Jenny Slate Wants to Send You a Message With Her Stand-Up Attire

In the five years since she released her first comedy special, quite a bit has changed for Jenny Slate. The acclaimed comedian, actor, and author lived through a global pandemic and married gallerist and art curator Ben Shattuck in an intimate ceremony, and the two welcomed their first child, Ida, in 2021. One thing, however, has stayed the same. Her immense stage fright has never wavered. 

Not coincidentally, Stage Fright was the title of Slate’s first special that premiered on Netflix in 2019. Featuring diaristic monologues intermixed with documentary-style videos, Stage Fright was a family affair of sorts, a window into where Slate came from and her influences growing up. With her sophomore offering, Seasoned Professional, she gives audiences a slice of her life on Earth as a 41-year-old, and the hour-plus set is endearing, romantic, and a bit naughty. Outfitted in a carefully chosen Thom Browne shorts suit (we’ll get to this later) with her signature nervous energy at play, she talks about everything from giving birth for the first time to getting a humiliating offer to audition for the role of Pennywise, being brave for love, and stalking her therapist.

Seasoned Professional, which is produced by A24 and streaming now on Prime Video, is the comedy special that almost wasn’t. When I ask Slate what prompted her to do a second special after already being hesitant to do a first, she pauses for a moment to find the right words. A few moments later, she gives a refreshingly candid answer: “What made me want to do another one? It’s really hard to know why I wanted to because, honestly, I get such bad stage fright that it was much harder to do this one.” With the pandemic and becoming a new mom, Slate tells me she was feeling tired, overwhelmed, and unsure of herself, and the thought of getting back onstage in front of an audience was unfamiliar and unsettling.