Whether you realize it or not, you know Michelle Buteau. Maybe you’ve heard her voice as the host of The Circle, witnessed her scene-stealing superpowers in your favorite rom-com, turned up the volume on her stand-up special or watched her chow down on Barbecue Showdown.
But no matter where you might recognize her from, you’ve never seen Buteau like this: front, center and playing second fiddle to absolutely no one as the star and executive producer of Survival of the Thickest. Inspired by her acclaimed book of essays of the same name, the eight-episode series is the game-changing and career-defining moment the comedian has been waiting for after years of making meals out of supporting roles.
And this is a story only she could tell. The show centers around Mavis Beaumont, a proudly Black and thick woman who’s navigating life and hustling her way to the top after she finds herself newly single. Survival of the Thickest is also Buteau’s love letter to New York and the “fatty baddies, oddie bodies and beautiful-ass freaks” who call it home and her answer to all the shows (sorry, Friends) who’ve done it dirty in the past.
In June, Tudum sat down with Buteau to chat about how she went from page to screen, stacked the cast with guest stars galore and made the rom-com of her dreams.
You’ve put in years of time, energy and hard work to arrive at this moment. What does it feel like to now be the creative force in front of and behind the camera? Emotional? Terrifying? Exciting? All of the above?
It definitely is D, all of the above. I do feel luckier than Pete Davidson’s dick. Like, “Look at me.” You know what I mean? It’s a lot of work and a lot of patience. You have to really be so comfortable with rejection and waiting for your turn or your time. I’m not going to lie, I feel a lot of things. I’m really hopeful I’m that person for people that I needed growing up. Like, “Her waist looks like mine. Her ass does what my ass does, and yet still she’s out here.” She doesn’t have to be the best friend who only hears about the fabulous sex or the big girl on the show that’s just so thankful that someone paid her attention.
Have you felt pigeonholed into playing those roles in the past? Did you feel like lead roles weren’t being written for you, and did you lose faith that they ever would?
I always had faith that something would happen. I’m also just going to have fun no matter what. People have tried to pigeonhole me my whole life, including my parents, but I really can only be me. Truly, my body’s going to do what it’s going to do. My face is going to do what it’s going to do. My mom used to straighten my hair and cover my freckles, and just try to put me in this really conservative bubble, but my tits would break open the buttons. My body is literally like a Puerto Rican Hulk. Ta-dum! If you feel like you don’t fit in, that is your superpower, for sure. It’s not you that needs to catch up to the world, it’s the world that needs to catch up to you. Eventually, it will happen.
I used to run half-marathons. These titties? Oh, baby. Gravity is real. You know when you get to eight or nine miles and you’re like, “Fuck, I still have so much more to go.” Just know that you can do it, enjoy the view during the hard parts and never stop to use the bathroom. That’s how you fuck your time up. Also, wear an adult diaper if you have to.
With roles in Someone Great, Marry Me and beyond, you have a history with rom-coms. When it came to crafting your own, what did you want to accomplish?
At every production meeting, I’m like, “Look, I’m not a creep, but let’s have some intimacy coordinators, because I want to have sex. I want to have fat sex.” I wanted to be body positive and let people know we are beautiful, we like our bodies and we have connections. It really was just a dream come true and does something for our mental health. Let’s stop hiding. We don’t have to hide. It’s so hard trying to figure out what we want anyways, then we have to hide it? That just seems so crazy to me. Constructing these rom-coms stories, it was also really important for me to let it get messy. Sometimes, you ain’t Cardi B. You ain’t Joseline Hernandez, girl. You ain’t a professional, it might get messy.
The show is inspired by your book of essays. Was it easier to adapt because you’re pulling material from your own life? How did you go about excising certain parts of the story and highlighting others to create this world?
It’s so funny. My brain broke four days in and we had like 60 more weeks. For me, it was so hard, because I had never written for television. The show is inspired by the book, but I didn’t want to make it a copy-and-paste situation. I know how the world feels and how it looks, but I didn’t know how to translate that to paper. But all my amazing showrunner Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and writers saw was a well of stories they could just dip into. It was a really fun emotional Jenga of just sass, and it worked out. Mavis is sort of my dream character, right? A 38-year-old, newly single bitch that has the knowledge that I have as a fully realized 45-year-old bitch, and what that looks like in modern day. I was so glad that we got to hit on all the things that I wanted to hit on and so much more. When we created these stories and these characters, it was always like a Michelle Visage or like a Nicole Byer. The fact that these bitches wanted to hang with me… I was unwell.
From left: Anthony Michael Lopez as Bruce, Peppermint as Peppermint, Michelle Buteau as Mavis, and Garcelle Beauvais as Natasha in Survival of the Thickest Season 1.
Yes, you truly assembled a dream team of guest stars. How did you go about bringing this crew onto the show?
It’s insane because people’s schedules are crazy. It’s just a big deal to leave your house, not sleep in your bed and use your own toilet. I get it. The fact that people wanted to play was amazing. You have these talented people in your life for a reason. Chemistry is everything, and that’s one thing I also really learned. We can go and try to cast this wide net to find so-and-so, but at the end of the day, Liza Treyger, who plays my roommate, is a friend. I’ve known her through comedy for over 10 years, and it just popped. Tone Bell, I’ve known for 15 years, and we tried to write something together over 10 years ago.
This is a story told mainly through your POV, but it’s also such a strong ensemble comedy. Why did you want to weave the other character’s stories into the show and were they inspired by any real-life friendships?
I love the friendships in this show because that’s really pulled from my life. Just having friends from different walks of life who are going to support you in this crazy journey, but also check you when you need to be checked. This is my love letter to New York. It’s my love letter to all the fatty baddies, oddie bodies and beautiful-ass freaks that I’ve met growing up there. Watching Friends, it’s like, “Good for them!” That was a great show and the comedic timing was on point. However, you lived in New York and don’t have one Black or Puerto Rican friend? I don’t know. My Central Perk is a drag restaurant, because I grew up going to drag bars and even performing in them, and drag is as American as apple pie. We don’t have to hide, especially now. This is the time to put your sign in your window and your T-shirt on from Etsy. Allyship looks different in a lot of ways, but if you have the opportunity and the platform and want to say something, it’s really important for us to live outside of a hashtag and actually do something.
Lastly, we must discuss the fashion in the show. What story are you telling with the clothes, and why did you want to have Mavis work in this industry?
Making Mavis a designer was basically: “What does Emily in Paris and Sex and the City look like when there aren’t a bunch of skinny white girls? What does an Afropunk 9 to 5 look like?” That is what New York, and Brooklyn especially, is for me. It was really important that we look funky fresh. Just because we don’t have a lot of money doesn’t mean that we can’t put some shit together. Period.
Making my character a stylist was important, because it’s a proper parallel to doing stand-up comedy. The hustle is real and you don’t know when you’re going to make it. You’re going to do a bunch of stuff for free, and you might meet assholes or you might meet amazing people. Your immigrant parents also will not understand why you want to dress people when they can do that themselves every day, so that was important. It’s also a great platform to make people feel beautiful and special. Most of all, just to have a dope-ass budget for plus-size clothes, man. That was the biggest of the big, because no diss to Old Navy, but bitch no. No, honey.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
