Hello there! This week I interviewed Commarrah Jewelia Bashar. She’s an improviser, actress, writer, and dancer from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to her webseries Barely Managed, she is preparing to play Cleopatra in a crowdfunded production of Dante’s Inferno. But mostly, she’s just a super interesting person. Just read the interview and find out, you dummy!
COMEDY CAKE: So, Commarrah, you are a self-described nerd. What was your first love?
COMMARRAH J BASHAR: My first love is what I consider to be David Lynch’s magnum opus–Dune (1984). I’ve seen that movie about a million times throughout my life and can quote it to The Maker and back. I live for abrahamic religious texts and I adore good prophet journey or religious based sci-fi or fantasy. I’m hoping to recreate a Fremin stillsuit using similar methods that the costume designers for the movie did, just for fun. Although wearing it is going to suck because it’s like being inside of a tire, essentially, but whatever. What’s cosplay if you’re not getting smelly?
CAKE: Do you try to integrate nerd culture into your stand-up?
CJB: I don’t do stand-up so much anymore, but when I was active, absolutely. One of the toughest things someone doing stand-up for the first time can face is resisting the shock value junk and low hanging fruit. To avoid sounding like every other frat bro and jaded lady, I would talk about how when my fiance proposed to me with Spider-Man Annual #21, I double checked to make sure it wasn’t the variant before I said yes. People really responded to that. P.S. It wasn’t the variant.
CAKE: What comic book character do you think would make for the best comedian?
CJB: I’d really like to hear Galactus do a one joke set. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” beat “It doesn’t matter because I consumed his world.” Cut to: Empty–but for a very sad, slow clapping, Silver Surfer–comedy club.
CAKE: What birthed the idea for your webseries “Barely Managed?”
CJB: A little over a year ago, I was auditioning for so many poorly written characters that I hated and getting nowhere fast. There were calls for prostitutes, angry friends, and cops but I couldn’t find a character fitting my description in the trades that got into fights about Marvel vs. DC. My manager kept telling me that she believed in me, but that she needed to show casting directors something of what I could do. I felt really stuck and angry. Then one of my very favorite web series–Husbands–got picked up by the CW seed program. I had been to panels at New York Comic Con to hear Jane and Brad speak about their experiences making the show and what it was like crafting characters that they just didn’t see on TV. I used a lot of what they said to guide me. Another thing that helped me to create the show was contemplating what life would be like if I just nerded out as much as I secretly wanted to. When I meet people who’ve created my favorite fandoms, I can’t really act as nuts as everyone else because I one day hope to work with them, so there’s a huge part of me being stifled. I wrote about what it would be like if I just let loose until I had something to work on with my best friend and co-writer on the project, Robbie Olson.
CAKE: It it anything like your real-life experience with your actual manager?
CJB: Yes and no. Annette, my real manager over at Multi-Ethnic TalentΩ and Promotion Inc, has guided me over a lot of roadblocks that Anita guides Gen through–hair, diversity showcase auditions, etc–and she’s more blunt than Anita about it. But where Gen can’t see where she’s made a misstep, I’ve sought mine out actively. I don’t want to be an unknown forever, and Annette knows that I’m willing to work for it. Plus, Annette is a closet nerd. Literally, the woman has a closet full of I Love Lucy memorabilia, tons of old TV guides, and a costume from Return of the Jedi that says Revenge of the Jedi on it, because Lucas hadn’t changed the title yet. She gives you something special from her collection when you’ve made your first major booking. Which reminds me, Alyssa Weisberg if you’re reading this, I speak Klingon. Holla at me.
CAKE: When did you realize that you wanted to be an actress?
CJB: I was twelve and I went out for The Pajama Game because my choir teacher, Karen Corigliano, made me do it. At the time, I was convinced I was going to be doctor and that acting was stupid. Then, I was cast as Gladys and the experience changed me. I felt 100% myself on stage, but even after that discovery I tried to suppress it. I grew up below the poverty line and acting doesn’t get you above it. A few weeks later, I was on a Will and Grace kick when I found out Debra Messing had gone to New York University Tisch School of the Arts for acting and I was like “Hold up. You can go to college for that?!” Degrees equaled money to me at that age, so I then set out to create a worthy resume, knowing that public school and inability to afford acting classes would set me back. At one point I had three jobs, was taking classes at the local community college though still in high school, and was working on two shows. A few years later, I got into Tisch. I still don’t make any money, but it was worth it for the hustle.
