke about the space we’re in?

I’m not talking about the actual politicians themselves. I’m talking about the social circles that we find ourselves in and move around in, and we’re all bouncing between families and getting crazy phone calls in the middle of the night from your old sorority sisters and that kind of thing. I can really only talk about it from my perspective and my perspective and also from a female perspective, and as a Southern woman I’m very outspoken, and I like to make people laugh. There’s a lot of humor, because I know that all the things that are said at the country club are also said in other people’s circles. And it’s like I’m saying all the things you might say in your mah-jong group, but I’m saying them out loud.

How do you think comedy can actually help people understand and understand politics and policy?

My whole job is to be an observer and then take the things that make us uncomfortable, or the conversations that might make us feel uncomfortable, and talk about them, right? You have to rip the Band-Aid off and have these conversations. I may not say the right things all the time, but at least I’ll tap into that little voice in your subconscious like, “I feel this way too.” And then, if we look at the layers of the world that we live in, especially America, it’s so crazy, it’s like we’re in an episode of Veep. It’s written by a genius comedy writer, but there are also the scary elements of what’s actually going on. And some days I have to go outside the theater and touch the grass and wonder, What’s really going on? But my whole job is to say the things we all feel, or maybe we all whisper in our friendship groups, and explain them on stage so people can absorb them and laugh at them. This is the human condition. This is us all coming together and wanting to laugh at the silly, outrageous, and uncomfortable things, because we’re all going through it together.

How would you describe Southern humor versus, say, Hollywood humor or New Yorker humor or Midwestern humor?

There’s little Southern humor, you know, we always say we don’t gossip in the South, we have prayer requests. We have a really interesting way of making you think about things and not realizing that we said the thing right in front of your face, but in a real sweet Southern tone. I don’t want to say that we all have a different sense of humor, but I know that Southern women can get away with saying a lot of in-your-face statements that you didn’t even realize they just said, like New York humor, they might be a little bolder and say it right back to you. Southern Humor Sometimes you gotta sit back and go, Did you just insult me? And you say, yeah, yeah, I did that.

How does your grief affect your comedy now?

Sadness never ends. It’s always changing. And when you think you’ve gone one step further, you retreat and go back to denial, right? I try to call my deceased father every tax season and say, “Okay, he’ll know if this is a write-off or not.” Then I said, oh, he’s been buried for 10 years. He tells me comedy, because life is life. Really, there are days when you’re just trying to keep your head above water, and you’re just trying to figure it out, and grief for me hits me in the wildest, strangest places. I could be at Costco and get a rotisserie chicken, and for some reason, it’s the fact that they haven’t changed the price of hot dogs at Costco concessions. You know, I’m like “My dad and I used to come to Costco and get an apartment full of computer equipment for his office” and now here I am eating a rotisserie chicken and a $1.50 hot dog and a Diet Coke and I’m losing my energy. It hits you at the most random times.

When it comes to grief, your marriage, and how you think about your own life, what have you had to learn to unlearn to get to this point?

As a comedian, I feel like we have the healthiest way to deal with — because immediately, once we feel it, I feel like I can wake up that night and deal with that in a comedic way, deal with those emotions. I don’t think there are any feelings I haven’t released. There were probably some feelings and thoughts that I should have kept close to my chest, but for me, the way I’ve really healed in anything is to get up and make a joke about it, and get up and talk about it. If I can connect with an audience member who is also going through the same thing, or has gone through this, like my meet and greets after shows, where men and women come up to me, say, “Hey, I lost my father,” or “I went through this,” or, “My husband does the same thing,” that’s why we do this. It’s that human relationship. So, being able to say what I want on stage, and get rid of that feeling, I don’t think I’m holding anything back.

Your Hulu Show was released last year. Have your ideas about what it means to be a breadwinner in your family changed at all?

No, it hasn’t changed. I have girlfriends who may not make as much money as their husbands, or vice versa, and everyone there is trying their best and trying their best and burning the candle at both ends. I’ve found moments this year in particular where I’ve really started saying no to some things. There is power in saying no. There is power in slowing down a little. There is power in taking care of yourself. I felt like early in my career, I had to hit so hard, while the iron was so hot that I had crippling sciatica down my legs, because I jumped on so many planes. I’m lucky to be a million miler and a 360 Delta member but there are moments when I feel like I could really take this weekend off and take care of myself and take an Epsom salt bath. So I think there are moments where I feel like it’s good to take care of yourself and it’s good to say no to things. We don’t always have to be on top. It’s okay to take one for the team and chill out.

How do you filter yourself when it comes to knowing what to share and knowing what not to share?

I’ll tell you this, my therapist definitely told me to pull the reins. I will always share my story and what I’m going through. I won’t share things about people I love, or what’s going on in other people’s lives, I’m very protective of that. But my story will always be up for grabs. Of course there are things I keep close to my chest but I always share them after I go through them. When I was going through IVF a few times and all these failures, I talked about this privately, and then I also talked about it online and I talked about it on my podcast. I’m exaggerating, period. I’m funny. If you ask an actor, they won’t tell you anything. Then they go on a press tour, then they say three things about the character and the project they’re working on and then maybe you get some routine beauty advice. The comics are like, I’m literally going to bleed on stage and tell you my deepest, darkest fears.

How do you define authenticity for yourself?

I’ve been myself since day one. And I never had to do any kind of formal training on how to shed my layers and be me. I was out of the gate myself, and yeah, I played a lot of online characters, and that’s how I started. I was wearing a lot of wigs and playing a lot of different people. But from the jump, it was always about me. And the joke was always on me, even as I said, talking about politics. The joke is, how did you do this? How did I misinterpret something? It always came back to me. I think I let myself down when I’m performing, when I’m being creative, and I don’t think I ever hold back. I think I hold back a lot when I’m interviewing people on the red carpet, because I know I have to be nervous, and it’s about them. There are moments where I’m interviewing someone, and then off camera, we’re having a silly conversation that I wish was on camera. And I really wish that wasn’t on the Internet, you know? But it’s always been me, period.