Ilana Glazer reveals all about Broad City

Ilana Glazer talks about Broad City which can be seen on Comedy Central in the United States and 4Music in the United Kingdom from 10PM on July 6th.

What brought you together with Abbi and was your first impression of her?

I just thought Abbi was Abbi and I loved her. When I met Abbi I felt an instant contact. I thought Abbi, was first of all, just bad-ass and very cool. The voice of the show is really the middle of our two individual voices. From the beginning, Abbi and I were like, we don't have to worry about anything. It was never like, oh, we disagree. It was that unconditional support thing. There was an instant trust.

What were your aspirations before you met Abbi?

I was a total comedy nerd growing up with my brother Eliot, who's a comedian and on the show, and we used to constantly film sketches. From a young age we'd watch Comedy Central, and I would also go into the city and see the alt-comedy scene happening around me and think, "Aw man, I wish I was there." I was a teenager when UCB popped up, and when my brother went to NYU, I thought, "I'll go to NYU and we'll join the scene together." I also got really into Stella, the Tank, Riffi; it was a very lucky time to see that there was an alternative to SNL or comic clubs in New York.

How successful was the web series?

During the web series we never went viral. It was always just the quality of viewers. We just started to get a great response from our community - the comedy community in New York - and that was enough to make us feel like it was something good and relatable and that we should keep making them.

How did you get Amy Poehler on the finale of your web series?

One of our teachers at Upright Citizens Brigade had been one of Amy's students. We asked him if he thought she would ever be interested, and he said 'I'm going to write to her.' So he did, and she had seen the web series already and really liked it and wanted to be in the finale.

How did she become the executive producer for the TV series?

We emailed Amy and we were like, 'This is crazy, you're so busy, you're like a literal comedy-acting rock star, but if you are ever interested, we wrote a pilot, we have all these episodes and we're planning to take the show out in August' - it was May - 'if you were ever interested in producing a show and wanted to be an EP on this show, we'd love to have you. Please.' She wrote back and said yes. It was so nuts.

What was the transition from the web to television like?

There are way more characters and plotlines now, where there just used to be a a little vignette of a story. Now there's so much more detail.

How did Judd Apatow films influence your comedy?

Movies like The 40-year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up came out during a really formative time for us - high school, college years. There's like acute elements and then more diffuse, everywhere elements - like challenging the characters to talk the way we do in real life and using slang that we're using right now and honestly "the kids" are using right now. We'll put that into the show....

Courtesy of The Box Plus Network