Sandra Bernhard wastes no time in The King of Comedy. She arrives three minutes into the film, screaming and thrashing in the back seat of a limousine, and maintains the same delirium throughout Martin Scorsese’s uncanny cult classic. Bernhard was 26 when she shot it, having appeared in only one prior movie: Cheech & Chong’s Nice Dreams. Here, she plays Masha, a wealthy misfit who joins wishful stand-up comic Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) in his maniacal obsession with late-night TV funnyman Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), submitting some of the most electric work of her career.
Back in 1983, however, few took notice. The King of Comedy was a notorious flop, stalling at $2.5 million in domestic grosses. It has since become a favorite among Scorsese admirers for its satirical depiction of celebrity infatuation that feels almost painfully ahead of its time. Rupert, like seemingly everyone with an internet connection in the year 2022, desperately wants his 15 minutes even if people will call him crazy when it’s over. Similarly, Masha demands from Jerry the attention she isn’t receiving from the world around her. Neither of them seems to have a job, which leaves ample time to stalk Jerry until they’re satiated. “I always say it was prescient, and everyone thinks I’m saying precious,” Bernhard said during a recent phone conversation. “I don’t think people know what that word means.”
This was only your second film. What did it mean to you at the time to book the role?
It was a very coveted role. Everyone I knew had been up for it. They were looking at a lot of comic actresses, and a friend of mine, Lucy Webb, who was part of a comedy team, had gone in and read for it. She said, “Sandra, you’re so right for this role.” My agent at the time kept saying he got me up for it but never got me up for it, so Lucy Webb called Cis Corman on my behalf, which was very cool. Then I set up my own audition. I went in and met Cis Corman, who was really nice. I did some of the script and then I improvised. She looked at me and said, “I think you need to meet with Marty.” So the next day, I went back and met with Marty. I think I read with Bobby, and they came to see me a couple nights later at the Comedy Store. They seemed to be really excited. Then I didn’t hear back from them for a month, and suddenly I got all these messages on my phone machine saying they wanted to fly me to New York to do my final audition with Jerry Lewis. So I flew in and had my crazy meeting with Jerry. He’s not easy but fascinating. The next day, Cis Corman called me in my hotel room and said I’d gotten the role. I was over the moon.
You said when the movie came out that you felt you wrote about 50 percent of the part yourself. Did you mean that literally, or was that just because it was so improvisational?
Oh, just improv. They didn’t ask me to write anything, but the entire dinner scene where Masha and Rupert kidnap Jerry and bring him to her apartment — I mean, it had an outline, but all that stuff where I was just doing a monologue to Jerry, who was taped up, was stuff from my act and stuff in the moment.
Tell me about your act at that time. What in it confirmed to Scorsese that you were right for the role?
I was very young, and I was full of lots of energy and opinions — not that I’m not now, that’s never stopped. At that time, 1980 or ’81, I was a young woman onstage in the comedy world, which was primarily male dominated, and I was anti-self-deprecation. My whole thing was “I’m not going to be one more woman who puts herself down. Why would I put myself down when I just came out of the whole feminist movement?” I didn’t care what people think or what they want to see a woman look like; I’m groovy and cool and I have my own appeal. So that was where I was coming from. It was a lot of confidence and a lot of breaking all the rules of what women were supposed to feel like and be at that time.
That’s an interesting thread to think about in terms of Masha. Did you approach her as an extreme version of what you’re saying, someone who takes that a bit too far?
Yeah, I saw Masha as being somebody who is very, very confident and didn’t care what anybody thought of her, but she’s also very entitled and spoiled and a little delusional and demanding. I imbued her with all those character traits, and I brought a lot of my own emotions at that time into her as well. When Masha was with Rupert, she was bratty because he came from a lower class and she sort of looked down on him, but he was her conduit to Jerry — so the whole thing was really wacky and funny and completely offbeat.
Before Scorsese was involved, Bob Fosse had considered directing it. According to the internet, he first suggested you for the role. Does that ring a bell?
No, it doesn’t, but out of all the directors besides Marty and John Cassavetes, Bob Fosse was the one person I really wanted to work with and never got to. I got to meet with John Cassavetes — there was just never a role that was right. Marty never mentioned anything about that, and I’d never heard that before, but how fascinating. I never met Bob Fosse.
It could be one of those internet things where the details got muddled together, but that’s out there in the world as some sort of rumor.
Wow! I love that. That’s a new twist I’ve never heard, so that’s fun.
Well, you can just assume it’s true, then: Bob Fosse recommended you to Martin Scorsese, and that’s how this whole thing began.
