Patti Harrison on Brain Chemistry, Barn Weddings, and Eating In Bed

Patti Harrison covers The Bed Issue: get yours here now.

patti harrison cover the bed issue polyester 2025 — When entering a conversation with Patti Harrison, it’s best to do so fortified by the fact that you aren’t – and never will be – funny enough to keep pace. Just because you’ve made a parent or the man taking your money at the bodega chuckle once does not equip you for the undertaking. Take it from me.
Speaking to the 34-year-old Ohio-born comedian, writer, and actor is not just a battle of wits, but one of wills to remain on the rails of reality. Here’s what to expect: There will be rambling sentences that begin in one room and wind up down the road. Every other point will be punctuated by a non-sequitur tinged with a sort of teenage bravado. At times, it’ll feel a feat of Olympic proportions not to succumb to fits and starts of giggles, follow unfurling metaphors into uncharted territory, and the urge to ask: “Are you fucking with me?” But if your nervous system is sturdy or you’ve experienced ego death, you’ll say almost anything just to stretch time.

It’s only been a decade since Harrison got her start on New York’s live scene, but her IMDB credits read like a roll call of comedy gold. In addition to memorable stints on Broad City, Search Party and Shrill, her writing credits include Big Mouth, Dispatches From Elsewhere, and I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson.

Lately though, Harrison has garnered praise for her role as the Watson to Natasha Lyonne’s Holmes on Poker Face and her stand-up – an amalgam of a surrealist performance piece and variety show. Anyone who’s seen Harrison perform live can tell you that she doesn’t deliver a single straight-ahead joke or subscribe to a traditional style of stand-up comedy. In other words, you won’t find her breezing through bored punchlines with a brick wall behind her. She isn’t that kind of comedian.

You might’ve heard of “My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE,” Harrison’s singular skewering of therapy speak co-starring some pretty shocking body horror. The show drew universal acclaim when it was brought to the stage in 2022 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She’s since become a mainstay at the yearly event, helmed a sold-out residency at London’s famed Soho Theatre, and was recently named one of the 20 Funniest Female Comedians by Vogue. Critics have likened her live performances to a “viscerally funny orgy of excess” and deemed her stand up set an “audaciously weird and eye-wateringly lurid hour.”

It’s no surprise, then, that speaking to Harrison is a similar experience. Our hour and fifteen minute conversation violently vacillated between utter unseriousness and complete sincerity. We covered a breadth of topics – from bowling to bed crumbs to bulimia. Enjoy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Polyester: Hi Patti! The theme of this issue is around the bed – aka the place we work, play, sleep, eat, rot our brains on TikTok, etc. That said, right off the bat I have two questions. First, what’s the metaphorical monster beneath your bed?

I think a fascist, authoritarian oligarchical takeover in the very near future. I’m also afraid of the wind blowing and exposing my bald patches. They’re kind of both under there, coalescing at the same time, plotting against me in that way.

Fair enough. Second: What’s in your nightstand that has no business being there?

As far as a nightstand, mine doesn’t actually have a drawer. It’s actually this strange table that my roommate left behind when she moved. The base is like a golden twig statue of birds on branches. But if I did have a drawer, there would probably be a huge dildo that was so big the drawer couldn’t shut and it would stink.

Of course. How else is one supposed to deal with the monster under their bed?

Yeah, it’s not mine. It’s Trump’s… it’s Peter Thiel’s… it’s their dildo.

Again, we all have our vices. Someone once told me I looked like a girl who had crumbs in her bed and they were absolutely correct. You have a dildo, I have cereal bits.

What a strange thing to say to someone. You know what? I’ll tell you right now, sometimes I have crumbs in my bed. I have cleaning people that come over and the last time they did, I was like, “hey, I know it looks like there’s a big shit smear on the sheet, but actually it was a piece of a melted protein bar that I was eating in bed when I was on my laptop, and I didn’t realize it had fallen off, so I rolled around and smudged it into my sheet. These are the ways that we cope. Also, someone being like, “you look like you have crumbs in your bed” in and of itself is giving a secret police mindset. Let’s check that person’s online history. Let’s see what meetings they’re attending. Let’s get a PI to follow them and see if they’re going to any secret Aryan cleanliness communities. It’s a slippery slope from saying that you need to keep your bedroom clean to then becoming a full blown fascist that dictates if people get to eat Sun Chips in their bed.

