“I can be pretty harsh and judgmental. I’m a very harsh and judgmental person. I like morals, right and wrong. I like to see things in black-and-white when I can, so I will hold a lot of guys to an impossible standard.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m a middle child, so I have middle-child syndrome. With a middle child, you always have to take in everything and adjust and maybe compromise a little bit so you’re able to see both sides of an issue. I’m also a Leo – I love astrology – so that affected me, just being a lion.”
― Jessica Williams
“I first fell in love with comedy when I’d visit my granny as a kid. Trips to her house meant staying up late drinking Coca-Cola and watching ‘Saturday Night Live’.”
― Jessica Williams
“Get more confidence by doing things that excite and frighten you.”
― Jessica Williams
“I don’t think I’ll ever be a housewife.”
― Jessica Williams
“You can learn so much just by observing.”
― Jessica Williams
“I always feel like I’m warring with my womanhood and wanting the world to be better, and with my blackness – which is the opposite of whiteness.”
― Jessica Williams
“Sometimes, you feel like, ‘Am I going to be upset about this as a black person or as a woman first? Or am I gonna be both?’ Because some things inherently affect black women; some things affect you as a woman and not a black person; and some things just affect you as a black person.”
― Jessica Williams
“It’s impossible to be perfect, and you won’t do a good job if you’re too focused on proving yourself to others.”
― Jessica Williams
“I grew up hearing, ‘You’re pretty for a black girl,’ ‘You speak well for a black girl…’ I was really bookish. I was reading all of the time. I had big glasses.”
― Jessica Williams
“Some days, I do feel that pressure of, ‘What do I mean as a black woman? What am I representing?’ It honestly just gives me anxiety.”
― Jessica Williams
“I loved doing ‘Frisky Business.’ I didn’t come up with it. I think John Oliver and the writers did.”
― Jessica Williams
“It’s cool to see a woman be like, ‘This is what I want – this is what I don’t want.’ It’s good to see someone making choices for themselves.”
― Jessica Williams
“When I talk about feminism, sometimes I feel like being a black woman is cast aside.”
― Jessica Williams
“There are a lot of podcasters that are females of color. And I think that we should be allowed to tell a very specific kind of story. And if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. But if you do, enjoy the tea! Sip that tea.”
― Jessica Williams
“We’re all trying to catch up with Beyonce. We’re all running a race, and Beyonce is up there, and we’re all just trying to run and get there. That’s my motivation.”
― Jessica Williams
“For me, so far, confidence has been a journey, not a destination.”
― Jessica Williams
“I want to write and direct and kind of do my own thing.”
― Jessica Williams
“As far as diversity’s concerned, there’s me, there’s Al Madrigal, there’s Aasif Mandvi. But I’m not walking around feeling black all the time. That would stress me out.”
― Jessica Williams
“There’s truth in comedy, and that resonates with people of all races.”
― Jessica Williams
“You don’t have to be African American to really enjoy ‘Frisky Business’. But as far as being black, a lot of people in New York have been stopped and frisked, so that hits home for them.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m a young correspondent, so sometimes I’m just young. Sometimes I’m just straightforward.”
― Jessica Williams
“Ultimately, when I deliver something, a lot of times it will be from a black woman’s perspective, but other times it will be just from a satirical, goofy perspective.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m six feet tall. No one realizes that because on ‘The Daily Show’ I’m usually sitting.”
― Jessica Williams
“Basketball would have been the natural sport to play, but it’s a little too aggressive for me, so instead I dabbled in volleyball and some good old-fashioned Roller Derby.”
― Jessica Williams
“My favorite place in the world is the Harry Potter tour near London.”
― Jessica Williams
“The last thing I do before bed is think I should take my contacts out. Then I fall asleep.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think it’s really progressive to talk about race in relationships. I think there is so much room for that, and there needs to be more of it.”
― Jessica Williams
“I was always told that I acted too white. I was always told that I was going to date a white guy – which, in fairness, was true: I do have a white boyfriend. So they weren’t entirely wrong, but all of those things were really damaging.”
― Jessica Williams
“I read so much Harry Potter, that’s, like, all I wanted to talk about. I watched stuff like ‘Lizzie McGuire.’ I watched things that were very mainstream but white, and I went to a predominately white school.”