Maybe at some point, that was part of it, but I for sure auditioned three times. It was really last minute. I think they were down to me and one other actress, and I really don’t know who that other actress is, to be honest with you. But they saw 500 actresses for it — Meryl Streep and Debra Winger. Everybody wanted it because it was such an unusual role. You just didn’t see roles like that for women back then. It had more of an indie-film vibe to it in a certain way. You couldn’t identify it that way at the time, but it was just tailor-made for me, I think. It’s obvious no one else could have done it.
To understand Rupert, De Niro has said he would chase down fans and ask questions about why they were so interested in him and why they were stalking him. Did you do anything like that?
No. I’m so not a Method actress. There’s so much for me to draw on constantly from my own life. I’m a keen observer of people, so I guess that is a method, but I don’t put it in that category. I’m very much in the moment. I’m out in the world. When I hang up, I’m going to Whole Foods to go shopping. I go to the post office; I go to the bank to deposit checks. And I’ve always been that person. When I have a car, I pump my own gas. I’ve never had a full-time assistant. I like to be in it.
One of your co-stars was doing this transformative Method stuff, and the other was this famously difficult personality. Was it an intense shoot for you?
No, not at all. I couldn’t have had more fun. Marty was wonderful, and I think he was tickled by me. I was a kind of person he’d never worked with before, and the script was so different from his gangster films. It was a breath of fresh air for him. Whenever things got a little crazy with Jerry, he stepped in. It was never anything that was going to put me over the edge or trigger me. People didn’t get triggered back then — you just worked through it. As irritating and as annoying and as insulting as Jerry Lewis could be, I still loved working with him. I didn’t care. It’s Jerry Lewis! He’s a legend and an icon and a freak, and I love him.
The phenomenal kidnapping scene in Masha’s apartment — you improvised a lot of that with Lewis, one of the all-time masters of improv. Had you worked out what the scene would be before the cameras were rolling, or were you still improvising at that point?
Marty would go tell Jerry certain things so he’d be prepared and open to reacting in a certain way. I think his discomfort and his squirming was not only the Jerry Langford character — I think it was the Jerry Lewis of it all. He had never been subjected to a woman controlling him and telling him what to do. I think it was metaphorical and visceral, and everything that was happening was a confluence of Jerry’s life and the character. That really wasn’t rehearsed. I just did my thing. Marty would laugh, and Jerry would squirm. We did it several times, and it was just crazy and fun and glamorous and amazing. There wasn’t one moment working on that film where I thought, This is too much for me. In every way, shape, and form, I felt completely at home, completely comfortable with all these people, and in my milieu.
Masha’s apartment is so wonderful with all those candelabras and that dim interior.
That was a brownstone in the 70s on the East Side. I wish I remembered exactly where it was, but that house was amazing. I don’t know how they got it.
How long was Jerry taped to a chair?
He was in it all day, but they found a way to put it on like a cast with tape around it so he could get up and move and go to the bathroom and have a break. The funny story is, when he hits me, originally he wanted me to do a stunt where I spin around in those high heels and fall into the glass table. I was like, “No, I cannot do that.” He kept trying to convince me and show me how. That was the only time I turned to Marty and said, “Marty, you’ve gotta step in here. I am not going to risk my life and health for that.” So eventually it was just me up against a wall and I just fell into a pad. I was in my bra and panties in high heels. I was very skinny, and I don’t do stunt comedy. He was on Percodan half his life because he cracked his back from doing stunts. I was like, “You can do all you want, that’s not going to be me.” But that was the only funny, weird moment where it was like, “Marty, help!”
And Marty’s response was “We’re not going to do that”?
Yeah, he eventually said, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” I think he kind of liked the idea. He would let Jerry quote-unquote direct a little bit to appease him. But that was where I drew the line. Marty knew that was asking way too much of me.
Was the song you sing in that scene, “Come Rain or Come Shine,” in the script?
Yes.
What’s the story behind the handwritten apology note you got from Jerry?
Jerry had come to the set one day and was making fun of my lips. He said I had fish lips. Basically, he was saying I was unattractive. I said to Marty, “That’s fucked up.” So I think Marty went to Jerry and said, “Maybe you should apologize.” He left me a handwritten apology on a yellow legal-pad note. It basically said, “You’re a wonderful actress, you’re funny,” whatever. Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I put it. Maybe someday I’ll come across it in some box somewhere, but I put a joke in my act: Jerry gave me an apology and then came back later and stole it because he’d never want anyone to think he’d ever apologize for anything in his life. It was really cool that he wrote it. The whole thing is just funny and weird.
And the guys who yell at Masha in the street are from the Clash. Do you know how that came to be?
Marty was a fan, and I don’t know if he tracked them down or reached out to them. I guess they were just around, and they were invited to do the scene. It was in front of Colony Records, which was so amazing. They were taunting me: “Street trash!” That was a really fun day of shooting. It was a superhot summer day. We did it over and over again. You couldn’t find that authenticity now for love or money.
