Yahoo Lifestyle 'Kinda Pregnant' Breakout Urzila Carlson Recalls Amy Schumer Tapping Her for the Netflix Movie: 'She Slid Into My DMs' (Exclusive)
Acting wasn't really on Urzila Carlson's bingo card, but she was never going to say no. A late-night DM from Amy Schumer wound up opening the door for the comedian to make her movie debut in Netflix's new comedy, Kinda Pregnant.
"She slid into my DMs," Carlson tells Parade in an exclusive interview. "So this is just a little public service announcement for people who go, 'I don't do social media. You know, I can't be bothered with it.' Well, you don't know who's in your DMs right now."
While the message was out of the blue, Carlson and Schumer had previously connected on social media after the Trainwreck actress shared Carlson's stand-up special, Overqualified Loser, on her Instagram Story in 2020. The pair "kind of stayed in touch" and would exchange messages every now and again. But when Schumer saw this role, she messaged Carlson to tell her that she thought she'd be perfect for it. "I think she could see that I was unhinged," Carlson laughs.
Schumer included her phone number in the message, leading to a "massive conundrum" for Carlson. The South African-New Zealander recalls, "It was three o'clock in the morning for me, so it was kind of a, do I call? Do I not call? Will I sound insane? Should I not?... Like I didn't know if I should wait for my manager to wake up, or try and wake my manager up."
After going back and forth on what to do, Carlson flipped the lights on in the house and called Schumer. "She picked up first ring, and then she goes, 'I'm going to send you the script.' So she sent the script. I read it. I was like, 'I love it. I think this is going to be super funny,'" the comedian recounts.
After going to bed around 4:30 a.m., she was up at 7 a.m. and back on the phone with Schumer as she was making pancakes. Carlson ended up doing a self-tape with Schumer and read the script, which she printed from a printer running out of toner, for the actress and the film's director, Tyler Spindel.
"It was chaotic, but so exciting," Carlson says. "You know, when you get something and you go, 'This could potentially change my life, this could change everything.' And, you know, the whole time I'm still in my pajamas."
Carlson stars as Fallon, a school guidance counselor, alongside Schumer and Jillian Bell in the Netflix movie about a woman (Schumer) pretending to be an expectant mother.
Related: Amy Schumer Recreates ‘Iconic’ Scene From Movie: ‘How Do You Remember This So Well?’
Before getting into comedy at the age of 32, Carlson, now 48, worked in advertising. It was actually a coworker, her "work husband," who encouraged her to do an open-mic night at a comedy club, which she did with an audience that included 70 people from their agency.
"Of course, they laughed. I knew 70 people in the audience," she says. The following day, the owner of the club called to tell her that she was through to the next round of Raw Comedy Quest. Carlson explained that it was a "work thing" and that she was "not interested in comedy."
"And he goes, 'Oh, but you're very funny. Everyone was laughing.' So I said, 'Mate, everyone was laughing because I knew 70 people in that audience.' And he said, 'Well, I was in the audience, and I laughed, and I don't know you.' He says, 'You should come back.' He said, 'Don't bring anyone. Come back and do it again,'" she recalls.
Because Carlson doesn't believe in missing opportunities, she went back and did it again. "It didn't matter whether it was good or bad, because at the end of that five minutes, I was hooked," she shares. "The adrenaline rush, everything."
By the end of that year, Carlson won the Best Newcomer Award at the 2008 NZ Comedy Guild Awards. Carlson admits that younger comics, and women like Schumer, Rebel Wilson and Celeste Barber, have been the most welcoming to her.
"It's not a competition. It's like they get it," she says of the "next generation" of younger comedians coming through. "The stronger the industry is, the stronger we all are."
Carlson is bringing her latest show, Just Jokes, to North America this year. Working on Kinda Pregnant gave her new stand-up material that will be featured in the show. "The first 45 minutes is all about stuff that has happened to me in New York, on the movie, just in general, in the states," she reveals.
Carlson notes that she didn't get to where she is today alone. While it "seems real romantic" that she received the DM from Schumer and then the movie, "there's a lot of hard work," not just by her, but "by a lot of people that goes into getting to this part" of her journey. "Like this is sort of the reward, almost, of a lot of hard work by a lot of people in my team to get me to this point," she says.
"There is no luck," Carlson adds. "It's just grabbing opportunities and working really hard at those opportunities as they come up."
Kinda Pregnant is now on Netflix.
Related: Inside Amy Schumer's Net Worth and How She Earned It, From Stand-Up to Movie Stardom
