Maria Bamford says she has more triumphs alongside personal and professional struggles these days.
“The most important thing I like myself. I’m proud of my work,” she told The Hollywood Reporter backstage before going on to perform at the Just For Laughs comedy festival on Saturday night in Montreal. But for a likable, idiosyncratic comic whose mental health struggles and deepest fears have been at the heart of her comedy for three decades, Bamford prefers audiences should know what they’re in for before she steps out in front of them.
“I’m not for everyone. I’m not a crowd pleaser,” explained Bamford, ever the self-deprecating actress and comedian and long an idolized member of the alternative comedy circuit. Her struggles — with depression, bipolar disorder and hypomania, among others — provided material for Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley’s Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story documentary that bowed at Sundance, before landing on Netflix.
Bamford is grateful to Apatow, a fan of her comedy, for making a film about her. And she got to see her late parents on screen, and see much of her own comedic material transferred to the big screen.
But, with Bamford, who has always asked audiences to take pleasure in her complicated pain and been wary of those who might not or don’t, there’s always a but. “To me, I’ve whatever story of mental health stuff so many times before. I’m a little embarrassed. I just go, okay, it’s not that interesting a story,” she said.
