Sarah Cooper talks about the new original audio “Let’s Achieve Soon” and how to make people (not people, please) happy in comedy

Sarah Cooper’s life has completely changed in recent years.

The comedian, actor, and author gained popularity online thanks to the viral TikTok impressions of former President Donald Trump, and in the process, landed roles in movies, book launches, late-night shows, his own Netflix special, and now. Your latest project, Let’s find out soon: how I made friends and how I influenced people against my will.

The Audible Original, which premiered June 23 and was written and performed by Cooper, is a self-help comedy based on Dale Carnegie’s bestselling 1936 book. How to make friends and influence people.. In his talking memoir, Cooper struggles with how his approach to Carnegie lectures, which he wasn’t particularly interested in at first, changed as the world and his life changed.

Studying these 30 famous principles, which include smiling, remembering names, being genuinely interested, feeling like people matter, praising, not complaining, and never fighting, gave him the opportunity in three very different years (2019, 2020, and 2021). ). See how he connected with people throughout his life and how he moved in different environments, communities and relationships.

This is one of the most personal views of Cooper his fans have ever had, and an enlightening, candid, and funny study of human connection, written at a time when people were trying to learn to pull themselves together. in an interview the hollywood reporterMulti-Hyphenate talks about raising her during a pandemic, cheering people up (but not people for fun) with comedy and telling a story, but this time just with her voice.

You had a career and worked before the pandemic and your social media impressions made you a global comic book actor. But his ascension happened quickly and came at a time when many of us were physically disengaged. How was that experience?

I found it strange because we were in confinement. People say, “Oh, you’re famous.” I say, “No, I’m not.” I still don’t believe it. People recognize me from time to time. I don’t know. I think in that moment I felt like I was being punk. I felt like someone was playing a big prank, you know? When you see people you’ve admired for a long time like Ben Stiller (I’ve loved him for so long and now he’s talking about me or posting my video on Twitter or praising me or wanting to take my course) it’s very surreal and I would say the time whole, he was obsessed with something. If I stopped for a second and said, “Oh my God, I’m working with Maya Rudolph and Natasha Lyon right now,” I wouldn’t be able to do that. I think I should have had an out-of-body experience when I was just allowing my body to go through the motions of doing a job.

Then two years later I said, “Oh my God, I was actually on stage with John Ham and I had no idea what I was saying to him.” This is the hard one. At this point I spent the entire day talking to my husband and dog about these amazing actors and didn’t have time to appreciate it. It wasn’t happening slowly. It happened very, very fast. I had to, and still have to work on it, say, “Well, that’s just a human being. This is just one more person. I can talk to them. I can be normal. “But I’m still not normal. (laughs.) I’m very awkward and very clumsy and I’m working on it.

let’s get it soon Established How to make friends and influence people.But you will get into a lot of personal history. How did you decide what you wanted to say? Was it a particularly difficult story for the reader?

When I write, I write everything at once. I write freely as a stream of consciousness, and many different stories come to me. I’m always so happy to share them when no one will actually read them. So as soon as I think about how people hear and read, I ask, “Wait, do I really have to say this?” I just wanted to say a variety of different things.

I remember a story about a friend of mine who died a few years ago and it was hard to understand: how to share it to respect him and his memory, but also to reconcile with myself. The fact that I felt like I wasn’t a great friend to him and we’re never going to take that opportunity again because he’s not with us anymore. It was hard, but it was such an important part of my life that I really couldn’t help but share this story. My story about a fourth grade boyfriend who broke up with me unceremoniously in public was actually really fun to share because I’ve never shared this story before. And yet it was obviously still very deep in my memory, as I was able to remember a lot of details about it. Weird. Once you start writing these things down, you’ll remember a lot more than you thought.

What was it like working on a project where people could hear your voice but couldn’t see your face, the opposite of the Donald Trump social media comedy that introduced you to so many people?

It was a little scary for me because of my voice and the recording of this audiobook is: nobody likes their own voice. (laughs.I don’t know anyone and of course I don’t, so it was really exciting to talk about these very personal stories and then hear them. I feel like I look at the whole trajectory of my career and I do that a little bit. My first books were kind of cartoon books, then I did videos that were just my face and not my voice, and now I try to act where I need to match my voice and face. It’s as if God allows me to learn one thing at a time. (laughs.) That’s what it looks like.

But I think this is very important – this is one of those issues where when you really feel connected to your voice and being as authentic as possible, a lot can happen. On the performer’s side, the voice is almost everything. So it was a good exercise for me to figure out how to make that sound like I was talking to a friend; How to make that voice as intimate as possible and what is my voice. There are so many people who don’t even know what my voice sounds like and I hope people like how my voice sounds. But he was very, very vulnerable.

With your project and the book it is based on, you find the concept of people pleasant. Do you think comedy can be cool for people but not for people?

A lot of what I’ve done has been successful on the internet, and it’s through approvals, actions and all that information. And you know people liked this article. If people don’t like it, you can delete it and it’s really good. “I did something. Don’t you like it? I’ll take it. You’re right. I’m wrong. ნ It’s scary. “It’s not going to get you anywhere. You want the audience to understand. I want people to laugh. people like it. But at the same time, the only way you can like it and enjoy it is if it’s not what they asked for. They ask me for a Trump lip sync. I did it. I thought it was because he was jealous. You hate it. getting what you want when it comes to art, when it comes to comedy. So that’s the hardest part. Yes, you want to please them, but to please them, you can’t worry about their pleasure.

You’ve been working on this for three years and during those three years the world has experienced a little upheaval. How the content of the last three years has affected your work let’s get it soon And beyond?

In 2019 I was working at WeWork and there were a lot of things that really helped me through my time at WeWork, like introducing myself to the person sitting at the next table, introducing myself to a security guard. . Open mics and meet other comedians and make connections that way. I could do it in real time. I was very lucky because in 2019 I worked very fast. In fact, I’ll be honest, for example, if you start doing something, you’ll start meeting people very quickly. But then it all closed down and I met all these celebrities and celebrities, and I stopped applying the principles to the people I met at the open mic in my neighborhood, using those elements in the filming area and in the writers’ rooms for my special. . , A date with Jimmy Fallon and a date with Ellen [DeGeneres].

I think it all got too loud too quickly. However, the same principles apply. The idea of ​​being genuinely interested is actually knowing what you’re interested in, rather than faking interests, which I feel like I’ve been doing most of my life, just pretending to be interested in something. Hollywood simply says, “I am who I am. This is what I love. That’s what excites me.” And you have to make sure of that. You have to be able to share it because sharing and sharing what you admire is the only way to meet collaborators, meet people who love you too, and grow your audience.

So I think it was a small 2019, a large scale 2020 and then 2021 was more of an adjustment for me in terms of filing for a divorce from my husband and moving on to this relationship and projects like my CBS pilot not going and then another pilot. didn’t come out either. So fit and similarity: “Well, what does it mean now that I’ve had such a different trajectory? Who am I and what do I want? The world keeps doing things to me and I think in a way it’s cool, no matter what, the more it throws me, the more I learn about myself and the better I get with the things I photograph.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Let’s find out soon: how I made friends and how I influenced people against my will Now available on Audible.