― Jessica Williams
“Allison Jones, a big casting director out there, was like, ‘They’re casting ‘The Daily Show’ right now – you should submit a tape.’ I remember leaving school to go shoot an audition.”
― Jessica Williams
“As an executive producer, I feel really lucky.”
― Jessica Williams
“Me and Cate Blanchett have the same job, technically.”
― Jessica Williams
“I don’t really like conflict at all, and I really find conflict pretty devastating. I try to avoid it at all costs.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m always battling how to be in a relationship while simultaneously maintaining my independence and my career.”
― Jessica Williams
“When I was a young lady, I never fantasized about getting married.”
― Jessica Williams
“I enjoy romantic comedies in general. I like them when they’re bad, I like when they’re good.”
― Jessica Williams
“Some days I’ll be like, ‘I didn’t do anything great today,’ and I’ll be bummed. And some days I’ll wake up, and I’m like, ‘I am the dopest woman to exist on Earth’.”
― Jessica Williams
“There’s milk-and-cookies Grandma, and there’s Colt 45 and Atlantic City Grandma. She was the latter.”
― Jessica Williams
“Oftentimes, as women and women of color, we are put as supporting characters in other people’s narratives. With ‘Jessica James’, she is the star of her own narrative.”
― Jessica Williams
“I had to get used to seeing Samantha Bee around. I had to get used to seeing Jon, like, getting a bagel, and to John Oliver, and all these people whom I had seen on TV. Colbert would sometimes drop by. I had to get used to being a part of this multiple-Emmy-winning machine and being this 22-year-old black girl who was really green.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m a young person; sometimes I’m political, sometimes I’m not.”
― Jessica Williams
“I was doing a college show for the first time, and there was this 20-year-old gay male who’s been diabetic his entire life. He said, ‘I really wanna get into stand-up.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God, do you realize how interesting and inherently funny you are? Go do all the comedy that you wanna do.’ I care about that.”
― Jessica Williams
“The color and the diversity dies out, and it gets whiter and whiter, and that’s in any field. There is also this idea that there can only be one gay person or there can only be one Asian-American woman in the office, and so it also perpetuates itself where we are isolated, especially the more successful we get.”
― Jessica Williams
“Oh, I’m obsessed with the Kardashians. Not the way that I think a 13- or 14-year-old girl would be, but I find them fascinating. They are so rich. They are also, at the end of the day, women of color.”
― Jessica Williams
“Don’t try to fix anyone, especially not a dude. They’re not going to change.”
― Jessica Williams
“I focused on my career. I grew up super Christian, both my parents are ministers, so I did a purity ceremony when I was a teenager.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think great comedy comes from the oppressed. It comes from feeling like you’ve gotten punched up in a way.”
― Jessica Williams
“People have their guard down when they’re laughing, so they’re open to tougher conversations they wouldn’t necessarily have. If somebody is guarded while laughing, they’re a weirdo.”
― Jessica Williams
“Really, laughing is such a strange reaction to something. The idea of it is so bizarre, so instinctual, and kind of magical.”
― Jessica Williams
“That’s how me and my friends are. We love our personal relationships, but we have things we want to accomplish.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think we need to not speak over black women, not assign them labels.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think people have a lot of layers. I know I do in particular.”
― Jessica Williams
“With ‘2 Dope Queens,’ we get the opportunity to love and enjoy each other and have fun being best friends and being women of color and talking about our personal experience. Also, we give an opportunity to elevate voices for many different people that otherwise would not get such a large platform.”
― Jessica Williams
“The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days, I wake up, and I feel really black. Some days, I’m like, ‘This is me. I’m black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin.’ I just feel it’s my being.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think that’s what’s so great about ‘Jessica James’ is you get to sit back and take a moment and realize that this person is black. And some days, this character wakes up and feels black, and some days, she doesn’t. That is, for me, a fully black experience.”
― Jessica Williams
“My parents have always been very supportive.”
― Jessica Williams
“I live in Brooklyn; I live in Clinton Hill. I love it there.”
