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An interview with Carrie Brownstein

Carrie Brownstein is a lot of things: singer, musician, actress. She’s also the newest bisexual woman on the small screen as IFC’s sketch comedy series Portlandia, which was born out of her hit web series ThunderAnt that she and Saturday Night Live‘s Fred Armisen co-created.

AfterEllen.com caught up with the Sleater-Kinney frontwoman to discuss the show, its massive slate of guest stars – yes, Corin Tucker is among them – her interest in the sketch comedy genre and everything about Toni and Candice, their popular former activist, self-involved shopkeepers at everyone’s favorite feminist bookstore.

AfterEllen.com: Was sketch comedy something you’ve always been interested in?

Carrie Brownstein: As an observer, yes. As a kid I was a huge fan of Monty Python and The Kids in the Hall and I loved Saturday Night Live. I’ve always had an instinct to be a performer and I love performing. That’s been true since I was a kid. But I didn’t imagine something this specific.

AE: Do you have a favorite character on Portlandia? AfterEllen.com readers are going to love the feminist bookstore owners.

CB: I love the feminist bookstore owners. Actually, I think Cath and Nance are my favorite as the couple with the dog and the couple with the farm, those are the ones that I love.

AE: How queer is Portlandia going to be considering how queer-centric Portland can be?

CB: I think the show is weird and I think the show is definitely not following the rules of other shows and it’s highly improvisational, so if you consider that queer, than sure. It represents all different kids of people in Portland. There are no characters specifically – we don’t do a lot about sex or sexuality on the show. But there’s definitely a lot of gray areas that we cover. I don’t know – even Toni (Brownstein) and Candice (Armisen) the bookstore owners – Fred and I think they might be married to men, we’re not sure yet.

AE: Really! That’s hilarious.

CB: We’re not sure yet. I can’t wait to see their houses.

AE: Are we going to see that in Season 1?

CB: No, but if we get a Season 2, yeah. The crux of the show is to be absurd and silly so we’re not trying to find an agenda or who we’re representing or not representing. We’re basically playing a lot of different versions of ourselves.

AE: What version of you is Toni, the bookstore owner?

CB: The bookstore owners to me are the ones that like to make rules and think that they’re being really inclusive but actually are excluding almost everybody. It almost reminds me a little of indie rock where you think you’re being really inclusive but really everyone else feels alienated by you. Toni and Candace think that they should be selling books to everyone but really they don’t want to sell books to anyone.

AE: Especially when they lock guest star Steve Buscemi inside the store.

CB: Fred and I have always loved Toni and Candice. We love playing those characters. I love how passive aggressive they are. They’re really wonderful people.

AE: Portlandia will feature a ton of amazing guest stars – Corin Tucker and Sarah McLachlan among them. What can we expect from those appearances?

CB: I think you’ll be surprised at Sarah’s appearance and her role. I can’t talk that much about it but I can say that Corin plays a musician, so it wasn’t that huge of a stretch.

AE: Will Sarah spoof her super-sad SPCA commercial?

CB: No, she’s not. I forgot about those! [Laughing] No, we didn’t make her do anything with animals.

AE: How did you approach landing guest stars?

CB: We wanted to work with people that had always made interesting choices as performers. Someone like Kyle MacLachlan who we loved on Twin Peaks and Steve Buscemi, who is a consummate actor and also makes interesting choices. These people like to explore the weird and the unusual and go to places that are off the beaten path and we wanted to work with people who would have fun with what we were doing, which is very unscripted and it doesn’t follow a lot of rules. The actors are given a lot of freedom to make up their characters and embody their characters with whatever traits they wanted. We just wanted to work with people who were willing to go there and have fun with us. Fred is friends with Aimee Mann but other than that, we’re really cold-calling people.

AE: Lorne Michaels (SNL) is involved as an executive producer. Have you discussed popping into Saturday Night Live at all?

CB: We haven’t discussed it. I really think that those worlds are separate. Lorne Michaels has been a huge supporter of Portlandia and he’s been really generous with it but I think that Fred and I really want to keep this special. It’s its own kind of art or film or comedy project. It exists in its own world and I think it’s important to keep that world kind of rarefied and to keep it a little bit pure. Even though Fred gets to crossover, I’m fine doing this and the music – or something else.

AE: How are you balancing Wild Flag and your new book?

CB: I don’t know. I don’t sleep very much. [Laughs] I really thrive on chaos and I thrive on being busy and work. I don’t do really well with feeling settled or sedentary. I have no complaints. I feel so fortunate. Last year and this year have just been so many new beginnings with so many projects. I would never claim that it’s just not anything but enjoyable.

AE: What’s next for Wild Flag?

CB: We’re about to have another practice session. We tour in March, record in April, album out in fall. I’m staying busy, that means I’ll be happy.

AE: If there’s a Season 2 of Portlandia, would you consider adding gay characters?

CB: I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Fred. Just kidding! [Laughs]  We’re open to anything. What is nice about comedy and about art are those gray areas and not having people be able to project on to our characters into a situation what they want. You have Toni and Candace who may always be ambiguous. Some people will interpret their sexuality one way, and other people another way. I think we’re OK with that area that is a little undefined. That’s what’s nice about art and about creativity is all the areas that don’t fit into specific categories. But of course. We’re always open to having a recurring character that would be gay. That would be representative of Portland and the world and why not?

AE: There’s not a whole lot of that on TV right now.

CB: It’s a valid question. I don’t think Fred and I really think about that much when we’re writing characters. There are so many different ways to index ones identity, it’s not one that we think of when we’re writing the characters so a lot of our characters are straight and married and whatever. Certainly, I think there’s plenty left to explore and we want to represent everyone and be inclusive of everyone.

Portlandia premieres Jan. 21 at 10:30 p.m. on IFC.

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