At Least Things Are Going Well for Robby Hoffman

It wasn’t a great year for everybody, but 2025 certainly worked out nicely for Robby Hoffman.

The comedian and actor, best known for writing kids shows only a few years ago, got married in January. By April, she was stealing scenes in a string of Hacks episodes. She booked a few choice new roles along the way. She earned an Emmy nomination. And, on Dec. 14, she closes out the calendar with her first full-length Netflix special. 

Robby Hoffman: Wake Up, directed by John Mulaney, finds the incredibly affable and optimistic comic doing some much-needed venting. “It’s a way going to the gym for me,” she says during a recent appearance on The Hollywood Reporter podcast I’m Having an Episode (Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple). “For me to complain is to enjoy, to understand. It’s a catharsis. If I’m yelling at you, I’m thrilled. I’m happy to be talking to you.”

When did you know you were funny?

I was always funny, but so was everyone.

But when did you know it? And not everyone’s funny…

No. But in my family, everybody is funny. I come from a funny place even though it’s heartbreaking. My mother, in her desperation and our destitution, was very funny to me — somebody that we could all collectively laugh at. She, being such a good sport, was not able to help but laugh at herself and the situation too. So I kind of just soaked it all in. Where I noticed that it was different from others was when I got into a rich school on scholarship. My mother thought this was a very good opportunity for me, but I was class clowning. I was a bit of a Dennis the Menace. But as I spent time in these circles and made friends with people who came from what I thought were good families, I maybe had a sense about dancing for my food or something like that. But it came naturally. Then, at some point, I remember it feeling like a thankless job to be the entertainment — to be the fun one in the group.

How did you figure that out?

This took me a while — 17 or 18. Then I started to think, well, maybe we don’t have nothing. We have close to nothing. But there’s a nugget of something here. And I remember thinking, well, we don’t have nothing. We have me. That’s when I started the things that brought me a lot of my humanity and my heart and my drive. I can’t stop talking about being poor. And I continue not to be embarrassed that I grew up poor or because people are poor because the system allows for people to be poor.

In addition to getting a scholarship to this good school, you were also scouted by Degrassi, right? How were these opportunities coming to you?

I wasn’t scouted. I did a audition … not even an audition! We did a play. Everybody did a monologue, and yes, Degrassi people were going around to all kinds of schools and camps and looking for regular kids. I must have been 13 or 14. They were looking for a redhead and they saw my play or whatever, and they said, “Oh, they’re going to be doing auditions.” So I did my audition. They really liked me. I’m living in Montreal at this point, and they want me to go to Toronto, have another audition with the director and maybe some of the other kids. I could have met Drake. Who’s to say? But my mother gets a call from a grown man saying he’s going to take a couple of kids to Toronto. And she goes, “I don’t think so! She’s not doing is going with some man!”

If I had kids, I could never…

You’re exactly my mother right now. The guy also told her he wants to take pictures of me, a headshot. And they told her the pictures were going to be like $200 or something. She says, “You don’t call here again!” And that was the end of the acting until Hacks.

If someone were coming to your work totally blind and watched this special, I think that they would be surprised to learn that you got your start in Hollywood writing for kids shows.

When this kids thing came along, I wanted to write. I wanted it to be good, and that was it. Now, I didn’t think of it as kids show. The show was really good. It was PBS. It’s was like Law & Order for kids: The Odd Squad. And, yes, it didn’t have sexual nuance or profanity, but it had fat-free storytelling. And it was my film school. I worked there for over three years. We had 80, 11-minute scripts a season. So I learned to churn out stories. I really considered that an unbelievable education. And good is good.

Eighty scripts a season is wild — and interesting, because so many of the established TV writers and showrunner types are just lament the fact that new writers aren’t getting that kind of education working on eight episodes a year.

Oh yeah, I was there every single day for years. And I’m not so much on the writer discourse. And this is a little bit unbecoming, but I seem to thrive in a storm. I think it’s being born into the chaos and the hell of it all. When COVID happened, I sold my first show. It’s hard to talk about, truly, because it was so good for everybody around me for so long. I feel bad about it.

I want to talk about your special.

No spoilers. Dec. 14, only on Netflix. Robby Hoffman. Wake the fuck up! No spoilers. But, OK, go on. I’m listening.

We were debating the idea of political correctness in the office the other day. Does it even mean anything anymore? Has it been eclipsed by this hijacking of the term “woke”? Nobody even knows what that means at this point. But I bring this up because there are elements to your hour that are not “PC.” There’s an AIDS joke.

Two! (Laughs)

I was trying to leave you off easy. As a comedian, when do you think it’s OK to deploy an AIDS joke and who can tell one?

First of all, anyone can do anything. I hate when comedians say, “You’re not allowed to talk about nothing!” Hey, you’re allowed to talk about whatever you want. So can anybody else. You can talk about what you want, but somebody might have a response to that. I think AIDS became funny again when it became chronic. The Holocaust during the Holocaust is not funny. AIDS in the ’80s is not funny. AIDS now is oopsie. You know what I mean? The education is out there. It’s like smoking at this point. And, by the way, I still like a cigarette.

I was surprised to see a warning in your special that it contained smoking when it’s just some throwaway moment of you tossing a cigarette or something.

Yeah, I think it was my vape. I can’t believe there’s a warning. But, also you got a rough [cut], so I don’t know what warnings they slapped on it. I hope they remove all that. It’s for kids, guys. It is fun for the whole family.

What have the calls been like since you did Hacks?

Not to name drop … Sarah Silverman said I was a telephone star or something like that. I asked her what it meant, and she said it was something like when all the agents are talking about you. They’re picking up the phone. So that’s kind of been the experience. I’ve been slow and steady wins the race. I’m thrilled to be here. People ask me like, “You have your Netflix special. Can you believe it?” And I kind of can. I thought there was something here.

But these agents talking to each other about you, how has that translated to offers for other roles? What do those offers look like?

So Hacks was the most like me. It was really great to be on Dying for Sex. I was opposite of Michelle Williams in a role that was not written for me. That was a long audition where I had to play a BDSM character. A serious character. And then I’m on Steve Carell’s new show. Then the whole time on set, my brother Schmoly is going, “Did you tell him about The Office?” What would I tell him about The Office? He knows about The Office. He’s the fucking guy. And, by the way, I did by the end of it. I said, “Hey, my brother and I, we thought you did a great job on The Office.” And he was appreciative. He said, thank you. Very polite. My family doesn’t realize the lengths of embarrassment I go through to fulfill their dreams.

Your wife Gabby Windey won the last season of The Traitors…

Thank God!

If you found yourself on that show, how do you think you’d do?

Oh, I’d be out first. If my glasses fell off in a challenge, I’m out. I can’t see. Hello! There should be a red emergency button [on that show]. I’m not good at playing cool. If I was a traitor, you would know immediately. I’d be so nervous. Both at the challenges and at the mental exhaustion of it, I can’t deal. Danielle [Reyes]! I can’t deal with these people lying.

My palms are sweating just thinking about it.

And the yelling! I’m also the kind of person who can dish it. But I can’t take it. That’s the thing to know about me. Early on [in my career], they said a good way to get into The Comedy Store would be to do the roast battles. No sirree, Bob! They said, “You’d be so good at the roast!” Of course, I’d be fantastic at the roast! But if somebody says anything about me, I will remember. I will wish them death. I will hold the grudge forever. I will take it personal.