― Jessica Williams
“I feel like acting is sort of like that: You’re getting so many ‘no’s all the time. It’s just a bunch of no’s and a couple of cool yes’s. And especially with comedy, too, when you’re up on stage, doing live shows, you get immediate yes’s or no’s.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m always thinking about what a black lady would think about what I’m doing, just because I feel like they have such great taste, mostly because as black women, we’ve spent a lot of time downloading what a white male narrative is, so in my head, I’m like, ‘If a black woman likes it, if she responds to it, then it’s probably pretty damn great.’”
― Jessica Williams
“I have never been a ‘hair person.’ Growing up, my mom and my sister, who loved to get their hair done, would always give me a hard time about not getting mine done.”
― Jessica Williams
“I ended up living in braids. It was the ’90s – thin braids were very popular – and my mom took me to a lady’s kitchen. I got it done, and I’ve never stopped.”
― Jessica Williams
“My natural hair is who I am. I have lots of braids, and I have lots of twists, but it’s all very low maintenance. I feel like I can get up and go and get out of the house. I just don’t have it in me to get my hair done all the time.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m a tomboy, but I really love doing my makeup – I find it relaxing and grounding. With ‘The Daily Show,’ it was easier for me to do my own makeup. In the beginning, I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials. You find a beauty blogger who has your skin tone, and pretty much everything they use will look good on you.”
― Jessica Williams
“I started ‘The Daily Show’ when I was 22. I was going to class at Long Beach.”
― Jessica Williams
“I thought I was going to be hired as a contributor, but ‘The Daily Show’ was like, ‘Nah, it’s an election year, we want you to come over here and work full-time.’”
― Jessica Williams
“Post-‘Daily Show’ has been so busy, which I’ve been surprised about. We’re basically independent contractors in a way. So you have one gig, and you’re worried about never getting another gig again, or at least I do.”
― Jessica Williams
“’The Daily Show’ was amazing because I learned so much.”
― Jessica Williams
“’The Daily Show’ was like my family. We had dogs in the office every day, all day. It was just such a warm, beautiful, sweet experience for me. Choosing to leave the show was so hard because I really, really loved everybody there, and I loved what it gave me and the platform it gave me.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think we can topple the patriarchy by using our voices to speak out against things that aren’t right and that we don’t agree with. I think for people who are not people of color or members of the LGBT community, it is being an ally and being an advocate in spaces that people of color or members of the LGBT community can’t really get into.”
― Jessica Williams
“I wanted to do screenwriting. That’s what I went to school for, but my major was overfilled, and when I got ‘The Daily Show’, I was a semester away from officially starting my major, so I never started that in particular.”
― Jessica Williams
“There’s such an adrenaline rush for me on stage and having all these people look at you. There’s an adrenaline rush from not having things written down, too.”
― Jessica Williams
“It’s a really nice way to cut your teeth, doing live shows. It’s like going to the gym because you do have to think fast. You are constantly under the threat of people not laughing. Instead of getting hit, people could just not laugh, so you really are trying to mine quickly for the funniest thing you could say in that moment.”
― Jessica Williams
“When I wake up in night sweats, that’s what I’m thinking about: what if someone grabs me from my past and says, ‘I heard you drag me to filth on your podcast.’”
― Jessica Williams
“I love relationships; they fascinate me.”
― Jessica Williams
“I feel like now is great time for a rom-com because the genre is sort of being opened up to being told by people that look different from each other or who have different orientations.”
― Jessica Williams
“I really like when different stories are represented, it’s not just the same kind of person, and when there’s humor in it, and there’s relationships.”
― Jessica Williams
“Every day when I wake up, I check Instagram.”
― Jessica Williams
“I check Facebook to see how everybody from high school’s doing. I go on Reddit to see what my weirdos are talking about. Then I go on Tumblr to see what my feminists are talking about.”
― Jessica Williams
“The world is ready for a more sophisticated ‘TMZ.’ If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that any dummy with a half-decent idea can become a billionaire.”
― Jessica Williams
“Thankfully, I already have a mogul I can pattern myself after: Oprah. We’re a lot alike. I’m black, I love to relate things people talk about to myself, and people think my best friend and I are lesbians! My strength is that I’m more relatable.”
