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"When you&amp;#x27;re asked to interview a friend, can you even call it work? The answer is no, as I soon found out, during my conversation with actor and comedian Michelle Buteau of VH1&amp;#x27;s Best Week Ever. Since the last time we discussed the show, it seems Buteau has been having the best few months ever, since she snagged a development deal with VH1 and is starring in an upcoming Fox sitcom about military rejects, Enlisted. All this as she travels around the country doing stand-up comedy and making appearances on shows like The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, Bethenny, HLN&amp;#x27;s Showbiz Tonight, and Comedy Central&amp;#x27;s Key &amp;amp; Peele. Thankfully, she took time out of her busy schedule this week to give me some behind-the-scenes scoop. Comedian and actress Michelle Buteau channeling Janelle Monae during a photo shoot. Credit: Gijs van der Most Glamour: Welcome back to Glamour! How is season two of Best Week Ever going so far? Buteau: It&amp;#x27;s good! The last season was crazy and fun and it had this &amp;quot;What are we doing?&amp;quot; vibe, and this season is more like a well-oiled machine. It&amp;#x27;s nice to see that celebs are more willing to come on the show now because they know what it&amp;#x27;s about. 2 Chains was on last week, and I got to interview [Breaking Bad&amp;#x27;s] RJ Mitte. He&amp;#x27;s smart, fun, cute, from Louisiana, so he&amp;#x27;s down and I was like, &amp;quot;Man, I want to motorboat this dude.&amp;quot; Anyway, celebs being on the show is one of the best parts about it because we get to see them being normal people and be funny. I just want to say that I&amp;#x27;m really excited about this week because we have Taryn Manning on from Orange Is the New Black. She was in Crossroads. It&amp;#x27;s like the poor man&amp;#x27;s To Wong Foo. Taryn was the edgy white girl in movie. Like how Six was on that show...Bloomberg? Glamour: You mean Blossom? Buteau: Yes! I always feel like Blossom was 45 playing 12. She looked like she smelled like tea tree oil all the time. Glamour: In all seriousness, shout out to Mayim Bialik for being great on that show. Buteau: Hey! Keeping it Hebrew, keeping it First Testament all day, every day! [Laughter] Glamour: OK, let&amp;#x27;s get back on track and talk about your &amp;quot;Panties On, Panties Off&amp;quot; segment on BWE, which I feel like is the standout on the show. Was it your idea or did one of the show&amp;#x27;s writers assign it to you? Buteau: It was collaborative. Any comedian will tell you, &amp;quot;I don&amp;#x27;t have any jokes; I just have catchphrases,&amp;quot; so when I was working with the writers, they just asked me about myself, and I told them my mottoes and funny things I like to say. It eventually turned into a thumbs-up/thumbs-down sort of thing. Because of this segment, I&amp;#x27;ve reached the audience in the Midwest. You know, sassy people and housewives who don&amp;#x27;t get out as much. I&amp;#x27;ve also gotten tweets from guys, who don&amp;#x27;t, air quote, like female comedians, but they like me. Glamour: That must be such an annoying compliment to get. Buteau: It is, but I try and keep it moving because Panties On, Panties Off is great and people say the craziest stuff to me. They&amp;#x27;ll come up to me and ask, &amp;quot;Are you the panties?&amp;quot; I don&amp;#x27;t know if I&amp;#x27;m the panty, but it&amp;#x27;s really nice that people can relate to what that phrase means. Finally, I&amp;#x27;ll say the coolest thing was I got nominated for one of Logo TV&amp;#x27;s NewNowNextAward. It was my first red carpet and I had to wear three Spanx. Glamour: We met a few years ago when did a stand-up show together at the Purple Onion in San Francisco, and since then you&amp;#x27;ve done some pretty huge shows. What does that feel like? Buteau: It felt like my wedding: Be in the moment, don&amp;#x27;t forget to look around and take a deep breath, enjoy it. And then it&amp;#x27;s over before you know it and you have all these pictures and video of this great moment. Also, don&amp;#x27;t read the YouTube comments. Glamour: So which of the three late-night sets is the most special to you? Buteau: I think Lopez is the most special because it was the first one I did. He was just really supportive; he let me open for him on the road a few times. It made me think, &amp;quot;Wow, there are people in the industry who believe in women and think they deserve a chance just like the guys get.&amp;quot; Same with Ferguson. The male support is amazing, especially now with Kenan Thompson&amp;#x27;s comments about the lack of diversity on SNL because black female comics aren&amp;#x27;t ready. Glamour: What did you think about that? Buteau: I&amp;#x27;m not going to put all the blame on Kenan. Clearly, there&amp;#x27;s a network, show runner, producers, casting directors, etc., who can say and do something to change this. But also, I think what he said should be a calling to managers who need to believe in their clients more in order to get them out there and in front of the right people. So it takes a village, but at the same time, shame on Kenan for saying that. He should know better and be more careful with his words. Glamour: Tell us about Enlisted. What&amp;#x27;s it all about? Buteau: The show centers on three brothers who are fine&amp;amp;mdash;Geoff Stults, Parker Young, and Chris Lowell&amp;amp;mdash;and in the Army. They were sent to the same base, which is kind of the reject base. None of these people get deployed and that&amp;#x27;s where I come in. Real quick, I want to say that this show is very respectful to the military. As much as it&amp;#x27;s funny, there have been scenes that I watched that made me cry. Glamour: What&amp;#x27;s your character like? Buteau: Private Tanisha Robinson is definitely the sassy, tell-it-like-it-is girl of the platoon. I say things like, &amp;quot;You can call me the fat Lisa Bonet anytime.&amp;quot; Still, the writers also gave myself and the other actors real grounded scenes based on what would actually happen in the Army, so there&amp;#x27;s a nice balance. Glamour: I&amp;#x27;ll be tuning in when it airs this January! Now, everyone at Glamour would be upset if I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t ask you to do an impromptu version of &amp;amp;#8220;Panties On, Panties Off.&amp;amp;#8221; You game? Buteau: Sure! Glamour: Fantastic. First up. It was announced that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler will be hosting the Golden Globes for the next two years. Buteau: I love how NBC is all about female empowerment, boob-shaking funny women. Panties off...because they&amp;amp;#8217;re going to need them off to get into those dresses anyway. Glamour: So earlier this week, Madonna was banned from the Alamo Drafthouse because she was texting during a screening of 12 Years a Slave. Buteau: For real? Glamour: Absolutely. Buteau: Seriously, movies are too long and Madonna is busy ruling the world. So panties off to Madonna and panties on to anyone judging her. She made out with a black guy on a crucifix. Give her a break. Glamour: Last one: Charlie Hunnam dropping out of Fifty Shades of Grey because he didn&amp;amp;#8217;t want all the attention that would come with doing a movie like that. Buteau: Panties on. He should be lucky someone wanted to hire him because he is the poor man&amp;amp;#8217;s Ryan Gosling. Glamour: You&amp;#x27;re too much! Michelle, thanks again for coming in to chat with me. Tune in tonight to watch Michelle Buteau and the rest of the cast in action on Best Week Ever on VH1 at 10 P.M./9 P.M. C. P.S. You can follow Michelle on Twitter: @MichelleButeau P.P.S. And keep up to date with Best Week Ever by going to the website: bestweekever.tv/ "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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