Why Amy Schumer Just Stole Dublin’s Heart

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a Universal?event for which Ireland’s iconic Panti Bliss sat down for a chat with Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow (the man behind every comedy you’ve ever loved). As one can only imagine, with such strong comic personalities, nothing but hilarity ensued. Even the flies that danced around their heads were having a whale of a time.

Of course Miss Schumer took most of the limelight, with fellow ‘trainwrecks’ reveling in the fact that Amy too is of this Earth and is more than willing to share her myriad experiences in which she’s stumbled through life and still made it out on top. For some, she may be verging on dangerously funny, as The Irish Times phrase it, but for Ireland’s millennials, she’s a breath of fresh air. The women in the audience and even the men were just short of rising to salute this new kind of idol. Like Amy, we curse, we’re not that bothered about ridding ourselves of cellulite, and we can probably all attest to some pretty bad sex (bonus points if, like Amy, you also enjoy a tipple of whiskey a little too often). On one hand, she self-deprecates like it’s an art form, making it impossible not to want to be her best friend, but on the other, she thinks she’s ‘f*cking awesome’, exhibiting a confidence that should be bottled, sold, and drunk by every woman who’s ever been told she’s not pretty enough, smart enough, skinny enough, the list goes on. It’s thanks to women like Amy and Lena Dunham (and Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling and Kristen Wiig and our own Maeve Higgins) that we’re becoming more vocal, and more sure of the fact that we too can achieve whatever we set our sights on.

Naturally, the subject of ‘women in comedy’ came up, to which Judd admitted it’s just not something he thinks about. It might seem en vogue to seek out hilarious women in an industry dominated by men, a la Bridesmaids or Unbreakable: Kimmy Schmidt, but it’s clear that Judd’s always had an appreciation for comedy regardless of the genitalia you’re rocking. Amy looks forward to the day when there’s more than just one, token female name on the comedy billing, a time when someone like herself won’t exit the stage to be told about her sex stories that ‘wow, that was, like, extreme’, which is just something ‘you’d never f*cking say to?Louis CK’.

Amy begs that if you think you’re funny, you make your friends laugh, you’d like to try it, just give it a whirl; the gender scales in comedy most definitely still need to be balanced.

As for her best ever life advice? ‘Love yourself like you’re your own mother,’ which she couldn’t resist capping off with ‘because I know you’ve all had sh*tty mothers.’

Though we fear that we may come across as arrogant, or self-obsessed in that ‘oh, so you think you’re really pretty?’ Mean Girls kind of way, if there’s one thing that the Amy Schumers and Lena Dunhams of this world have in common, it’s that they’ve learned the art of self-love. Be your own ally, love yourself more than anybody else and know your worth.

Trainwreck premieres tonight at The Savoy Cinema.