Did you party with the Clash after the shoot?
I don’t think so. They went their own way, and I went back and crashed. It was a hot, hot day.
I was also fascinated to learn that Liza Minnelli shot a scene with De Niro that didn’t make the final cut. It feels like a huge oversight to have Liza footage that you don’t include in the movie, but more broadly, I know the two of you are friendly. Is that where you first met?
I actually met her at a screening of New York, New York. We hit it off immediately and connected. To me, she’s one of those bright stars in the sky. You think, I’ll never get to see that star without the aid of a telescope, but when I got to meet her and become friends with her — I mean, to this day, I’ll pinch myself. She’s Liza Minnelli! She’s just one of the most talented people on the planet.
Unfortunately, The King of Comedy wasn’t a big hit when it came out. It has become revered for a number of reasons, and people frequently say you should have been nominated for an Oscar — maybe even won the Oscar. Was there talk at the time of doing some kind of campaign? Campaigns didn’t look as dramatic then as they do now.
No. You know what? They just didn’t do that. I won a National Society of Film Critics Best Supporting Actress award, and that’s usually the precursor to getting nominated, so I just thought I would be nominated. But I didn’t have a publicist per se, and you weren’t plugged into it in that way at the time. Again, it was a more authentic time.
It should have come out a lot sooner. It was shot in ’81 and didn’t come out until ’83. It just took forever to finish it, and that put a bit of a damper on it because I think 20th Century Fox was tired of pouring money into the editing. Had it come out in ’82, I think it would have had a different reaction. The studio wasn’t behind it. That was the problem.
You make a movie with Scorsese and De Niro. After that experience, did you actively pursue a career in movies, or were you focused on stage work?
No, I definitely wanted to do movies. I segued into another movie that was supposed to be a satire about the ad business called Beer. Someone who had been in the advertising world wrote it and was directing it, and I was starring in it. Then we got halfway through shooting, and it fell apart. I got replaced by Loretta Swit. But then it never came out anyway. The script was terrible. The director had directed commercials, but he’d never directed a feature film. As a matter of fact, Rip Torn was in it. He was wearing jumpsuits tucked into boots, and in his boots he had airplane-size bottles of vodka that he’d sip all day long. But we hit it off. I loved working with him. Everybody else in it was just so mediocre, and I’d had the heights of working with the best people in the world, then working with total schleppers except Rip Torn. Now I see why films don’t work. If you don’t have that caliber of talent, there’s no way you can pull it off.
But yes, I was definitely pursuing films and television. There weren’t enough of those kinds of interesting roles for someone like me back then. Look at the films that got made. Women that were cast had to be sexy or docile. That’s why King of Comedy was such an anomaly. You’d never seen a role like that for a woman, basically. Maybe back in the ’20s and ’30s with Carole Lombard or Katharine Hepburn.
Or in Cassavetes movies, like Gena Rowlands’s roles.
Exactly. But he had Gena Rowlands, so he wasn’t going to cast me in a role like Gena Rowlands. Now, between television and film, there are endless roles I can step into and do my thing. But there was that weird lag time after King of Comedy and before I did Roseanne where there wasn’t really a lot of stuff that was a showcase for my talent.
Is it true you were offered Annie Potts’s role in Ghostbusters?
Yeah. I stupidly did not do that. I just didn’t think the role was big enough. It was stupid. My manager at the time didn’t have the chops to guide me and give me good advice. It wasn’t like that was the role you talk about when you talk about Ghostbusters. I do regret not having done that role.
Did you see Joker, and what do you think of the overlap between it and The King of Comedy?
Thematically it was the same, but I didn’t feel it was that much of an overlap. It was so much more violent and crazy. I don’t really feel it was the same at all. It was much more tragic and dark. King of Comedy was dark, but it was a satire.
Is there a defining King of Comedy memory we haven’t already talked about?
I started shooting my scenes on the night of my 26th birthday. What I loved about King of Comedy is that it was shot in order. It was my very first scene, where I jump into the limo and I’m screaming and my hands are there, and the credits roll over my hands on the limousine window. Cis Corman brought me these little white boxer shorts with a French-cuff shirt to congratulate me on getting the movie. That was so glamorous to me. I was so, so skinny back then, and I wore that little outfit very proudly.
Masha does have funny style, especially once we realize how wealthy she is.
I was supposed to still be in private school. It was ill defined — she lives in this incredible apartment, but you never saw her parents.
We never learn exactly why she’s so wealthy.
No, it’s just because her parents are. You don’t have any idea, which I actually love. Why bother? She’s just a crazy, rich New York nut.
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