Policing bed sheets is also just giving loser energy, honestly.

Well, let’s be kind. I think “loser” is pejorative as someone who not only identifies as a loser, but is a loser by birth. Just be a little mindful.

You’re right. The L-slur is now banished from my vocabulary. Recently, I learned you’re from Ohio, as am I. When’s the last time you were home?

I actually went a couple months ago for my nephew’s college graduation. Go Sammy!

Since leaving Ohio after college for New York and then later, Los Angeles, do you find yourself missing it?

I think I was in such a pressure chamber – dying to get out of Ohio – that when I got there…you get to New York and you’re around all these cosmetol – sorry. Cosmopolitan people. I am already exposing my inability to back the point that not all Ohio people are stupid.

To everyone reading this: Not all women from Ohio go to cosmetology school, actually. Some of us become writers and anti L-slur activists.

After spending so much time in New York and L.A. and seeing how corrosive and unproductive that classism and elitism is, I know people might think that it’s a reach but it really is seeded in this judgment of Midwestern people as unthinking, or simply the hoi polloi and nothing more. It really makes me yearn to get away from people who think like that. Even if their [Midwesterners] political opinions aren’t up to date with whatever New Yorker article just came out, they’re speaking with more open chestedness or a curiosity that I kind of miss. I don’t know if you agree, but when you meet other Midwestern people in the coastal bubbles, there is this sense of calmness and camaraderie. I think of you like a comrade. There’s definitely people from Ohio that I wouldn’t want to run into at the Met Gala, where all my friends and family meet now to sit and talk about how we’re going to change the world. But I just feel like my DNA kind of respools when I’m in Ohio.

I was talking to a friend of mine about marriage and because I have so many friends who are so smart, progressive and cultured, none of them want to get married. They think it’s an antiquated institution. Unfortunately, as much as I’ve tried to make myself sophisticated, it’s in my DNA to have a barn wedding. I still am romanced by the idea of it. I think I’m going to have a wall plaque that says, “Nothing can’t be healed with prayer and wine.” Carve that into my back with a fucking pink camouflage bowie knife. Do it!

What was it like to transition in Ohio?

My mindset at the time was, “I’m so depressed I’m going to kill myself.” Then I was like, “Well, if I’m going to kill myself because I’m so embarrassed at the thought of people finding out that I’m transgender, I’m going to write that in my suicide note and tell people I’m transgender anyways.” So, why don’t I just come out and see if it’s as humiliating as I’m worried it will be. Then, if it does suck, I’ll kill myself. But if it doesn’t suck that bad, maybe I’ll give it some time, try on a Jeffrey Campbell Lita boot, and see if that works for me.

Obviously, it didn’t suck that bad. Who or what do you attribute that to?

I was extremely lucky that I had a family that was progressive and supportive – even my mom, who was super Trump-y and very conservative. My mom is from Vietnam, and a lot of people who have immigrant parents from communist countries can relate to their parents absorbing this nationalism that comes with wanting to assimilate into American life. For lack of a better term, it’s a pick-me-ism that goes with trying to escape the feelings of racism that you receive. She moved to the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and because she met my dad when he was an American soldier, and I think she has this idea of American identity that's based in hot dogs, red, white and blue, and Christianity.

I really didn’t know if my mom was going to accept it. But when I came out, my mom was like, “OK what do I need to do? What do you need help with?” I think we don’t really give people the capacity to have a perception shift on an issue if someone in their life that they love becomes a part of that community, right? That requires so much bravery from both parties. I don’t want to make it sound like you don’t have anything to worry about being a marginalized person in these conservative spaces because there is real violence and real prejudice and consequences of friction that you can experience if you’re not in a safe place to do that. I feel so lucky that I had a protective shell of family who were rooting for me and friends who really showed up for me even though they didn’t really know exactly the words to say. I had a lot of bowling bumpers on my lanes that a lot of people don’t have. I love using bowling metaphors when I talk about this because bowling is so fun. And I love that there’s nine pins, and I love how the balls can weigh different weights. And sometimes, when you knock down pins, there’s a really funny computer animated video. They also play awesome music, like hits from the past. Last time I was at a bowling alley, they were playing a lot of the band Chevelle, which was so unexpected.

