\n<\/p>\n
Buteau\u2019s stand-up origin story is either depressing or uniquely hopeful: She first got onstage on Sept. 14, 2001, after editing footage about the attacks three days before, and realizing she needed a different path.<\/p>\n
Her family was not initially supportive. Talking about penises onstage \u201cafter he paid for college in cash?\u201d she said of her father, an international auditor. Her mother, a customs broker, \u201cwas really sad.\u201d And she didn\u2019t want to ask them for money. So she continued to work her midnight production shift, going from comedy clubs to the newsroom, for six years, building up her network of besties along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met Michelle at a grimy club in San Francisco that doesn\u2019t exist anymore,\u201d Wong, the comedian and Emmy-winning actress, said. \u201cI was truly blown away by how funny and original she was. And I knew that if she had traveled all the way to San Francisco to perform at a place where the carpet was riddled with dry semen, she was going to make it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides their comic chemistry, Wong cast Buteau in her rom-com because \u201cshe\u2019s just a very nurturing person offstage,\u201d Wong said. \u201cI just wanted an excuse to spend a lot of time with her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over a delightful pasta lunch<\/a> on the Upper West Side, Buteau riffed on making things happen and loving New York. She once lived nearby, in a building that was like \u201ca Jewish retirement center,\u201d she said. \u201cNo one thought I lived there; they thought I was, like, a nanny. And then \u2014 I don\u2019t know how this rumor got started \u2014 I was Harry Belafonte\u2019s niece. I wasn\u2019t fighting it. I was like, \u2018Yes, Esther, that\u2019s who I am.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Her material can be raunchy, but there\u2019s also a layer of graciousness to it: If she had her own perfume, she wrote in her book, it would be called \u201cJust Sassy Enough.\u201d But she makes a point to showcase lust and relationships, like how her one-night stand with a tourist, Gijs van der Most, turned into marriage. He\u2019s a photographer<\/a> and furniture store owner<\/a>, and she has mined a lot from their cultural differences<\/a>, although now she\u2019s careful. \u201cI don\u2019t want him to always feel like he\u2019s content,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n