One of the greatest sketches in television history (second, in this writer’s opinion, only to Dan Akyroyd’s “Bass-O-Matic” from the first season of Saturday Night Live) debuted last year during the third season of Inside Amy Schumer. It begins with Schumer, playing herself, hiking through a bucolic California landscape where she stumbles upon Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, and Patricia Arquette, also as themselves, enjoying what looks like a festive picnic. “Are you that girl from the television who talks about her pussy all the time?” Louis-Dreyfus asks. “Yes, yes, thank you!” Schumer gushes, flattered to be recognized by such icons. “Well, come talk about your pussy over here,” Louis-Dreyfus says, by way of invitation.
It turns out the women are celebrating—at a table laden with telltale macarons, pastries, viennoiserie, cheese, big loaves of bread, white wine, and pints of melted ice cream—Louis-Dreyfus’s official “last fuckable day” in Hollywood. If you don’t find that funny, not even a little, you likely know nothing of popular culture (or, sad to say, recent presidential politics). If you’ve never seen the sketch, watch it for yourself below—and then read on for an oral history of the making of “Last Fuckable Day.” For more on Amy Schumer and her show, read Vanity Fair’s May cover story.
Amy Schumer, executive producer, writer, star, Inside Amy Schumer: “Last Fuckable Day”—that was like Jessi’s and my baby. Like it took us literally three years to get that made. I know other people have longer, more harrowing tales. But for a sketch show…
Jessi Klein, executive producer, head writer, Inside Amy Schumer: This sketch had kind of been my white whale for a long time. It came out of a conversation we were all having one morning [in the writers’ room]. I think we were just talking about magazines, like Us Weekly. I don’t remember what the exact conversation was. Probably we were talking about Susan Sarandon, just because she’s had to carry the mantle of being the fuckable older actress for so long. Like is there that moment where it just stops? And someone—I don’t remember who—said, “Oh, what’s her last fuckable day?” And everyone was like, that’s such a funny idea. Like one day Halle Berry, I guess, will have a last fuckable day?
Dan Powell, executive producer, Inside Amy Schumer: The joke might have come up first season, but it was written second season.
The holdup in getting the sketch made was casting—i.e., finding three actresses willing to acknowledge age and vulnerability.
Kent Alterman, president of original programming, Comedy Central: “Last Fuckable Day” was originally written for, I think, Sigourney Weaver and Susan Sarandon and, I can’t remember, one other actor. It was just always a scheduling problem. I think there was interest. It went through a couple seasons as a possibility.
Amy Schumer: Everyone said no—the actresses. They didn’t want to be in a scene called “Last Fuckable Day.” Jessi had to do a million rewrites, because we kept switching the actresses we were sending it to. Like, “O.K., we’re sending it to Julianne Moore. Change it so that it makes sense for her.” But we wound up getting the best cast. Like it was thank God that the first batch said no.
Dan Powell: It was originally formulated for actresses who had passed that [fuckable] point, and they were celebrating someone who’s going to join them. And then we refashioned it so it was now actresses who preceded that point, with one of them “crossing over.” This little bit of a shift in attitude helped us cast it.
Jessi Klein: In terms of the “older” actresses who we were sending it to, people in their 60s and 70s, I don’t know what they thought of it. On some level, just because we wanted it to be all A-list actresses, the scheduling was just really hard. Some people were like, “Oh, I love this, but I can’t.” I do think, though, that [the shift in emphasis on the cast’s age] helped get actresses who were more like, “Oh yeah. I’m kind of at that moment where I’m in my 40s or 50s, and I know that numerically I’m about to be put out to pasture. It’s so absurd. Like, no, I’m very hot, still.” And they are. But yeah.
Kent Alterman: The sketch was so well written. And look, the casting becomes easier when the show is established and Amy has proven herself to the world. Now people want to work with her and be on it, because they want to be part of such a culturally relevant show. It makes it easier as it goes. It was harder in season one when no one knew her or what the show was.
The real key to casting “The Last Fuckable Day” turned out to be film director Nicole Holofcener (Lovely and Amazing, Friends with Money), who signed on to shoot the sketch.