― Jessica Williams
“Race affects everything that I do, and everything that I create speaks to intersectionality.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think when you’re a tall girl, you feel a little bit like an outcast. You have to go to the back of the photo. You’re taller than all the boys. I know I felt more like an outsider. And then as I got older, I just got used to it. I got like, ‘I don’t date under 6 feet.’ That’s my policy.”
― Jessica Williams
“Height has been very, very central to the development of my personality.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think there’s something to the millennial sentiment of being, like, ‘I’m great.’ But I think there’s also something really amazing and powerful about being, like, ‘Oh, hey, I’m awesome.’ It’s a fine line. But I think it’s possible to be both, to not be the most annoying person in the world, to still be very intriguing and fun to watch.”
― Jessica Williams
“As I got older, I had to learn to not have people speak for me. It was the first time I recognized, ‘Oh, sometimes people are going to condescend to me because I’m a woman, or sometimes people aren’t going to give me opportunities because of the way I look.’”
― Jessica Williams
“There’s a really positive side of being an introvert – you really pick up on things a lot more than your extroverted counterparts.”
― Jessica Williams
“The stories I want to tell are when we’re our own heroes and our own enemies, and I don’t think that’s a rude thing to ask for. I don’t think that’s something I should apologize for.”
― Jessica Williams
“A lot of the time, black people, we don’t introduce ourselves as black.”
― Jessica Williams
“I live in Brooklyn, and there’s so many interracial couples in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, you don’t talk about race like that.”
― Jessica Williams
“I used to think men were these idiots who just yelled at you on the street. But, part of my maturing was realizing that not all men are evil or monsters.”
― Jessica Williams
“The popularity of ‘2 Dope Queens’ just showed there was like a hunger for new stories because we have alternative comics on our show that wouldn’t normally be featured on, like, a white guy’s comedy show.”
― Jessica Williams
“I feel like, all things aside, it’s a really great time to be a woman. And I don’t want to hear stories from, like, white dudes anymore. Like, not really. I want to hear stories from women.”
― Jessica Williams
“I think women can tell the most profound and interesting and fascinating stories.”
― Jessica Williams
“I look for a man who respects my womanhood and doesn’t make me feel like I have to be a stereotype. Like a housewife.”
― Jessica Williams
“I don’t know how to cook. I work a lot. So, for me, then, it’s important to find a man who can cook. Who will make the house a home more than I can.”
― Jessica Williams
“I looked up at my mom, and I was like, ‘Well, Mom, uh, when you really think about it, C’s aren’t really that bad. C’s are average.’ And I’ve never seen my mom so upset, to this day. I just saw this flash of fire in her eyes, and she yelled, ‘Average? You are never allowed to be average, because you look like me.’”
― Jessica Williams
“There’s something missing in all this new new media craziness, and that is something that uses celebrity news as a way to get into a really serious analysis of our culture.”
― Jessica Williams
“The Kardashians are walking clickbait – but let’s look closer. Do Kim and Kanye affect how society feels about interracial relationships and blended families?”
― Jessica Williams
“Some of the best comedies now are led by women who are very involved: ‘Parks and Recreation.’ ‘Veep’s’ incredible. I love ‘Girls.’”
― Jessica Williams
“There is more of a demand, especially on the Internet and on Tumblr and Twitter, from women who are like, ‘We want to see more of us on TV!’.”
― Jessica Williams
“I’m not walking around feeling black all the time. That would stress me out. It would make me crack.”
― Jessica Williams
“’Sex and the City’ didn’t change the show because it was an international sensation. They kept it in New York.”
― Jessica Williams
“I don’t really do stand-up.”
― Jessica Williams
“When you see the way some people write women, especially in studio movies, it’s like, ‘Sorry! Sorry for being alive!’ Women are so apologetic.”
― Jessica Williams
“I wasn’t prepared to be so… arrested by Jon Hamm.”
― Jessica Williams
“I love it when women are like, ‘You guys sound like me and my best friend!’”
― Jessica Williams
“Acting-wise, I love Helena Bonham Carter. I love Kate Winslet. I love Angelina Jolie when she was ‘Girl, Interrupted’ Angelina Jolie. There isn’t anybody that I can definitely point to and be like her. Because I’ve never felt like I’ve been able to relate to the women that are famous.”
― Jessica Williams
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