We were lucky to catch up with Molly Kiernan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Molly, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

When I first started performing comedy, I was twenty-five years old. Trying out an improv class was part of what pulled me out of a bad period of depression (along with therapy of course), and it changed my entire life. I soon started working as an assistant in television, essentially re-starting my career, and spending years getting coffees, picking up dry-cleaning, sometimes working for great people and other times being treated pretty poorly — you know, the works. This is also when I started learning how to write and perform, and it took me a really long time to learn how to do comedy well. And even now, it’s still really hard. I used to spend a lot of time feeling jealous of the people who started comedy when they were teenagers and seemed miles ahead of me, and I still really struggle with comparison — there’s always someone doing more than I’m doing, or better than me, blah blah blah. But looking back on my career and my body of work as a whole, I realize so much has been informed by the life I led before doing comedy, and a lot of my success working in television came from being a good assistant — which I learned how to do in other industries, well before I signed up for that improv class. I don’t think everything happens for a reason, but I do think it’s pointless to look back and beat myself for not knowing what I wanted to do when I was young — the confusion I felt in my early twenties is the thing that brought me to comedy, after all.

Molly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a television writer and comedy performer. I’ve written for The Conners (ABC), Lopez vs Lopez (NBC), and Dad Stop Embarrassing Me (Netflix). I can be seen on TV acting in Russian Doll (Netflix), The Conners (ABC), and Real Husbands of Hollywood (BET). I also write for a sketch team called Loveseat at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.

I started working in comedy not long after signing up for my first improv class at twenty-five — something I didn’t really want to do, but I was super depressed and my sister suggested it to get me out of my funk, so I gave it a try. I loved the process of figuring out how to do comedy well, and ended up becoming obsessed. This led me to perform more, start writing sketch and television pilots, and getting a job as an assistant. I’ve spent the past ten years working my way up to becoming a television writer, who also occasionally pops up on your screen to deliver a line or two.

I also still perform improv around LA and am currently working on my own projects. Myself and my writing partner, Kate Shine, have multiple original television pilots, which specialize in taking mental illness and making it funny. We’re hoping to share these stories with the world soon! I also love giving advice to newer writers or assistants working in the industry, so I hope people will reach out!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The “always be hustling” mentality has led me to far more mental breakdowns than it’s led me to success. When I first started writing sketch, I would spend hours crying because I couldn’t figure out how to make my ideas actually work on the page. What I didn’t realize was I just needed time. Not time where I was constantly writing and beating myself up about how bad I thought it was, but time where I was being patient with myself, observing the work of other’s around me, and taking breaks. I still have to remind myself to do this now, but I’m a little better at it, which means less mental breakdowns – hooray!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I think my main goal in writing and performing comedy is to provide comfort for people. Obviously I want to make them laugh — in fact, I have a freakish NEED to make them laugh. But during some of the darker and lonelier periods of my life, my only source of comfort would be my favorite comedies on TV – watching them over and over again when I couldn’t sleep. And they made things so much better — they didn’t just provide a distraction, they provided me with a type of light I couldn’t find elsewhere at the time. If I can provide a tiny bit of light for people, that would rule.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mollybkiernan.com
• Instagram: @mollybkiernan

Image Credits

Stephanie Nelson, Brian Aggrey, Ian Zandi, Matthew Miner, Carly Jane Hoogendyk