For a storyteller, I think determining one’s demographic isn’t something everyone’s super concerned with of late, sadly. You’ve previously talked about Hollywood’s penchant for one-audience-fits-all, cynical cash grabs that aren’t actually special to anyone. At this point in your career, who do you think your demographic is?

All the guests in my shows in L.A. and the past couple shows I’ve done in New York have all been like,

“Your audiences are so cool.” They’re so down to go on long walks. They’re really patient and playful. I just feel like there’s a lot of open-minded people who are along for the ride and it makes me feel like I’ve done good work. I think that’s what makes doing comedy right now a bit more appealing than the acting stuff, because I haven’t really given it as many opportunities to play parts that I find interesting outside of being like, “She’s a lesbian, transgender mechanic who’s also a hacker, covered in tattoos, and eats pussy like it’s water. When her fucking alarm goes off, she’s always late and wisecracking.” It’s like, I’m not gay. Why am I exclusively getting lesbian tattooed hackers? What happened in my life where people started seeing me that way? I want to play a coquette, 13-year-old girl who’s late for class and her glasses fall off, and her books fall out of her locker, and when I look up from picking up my book, there’s the principal and he’s like, “Denise, why are you late for class? And I’m like, “Because I am also secretly a lesbian hacker…”

Recently, I watched the Pee-wee as Himself documentary and all the footage of his early stand-up was similar to yours in that it felt like performance art. His audience, too, was so willing to accompany whatever bizarre character he was portraying on any adventure, so to speak. Then, it became mainstream. Do you feel like that success story could happen in today’s landscape?

I think you learn what people respond to and what you are stimulated by through trial and error. And if you meet somewhere in the middle and can make that commercially successful, great. The fact that he [Paul Reubens] was able to do that is so encouraging–that someone who is so weird could make a living off of being such a weirdo. It shows that people don’t need some robotic, empty show written by AI to pass time just to make money. I think we’re at a critical point of people’s attention spans. Their brain chemistry is changing because they’re getting blasted with so much shitty, thoughtless, and soulless content. But I think there is an appeal to taking a chance on people who are more subversive or eclectic. People emotionally connect with art more when you either show someone something new, or you show someone something they’ve seen before but in a new way. I just don’t think there’s a lot of that now. We have a lot of repeat stories. I think remakes should be illegal. No more.

That said, I want to read you this quote from a poignant personal essay on Autostraddle about your impact on this particular writer, Lisa Layman. They wrote: “In an age of predictable, “transgressive” punchlines, she’s blessing us all with regular doses of rebellious comedy that’s actually fresh. Not because she’s trans, but because she’s Patti Harrison.” I think that’s a really beautiful encapsulation of your comedy and your identity as a storyteller. But it also made me wonder, how do you write and perform in a way that feels fresh?

Lisa Layman…that’s my mom. My mom is conservative and a huge Trumper, but she loves to write about my comedy. No, God bless Lisa Layman. That’s so sweet.

Well, how do you?

I was lucky enough to get comedy tutelage from this guy, Anthony Ellison, who’s an improv teacher that I met because he was my improv coach in school at Ohio University. He really taught us about taking two to three steps away from the idea when it came to filling in detail and keeping in mind what the expectations are around that original thing. If you just take a couple steps away, you don’t go with your first idea. So, if the audience says “spaghetti,” spaghetti makes me think of eating, and eating makes me think of bulimia. I would then walk onstage like, “Honey, I saw crust on the toilet. Are you making yourself sick again?” That would be my opening line, which is not funny and it’s why you shouldn’t take comedy advice from me.

Well, I laughed. I don’t know what that says about me.

No one has eating disorders anymore. Everyone is skeletally thin right now because they’re just really paying attention to what they’re eating.

They’re drinking water, they’re getting 8-10 hours sleep…

They’re praying. That’s key.

Patti Harrison covers The Bed Issue: get yours here now.

Patti Harrison on Brain Chemistry, Barn Weddings, and Eating In Bed

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