Mae Martin on SAP, and why teenagers are right to be angry

Q29:54Mae Martin on their comedy special SAP

From the first time Mae Martin heard standup comedy, they were obsessed.

At 13, they started taking improv classes at The Second City in Toronto, eventually dropping out of high school to pursue a career in comedy.

"By the time I was 15 I was performing maybe four or five nights a week," Martin told Q's Tom Power in an interview. "So I was very tired at school and dropped out to do it full-time. [I] started working in the box office at Second City, so I was just in the building all the time and really immersed in it. I was deeply, profoundly obsessed by not just the medium of standup, but the whole world, and the social scene, and the green rooms. And it was very intoxicating to an awkward teen."

In 2011, the Canadian comedian moved to the U.K. to enter the British comedy scene where their career really blew up. During the pandemic, Martin wrote and starred in a semi-autobiographical series called Feel Good and also appeared on the HBO show The Flight Attendant alongside Kaley Cuoco.

Now, they've released a new standup special, SAP, which is available to stream on Netflix. It takes on weighty subjects like addiction and transphobia in a way that feels warm and gentle.

Martin said their feeling of otherness at school is likely what made the world of comedy so appealing to them as a teenager.

"Looking back, like, I was probably queer and non-binary, and didn't know those things," they said. "Then there was this adult world where people were being really celebrated for their differences, and could be self-deprecating and awkward and funny and be applauded for that. And I just thought it was, like, a superpower that these people had."

WATCH | Official trailer for SAP:

In their special, Martin talks about how they're now sort of obsessed with their teenage years. They said they're constantly "picking at the scabs of adolescence" when they get together with friends and revisit that time in conversation.

"It was such a chaotic, explosive time," Martin told Power. "Like, I think I was about to get kicked out of my house or I just had, and I was really partying too much and just kind of totally untethered. So much has happened since then."

I feel like maybe teenagers are right to be angry, but they just have to find, sort of, healthy ways to rebel instead of self-destructing.- Mae Martin

In another moment in SAP, the comedian recalls one of their lightly misguided acts of teenage rebellion when they got the word "oatmeal" tattooed on their wrist. "I have the word tattooed on my wrist because I think someone I had a crush on, like, drew it on me and I thought that'd be really funny if I got it tattooed," they said. "And also just this nihilistic like, 'Yeah, whatever.'

"It's such a visceral time for anyone and I'm interested in how we as a society deal with teenagers and that kind of thing. But yeah, maybe it's because I feel like a totally different person now to who I was then. And so I'm trying to sift through it sometimes looking for clues about why it got so crazy. And I just remember feeling so angry and kind of confused about the world. And it's just been an interesting time in the past few years because it feels like we can't really deny that the systems that we're participating in are really messed up. So I feel like maybe teenagers are right to be angry, but they just have to find, sort of, healthy ways to rebel instead of self-destructing."

The full interview with Mae Martinis available onour podcast, Q with Tom Power. They also talk about their show Feel Good. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview withMae Martinproduced by Sarah Melton.