Written by Catie Keck
Margaret Cho encapsulates so many dualities. She’s insouciant and vivacious. She draws you in with effortless charisma while still carrying a softness that feels far quieter in person than the version of herself audiences see onstage. She is deeply thoughtful and yet remarkably loose with her candor, often catching you off guard with the sincerity and generosity behind it. She’s intensely self-aware, but never in a way that feels contrived or performative. Each seemingly opposite part of her complements another: her righteous anger sharpened by her radical openness, her vulnerability deepened by her wit.
Trying to summarize Cho’s career in a paragraph feels, frankly, a little absurd. You’d need entire tomes to capture the breadth of her cultural impact—the doors she’s kicked open, the careers she’s made possible, and the generations of artists who exist partly because she carved out space for them first. It’s a fool’s errand, really, but we can try here in a few words: Cho is a lifelong activist, a groundbreaking comedian, and a prolific actor whose work has spanned genres and earned her countless accolades, including a Primetime Emmy nomination. Most recently, she was honored with the Icon Award at the 14th Annual Queerties, where she was presented with the award by her protégé, Joel Kim Booster (someone she affectionately refers to as “my first born son”). She used her acceptance speech to advocate fiercely for the trans community, especially trans children.
Currently touring her Choligarchy stand-up comedy show—she’ll perform at Helium Comedy Club in Portland, Oregon in July—Cho is still as politically incisive and emotionally candid as ever. In conversation with Lesbian Culture Club, Cho spoke about queer community, aging and intimacy, the artists she considers her legacy, the responsibility of visibility, and why laughter remains essential in moments of political exhaustion.
Tell us about receiving the Icon Award at the Queerties!
That was really great. Everybody in the social media spaces that I’m in, we’re just trying to make each other laugh. We’re just trying to really get a rise out of each other. So it was a really special event because it’s our award ceremony. It’s me, it’s all the drag queens, it’s all of the queer influencers. It’s just really special. It’s a great place to be recognized.
My friends Meg Stalter and Mae Martin were also recognized. Meg Stalter and I, we did our first love scene in her film, Cora Bora, which is on Netflix. I had my first full nude scene, I was 55, and it was with Meg Stalter. I couldn't be prouder. She’s incredible, and she’s so beautiful and so funny. She’s silly, strange, sexy—all of these amazing things. Just a really special person.
It sounds like you have a fantastic community around you. Could you tell us about what queer community means to you and a little bit about yours?
Queer community is everything. I've been involved in and around queer communities since I was about 9 years old. My first gay pride was in 1978, so I grew up within the queer community. My parents owned a gay bookstore, so I was raised by gay people—gays, lesbians, drag queens, trans people. This was my community. It’s always been. So there was almost no coming out phase, because everybody was always out.
Now, with the queer artists that I’m around, I’m always so impressed. I will go out on a given day and see Bob the Drag Queen and [comedian] Matteo Lane, and sit down with them and have a really good time. Or I’ll be out at the Queerties with all of these illustrious people. The artist community is just so impressive and so exciting, and they're all doing such incredible work. And it’s all very politicized because we have to be focusing ourselves and talking about what we can do to help the trans community and fight these insane, horrible laws that they’re trying to implement. I’m really lucky to be in the community that I’m in,
I’m so excited to be in the community that I’m in, and I’m excited for our future.
Identity is always interwoven into your material. Where does that sit for you right now? How are you thinking about the intersection of identity and community in connecting with your audiences while touring?
It’s really powerful that we’re coming together to laugh and to celebrate ourselves and to remember that there’s hope. There’s going to be an end to all these things that are happening [politically], and the pendulum always swings. It really does. It’s just a matter of time. We also have to be really diligent in making sure that it swings. Whether that’s different methods of protest, things like an economic blackout—which I think is really important—things like where we put our money, where we’re focusing our energy, where we’re speaking out about what’s happening. [What people are experiencing] is outrage fatigue, so it’s fun to come together and find a way to laugh about it.
It’s so important for people to see themselves reflected in the arts. As a queer Asian American woman, could you talk about visibility not just in comedy or acting but in all of the work you do?
Yeah! It’s incredibly important! It’s really amazing that I was able to do what I was able to do [when I was a young artist], you know, being able to bring Asian American representation into stand-up comedy. So many people saw me and were impressed by what I was doing that I birthed a whole generation of amazing Asian American queer comedians, whether that’s Sabrina Wu, my child Sabrina Wu, or Joel Kim Booster, or Bowen Yang. All of them are my kids. These are my children. They are my legacy.
The best thing I’ve ever done is inspire all of these great artists to go further and do even better work. So for me, it’s incredibly gratifying. And they’re all very successful, so I’m really riding their coattails and making sure I get roles as their mother in everything. But I am proud of them and just so elated to be included in their story because they’re gonna go on and inspire another generation. And that’s really so special.
A lot of your material has always mined deeply personal experiences. There’s a vulnerability and bravery in bringing that to the stage. Has that gotten easier over time? Harder? Has it changed?
It’s definitely different because the more you talk about things that are personal, the more you’re sort of including other people and your work. I talk a lot about my personal life, my sexuality, my relationships—all that kind of stuff. It becomes more of a challenge because you have to kind of negotiate that with everybody in your life. Most artists, when we’re using our life in our work, it’s just the natural thing that happens. I don’t live in a bubble. I’m not isolated by myself in this. I do this with a lot of people. It becomes complicated.
But I think I’m more used to it, too, because I’m older now. Romantic relationships and anything like that has less of a hold on me. It gradually becomes less important in life as you get older, I think. After menopause, especially, I don’t fall in love like I used to. I don’t fall for anything like I used to. So romantically, it’s a very different experience, but it’s still very busy.
Tell us more about that, not falling in love as easily.
Well, I’ve rejected the idea of having a partner, and I think that I just want to go through life having situationships. I think that’s better. For me, it makes sense. I just don’t want to live with anybody, and I think that’s really fun. Like, I love living alone, and I love my animals, and I have a dog and many cats. I don’t want to have the space of, like, having to share my life with somebody, but I do like spending time with different people. So that has become much more appealing.
I’ve dated quite a few different people in the last couple of years, all around my age, 50s and 60s. And we were all in agreement. We all have our lives. We’ve had some divorces. We’ve had some disappointments in life, and now we’re sort of settled in the middle of life and wanting to be on our own. But also wanting to have sex, wanting to have a companion to go out to a fancy dinner or whatever. And that’s really nice.
Acting and comedy are both very different mediums with very specific skillsets. Could you talk about these different parts of your artistry and how they’re in conversation or how they’re different?
They’re similar. But I also love acting because of the collaborative nature and the things that you discover in actors and the way that they can do things that are really amazing. Acting is so much more than just the words. It’s where you’re placing the self inside of another self. I do comedy more than I do acting because acting, to me, is such a collaborative thing where you’re coming together with a story that you haven’t written. You're really in service of somebody else’s dream. And that’s a really nice feeling. I pick projects that I really, really love, and I’m always really proud of what I get to do.
Is there a dream project you’d like to work on?
I would love to just do something really historical. I love a pirate moment, you know? Like Game of Thrones. I love all that stuff. And you don’t see a lot of Asians in that setting. I would love to do any kind of historical drama—you know, make sure I don’t have a watch on or my phone in my pocket. I think it’s really exciting because of what it brings to the screen. I love all the regalia and period clothing and everything. That, to me, is very exciting.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