Nicole Holofcener, director: I had met Amy through my agent. She asked if I’m a fan of Amy Schumer’s. I said absolutely. She said she wants to meet with you. It’s always one of those things where you don’t know who started it. Both people show up thinking the other person started it. But we were mutual fans and had a nice drink. She had mentioned this sketch the first time we met that she was having trouble casting, but she really wanted to make it and was rewriting it, and she sent it to me. I said, “I’d love to direct this.” And that’s how it happened. But here was a long period of time between that first conversation and when we actually started working on it.
Holofcener sent the script to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, whom she had directed in Enough Said (2013).
Nicole Holofcener: I had a feeling Julia would be game, which she was. I think the sketch was so clearly hilarious, and so true and honest that I wasn’t afraid of insulting anybody. Julia knows how old she is, she knows what this business is like. I’m the same age. [Louis-Dreyfus is 55; Holofcener is 56] It was a perfect piece to send up the way Hollywood treats women. So I don’t think I was hesitant to send it to her and say, “Will you do this, grandma?” And she probably made a joke about putting in her hearing aid and said she was happy to do it. She’s like that. And the other actors—they’re too intelligent to be offended. As soon as Julia signed on, I think they felt safe enough to do it.
Amy Schumer: It was like Julia and Tina were saying, I think, “Are you really doing it?” And then Patricia was like, “Oh, they’re doing it.” And so they all said yes. And they showed up.
Dan Powell: Julia and Tina were part of the process of discussing who the third would be. Patricia had come to our attention because she had done an interview about the exact subject when she was doing the pre-Oscar circuit for Boyhood. So we reached out to her. We got on the phone with her about a week before the Academy Awards, and it was pretty clear she was going to win. So we were kind of like, “Are you going to win the Academy Awards and then obviously not do this?” But then like two weeks after the Oscars she was on the set, hanging out, and doing our show.
Amy Schumer: We flew to L.A. It’s the only scene we’ve ever not filmed in New York.
Dan Powell: We shot it at this ranch in Santa Clarita. It was like 80 degrees and as idyllic as it looks in the sketch. There was this moment where we were like, “Why are we shooting this show in New York in the winter?”
Jessi Klein: Amy [who was already at the location] texted me 10 minutes before we got there. She was like, “Let me know when you’re about to arrive, because I want to see your faces.” Our show is usually done in the worst parts of New York, and we’re like animals, eating Hershey’s Miniatures to survive. So we pull into this beautiful ranch. The sun is rising. There are 10 trailer trucks. And the sign that you’ve made it in Hollywood: an omelet station! Amy was like, “Look!” And we all started laughing, because we didn’t think it was going to happen until the camera started rolling.
Amy Schumer: We sat on these apple boxes, and we’re like pitching scenes—pitching jokes. Tina and Julia, of course, because they’re funny people. That’s their thing. Like Tina had the line about white spiders. That just came out of her mouth in the moment. And Julia saying, “Aren’t you the girl that talks about her pussy?” That was her.
Jessi Klein: It’s very humbling to have any of those ladies [on the show], but obviously Tina and Julia being like, “Can I make a suggestion…?” You’re like, “Oh yeah! In fact, don’t even make them—just do your suggestions.”
Nicole Holofcener: Julia added her own sound effects good belch, a good fart—that’s all Julia. They ad-libbed so many different jokes like what the movies are called for women their age, like Whatever It Takes or She Means Well. Julia made up a lot of them. Patricia was hilarious. She did this great thing that didn’t end up in the sketch, because there was just too much material. She was sitting there making these dream catchers by hand. She had brought all this thread—I think Patricia just makes these things. She’s very adept at it. And she held one up and said, “I made this dream catcher out of Cher’s old diaphragm.”
Amy Schumer: It was a total dream day. That day was heaven—that was just the best day.
The sketch aired as the highlight of Inside Amy Schumer’s season three premiere. It has since been viewed more than 5.2 million times on YouTube.
Nicole Holofcener: The conversation [about sexism and ageism in Hollywood]—it’s such a boring conversation. I felt, and I think the actors felt, because of their experiences and their sense of humor, that the best way to have the conversation was to make this funny short…. Once we started shooting it, it might have hit home a little too hard. But it didn’t bring on any feelings they didn’t already have about being discounted, even as famous as they are.
Kent Alterman: Think about the courage those three displayed, just by being in that sketch. But that’s what makes it work. You just see that confidence. They’re all such gifted comedic actors, and they brought so much to it, but just the mere fact of them agreeing to do it? It already puts you in a good place.
