Ego Nwodim

Live from L.A.—where she escaped months of self-isolation in New York—the Saturday Night Live comedian talks about sneaking race into comedy and the digestive silver lining of quarantine.

- By Anna Peele

I’ve heard you talk about the sounds people’s mouths make. Do you have misophonia, the disorder where people are driven crazy by noise?

I have not been diagnosed with misophonia, but I was a biology major. That gives me no credibility as far as diagnoses go, but I’m going to just take it and say that means I can diagnose myself. This is not an exhaustive list, but I am bothered by noises from a person’s mouth that are not talking, singing, laughing, whistling. Like when people are chewing with their mouth open or people whose mouths make…mouth noises.

You created a sketch for the Phoebe Waller-Bridge episode of SNL where the Black anchors of a news show are visibly relieved when it’s reported that the perpetrator of a crime wasn’t Black. It feels like comedy can be a Trojan horse into uncomfortable but important conversations about race.