On a recent spring morning, when Nicole Byer finished a workout with her personal trainer and started thinking about her busy schedule, she soothed her dog, Clyde, who was “yelling at ghosts.”
She’s juggling four podcasts, preparing a table lead for another piece, and working on testing new stand-up material.
Byer is currently gearing up for what could be one of the most pivotal moments of her career.
She has been nominated for three Emmy Awards this year. Byer is a popular reality or competition program host due to her work on Netflix’s “Nailed It!”, her baking her contest. She is the first black woman to be nominated for She has also been nominated for Outstanding Reality or Competition Program as a Show Executive Her Producer and Netflix’s Stand Up Special for her “Big Beautiful Weirdo” Variety Her Special Her Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Screenplay It has been.
“Give me an Emmy,” she captioned the post of the clip on Instagram after learning of the nomination. (She was also nominated for two Emmy Awards last year.)
Buyer, 35, called himself “the Bob Saget of this generation.” Her image on Netflix’s wholesome “Nailed It!” She has gained an enthusiastic young fan base. Some shout catchphrases when they spot her in public. It could be a bold foray into her observations about sexual exploitation and race, including
She’s the Nicole Byer of her generation — a white suburban dreamer, the daughter of a Barbados immigrant and a Jim Crow Southern immigrant, whose managerial shrewdness made her An entertainer who plans for success. I liked being her.
In the process, Buyer says she’s worked to free herself from expectations of what black women look and sound like. Trying to pretzel yourself into the expected mold is unsettling and akin to a sort of blackface.
“It hurts when you realize — oh, Hollywood understands one type of Black people,” she told NPR. And we don’t have to be one thing, they can be whatever they want, and we just have to be one.”
Buyer grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood in Middletown Township, New Jersey. She credits her mother Lily, a native of Mississippi, for her buyer, who noticed her comedic talent and directed her towards her play. There she discovered the power to make people laugh.
Despite encouraging her interest in theater, Byer said her mother wanted her to follow a more traditional path after high school. After her mother died when Byer was 16, she decided to move to New York City to study her acting. “If she hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have been able to go,” Byers said.
She survived in Manhattan working odd jobs, eating cheap pizza and smoking marijuana with friends. She aspired to be an actor like Viola Davis, or one with enough scope to star in ‘Raisins in the Sun’ or ‘Who’s Scared of Virginia Woolf’ . when she was learning her craft.
After her father died of a heart attack when she was 21, Byer said she was looking for a way to process her grief when she stumbled upon improvisation and began to find her footing. She attended the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater Improvisation School and began her performing arts.
Sometimes the humor on stage didn’t resonate with her. Byer and her best friend, Sasheer Zamata, didn’t always appreciate the cultural references of the predominantly white improvisational troupe. Confusion was often mutual.
“We ride [stage] It refers to things like black churches and R&B,” Zamata said, which may confuse some audiences.
After being repeatedly mistaken, Byer and Zamata began performing throughout New York City as an improvisational group called the Doppelgangers, alongside another black female comedian, Keisha Zoller.
Byer landed the MTV show “Girl Code,” where she and other comedians and actresses offered funny interpretations of the unwritten rules of female behavior and explored grooming rituals such as waxing.
Then I got an offer to perform stand-up comedy at the university. Byer said he was initially reluctant to take on these jobs because he was unfamiliar with stand-up jobs.
Her manager told her her lack of knowledge about stand-up comedy and her reluctance to try it was “like leaving money on the table.” prize.”
Byer said he “crushes” college shows on weekdays and “blows up” LA comedy club shows on weekends.
MTV gave her the opportunity to produce a scripted show. “Loosely Exactly Nicole” captured her life as an unconventional-looking actress in her twenties trying to figure out her adulthood while trying to land her role in Hollywood. In one episode, Byer reenacted her audition, during which White’s casting director told her to sound and act her “Blacker” for the role.
“We’re not like a monolith. I sound black because I’m black,” she said. “When people say, ‘Be blacker and sassier,’ I think…I don’t know, I just want to do me.”
Byer’s show was praised for having a diverse cast in a series that didn’t focus solely on character identities. I was.
MTV canceled the show after one season in 2016.
“I’m really proud to have done a big comedy about fat black girls,” she said.
Criticism about her blackness no longer bothers her, Buyer said.
Last year, when comedian Faizon Love denounced her as a “funny black woman” in an Instagram post, buyers sent people to watch her now Emmy-nominated Netflix stand-up special. “He doesn’t have a Netflix special for me to watch,” she casually said, adding that many agreed with him.
Instead, she’s focused on building an empire, Buyer says. Conan O’Brien’s company, her Team Coco, is now the production base for her dating podcast, “Why Won’t You Date Me?” She plays real estate agent Nicky Coles on “The Grand Crew.” An NBC comedy series with an all-black cast that explores the everyday lives of upper-middle-class people without putting black tragedy at the center. Byer also starred in the recently released movie Mac and Rita, where she starred alongside Diane Keaton and Loretta Devine.
Buyer may not have the business degree her parents would have liked, but she’s mastered being herself.
“My parents would be really proud that I was able to figure it out,” she said. My mother would be very proud of me, she would say: ‘These jokes may not be for me, but they are for someone else.'”
.
