For Zainab Johnson, convincing people she’s Peter Pan, not Rufio, is taking time

Zainab Johnson has an enticing pair of $1,500 Chloe thigh-high boots to thank for her career in comedy. Seriously.

After moving to Los Angeles from New York to act, she struggled to get a job. While shopping on Net-a-Porter one day, she got a call from a friend who produced comedy shows. The person needed someone to fill in for their assistant who was just fired.

“I knew I wasn't doing …, but I also knew I didn't want to do that,” she recalled.

But she glanced down at those boots, realized that the $1,500 she would get paid for two days of work would cover the cost and said, “Count me in, I will be there."

Those two days turned into six months and she found herself always in the company of comedians at comedy clubs. Still, she didn’t want to take the stage.

“I would watch the process between comedians every week and I would start to write down people's sets, like, ‘Oh I see why he's not doing well in front of this crowd.’ Or ‘I see why he is doing well.’ Or, ‘I know what would have made that better.’ ”

She also began to notice that as she booked the show for six months, very few of the feature acts were women.

“We probably had on three of the same females every week,” she remembered, “a show where the lineup every week is six to seven people. There was not very many women.”

“So the day I quit, I looked up open mics and decided to try it. I went to one close to my house, because if I bombed I knew I could just sneak back into my apartment, and nobody needed to know about it.”

The crowd responded well, prompting her to go to another show the next night, “just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, you know?”

She hasn’t stopped yet.

Many folks’ first time seeing you was on “Last Comic Standing” with sets about being bald and from a large Muslim family, which, admittedly, was unusual for the show. Do people expect you to be talking about something different?

I think regardless of what they think that you are going to talk about, they don't think you're going to be funny. I think that is the biggest expectation, or lack thereof, that you are not going to be able to entertain them adequately. And sometimes that's the case, but you want to know what? That's not because [the comedian is a woman], that's because she's just not funny.

The same goes for men. There's a lot of guys that just aren't funny, or just talk about their bodies, or just talk about their dicks, or just talk about women as bitch, bitch, bitch. But the thing about it is, you get to see 100 of those and so they don't stand out to you. But like I said, you don't see very many women. So, if I tell you I saw three women and 100 men [when I booked shows], I'm going to remember the three women, because they came few and far between, so they stood out to me. And if those women weren't good to me, I'm going to remember that and I'm going to assign that to the entire gender — which is ridiculous.”

How do you combat such an expectation as you’re looking for gigs or other Hollywood ventures?

I never present myself with the thought or expectations of other people. I've thrived on defying expectations. I had a shaved head and I wore my hair in an afro a lot, so people expect the strong black woman thing, but I love to say some ratchet …, just so that you understand that nothing — not my hair, not my look, not one particular joke — defines me. I'm a person in the world, and so the way that I approach stand-up is I tell my story.

Sometimes my story involves the fact that I'm a woman and sometimes it involves the fact that I'm a black woman. Sometimes it involves the fact that I'm from a big family and sometimes it involves the fact that I have body issues. It encompasses so many things that it's just the human that I am, and I hate to say this in interviews… but it is what it is. You either … ]with me or you don't.

And no, I don't have that many vagina jokes, but I am very much on stage how I am in real life. I've worked to be that way, and I think that's the reason why, probably, in the short amount of time that I've been doing it, people [are surprised]. I'd rather talk about the movie I just saw. I'd rather people not know the goings ons of what's between my [legs].

Career-wise, what's the goal? I know you've done some acting and you’re working with Wanda Sykes on a show.

Zainab Johnson (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

I'm still working on making the show, actually getting it into production, getting it on television. It's had some setbacks, but I think ultimately some big goals are being a household name [and] able to do world tours, and I'd like to... This gonna sound crazy and this is no knock to anybody else, but I think I'm a hard cast.

Why do you say that?

I’ve got to star in my own show. I don't play second well. And I don’t say that to come off [arrogant]. I just realize how people start to perceive you and I’m like, “Yeah... nah. It ain’t really that believable for me to be your Rufio. I’m Peter Pan.” So, I settle into that, and sometimes that takes a little while longer… because you’ve got to get everybody else to believe that you're Peter Pan. But I would love to be starring, and producing and creating, my own television show, and shows — I have a lot of ideas. And ultimately, at the end of it all, I'd like to be sitting on a couch with a talk show.

Why a talk show?

I love human connection. I love real topics, but I’d be like the non-qualified Iyanla [Vanzant]. I'll just go ahead and acknowledge that my intro music is going to be like, “She probably shouldn't tell you what to do with your love life, but we're here for it.”

It seems like black women in comedy struggle to make it beyond a certain level. There’s Whoopi Goldberg. And Wanda Sykes has done well.

I'm not saying this because Wanda is a producer for me, but I think a lot of people forget about her when they're talking about the highest. Whoopi didn't gain her highest success as a comedian, but Wanda, as an African American woman, has gained the highest so far as a stand-up. I think sometimes she's looked over because her success came [as] an older woman and, you know, Wanda ain't a sex symbol. She's a beautiful black woman, but she ain't no sex symbol.

The closest we have right now to somebody moving up is probably Tiffany Haddish. But we’ve got to aim high and wherever we get, that's still progress for everybody else that comes after. But I don't want to sit in a room with a person that's like, “I just want to be able to be a guest star.” Or they just want to be in the room. That's not inspiring.

On that tip, what words of advice do you have particularly for black women coming behind you?

I would say stay true to yourself. If you’re the black girl that seems white, that's just what you are. Or if you’re ghetto, or if your content ain't really there, but you got show — do what you do, and do it to your best ability. You’re going to get a lot of no's but you are going to get a couple of yeses, and that's what matters.

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