CAKE: How did you get involved with the upcoming “Dante’s Inferno?”
CJB: Well, if you watch the Kickstarter video, you’ll see a large white man talking about how he’s doing the foley from scratch–he’s my older brother, Richie. He’s in a metal band called “Tribal Law” and Alex Moore, the director of Dante, is a long time fan of theirs. Shortly after he hired my brother to do the foley for Dante, he produced a show with them as the headliner. I went all the way back to good ol Utica, New York just to thrash out front row. My brother kept saying “You gotta meet this guy, he’s a total nerd too. I think you guys would get along great.” When we met, Alex asked me a billion questions and we bonded over mutual love of Gaiman and Tolkien immediately. He asked me what my interest in the film was and I was like “Oh, I think it’s so cool that my brother is helping with it” not realizing that he was asking if I was interested in being in it. Then out of nowhere he says “You wanna be Cleopatra?” and I just stood there all slack jawed. Of course I want to be Cleopatra, who doesn’t? I’m pretty sure even my brother wanted to be her, but he’s too self conscious about his fuller figure. It’s a shame really.
CAKE: How are you preparing to “be” Cleopatra?
CJB: Since the movie is a way out from shooting, I’m focusing on physical training/physicality right now. I’m not your run of the mill Cleo, who’s used to reclining on a divan and burning the beer calories off with sex. This Cleopatra VII Philopator has been in hell for quite some time in the circle where there’s constant hurricanes. I imagine her arms are huge and that she’s about a league more ferocious about being in power since she’s long since lost hers in such a total way. In a few months when I’ve made it through being in a A Klingon Christmas Carol with Arts Nest, I’m going to start doing more historical research and finding out what her day to day was like. Until then, I’m swinging kettlebells.
CAKE: If you could play any character from history, or fiction, who would you crush it as?
CJB: Marvel universe Loki and it would be worth all the fanboy vitriol I’d get for it. Everyone is freaking out right now about Thor being a woman, but there was a run where Loki came back in female form and to me that’s far more interesting. Thor appears largely cisgender in comics and in his Norse mythos, whereas Loki is a shapeshifter. Thor was made give up his powers to a female and in the 90’s was even made female against his will as a way of shaming him. Loki elected to be female. Inherently that adds a latticework of nuance to the character and a level of blatant gender norm slappery that I’m dying to explore. Plus, I know very well what it’s like to be multi-racial, angry, and just trying to find your power in the world.
CAKE: Who are your favorite actresses/actors right now?
CJB: Right now, I’m rewatching Star Trek: Voyager for the first time since I was a kid and I’ve got to give it up to Kate Mulgrew. She is the light, the day, and the reckoning as far as acting is concerned. To take a would be a stereotypical woman thing to do in getting lost while driving basically and turn it into a breathtaking and believable character arch makes me just want to cry. “Counterpoint” is my favorite episode for that reason because it explores the depth of that burden. Yes, there’s this attractive man who’s in a similar position of power and responsibility, yes there’s attraction, but at the end of the day Voyager comes before everything else. Even Captain Janeway’s gut rending loneliness. You’re only privy to glimpses of throughout the series, but in that episode it’s overwhelming, though acted so subtly. I invited her to audition for Anita, but she didn’t respond. I’m hoping i can get her involved in season two.
CAKE: Lastly, what’s your ideal breakfast?
CJB: That’s a great question because I plan breakfast like Mary Fiore plans weddings. Eggs norwegian, but on a whole wheat mini waffle instead of an english muffin and a side of duck confit over a frisee salad with walnuts and apple. Keep the mimosas coming during. Strong, black, french press coffee as a digestif. It would all be served on a silver platter by two gorgeous men dressed as Spock and Kirk. After breakfast, they would engage in shirtless hand to hand combat while I watched from a bed that was also somehow a perfectly temperate bubble bath, and massage chair. A young Kyle Mclachlan plays harp the entire time in the corner. That’s a damn good breakfast.
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