“WHEN a nude photo of yourself goes viral, the word you don’t want people to use to describe it is ‘brave’,” laughs Amy Schumer, referring to her 2016 Pirelli calendar photo shoot.
She joined the likes of Serena Williams, Patti Smith and Yoko Ono on the calendar, which was photographed last year, and this is the first time we’ve heard from her how the photo came about.
Shot by the esteemed Annie Leibowitz, it was Schumer who suggested going naked.
“I got to the shoot, they had all these racks of clothes and Annie suggested, ‘What about a bra and underwear?’ I was like, ‘What about naked?’ But Annie said, ‘No!’ She really wanted me to keep my clothes on,” Schumer tells news.com.au.
Undeterred, the comedian didn’t take no for an answer. “’Well, what if it’s like a real photo? Slumped over, drinking coffee, belly out?’ So we tried it, and that was the shot they used.”
Until recently, Schumer’s comedic career didn’t lend itself to high glam photo shoots. In fact, she wasn’t even aware of the prestigious calendar.
“Well, you know me, I’m from Long Island with a lower back tattoo [the title of her best-selling memoir is The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo], the Pirelli calender didn’t reach me,” she laughs.
“But that photo got so much positive feedback. Somebody photoshopped it right next to a picture of Aphrodite in the same position and our bodies were pretty similar,” she notes.
“So it was kind of cool to be like, ‘this is what (beauty) used to be before it was the image of a starving actress model who doesn’t eat as regularly as they would like’.” She smiles. “I’m proud of it.”
I chatted to Schumer on the Hawaiian set of her upcoming mother/daughter comedy (yet to be titled) in which she stars with her childhood idol, Goldie Hawn. Schumer has just completed an action shot jumping from a window, is dressed in an old T-shirt and looks appropriately dishevelled. “I smell like soup, so don’t breathe,” she warns.
She says the film is sort of a companion to Trainwreck as far as her own family is concerned.
“Trainwreck was something where I could pay tribute to my father, and this movie is a little bit like that but with my mum, who I’ve had a complicated path with, which I wrote about in the book.”
In her memoir Amy writes that her mother Sandra left her dad after falling for Amy’s best friend’s father. Amy was 13 at the time.
Staying on track with her familial theme, she is also starring in a movie about sisters, which she wrote and will star in with Jennifer Lawrence. “I’m so close to my sister and that movie is about our relationship with our brother as well so it’s a siblings movie,” she says.
But Schumer is sensitive to those around her and doesn’t ‘out’ anyone in any way. “If I write about someone, I get permission from them. I make sure everyone’s cool with it. I want to make people feel good. I don’t want to hurt their feelings or sabotage my own relationships, especially with my family.”
Since last year’s success with Trainwreck, which grossed over US$140 million Schumer’s career is advancing in leaps and bounds, and she will be heading to Australia at the end of the year for her first stand-up tour.
Although her success and celebrity afford her a wider choice of partners, including those of equal wealth and fame, she says, “Dating a celebrity? Ugh! That sounds so awful. I don’t think I would like that but I guess so many celebrities date each other so there must be something to it.”
She’s currently in a relationship with Chicago furniture designer, Ben Hanisch, 29. “I’m really open when it comes to dating. I just like funny, nice, smart people,” she says. Her past relationships include wrestler and WWE star Dolph Ziggler and comedian Anthony Jeselnik.
Like anyone in her position, the trust factor is important when choosing a mate. “When you’re in the public eye you have to question when it comes to choosing a partner, ‘What are the reasons? Do you really like me?’ Of course, if you’re a man, you say, ‘I don’t care if you really like me’.”
Her Pirelli calendar wasn’t merely a one-off. She also made the July cover of Vogue. “I went in for a fitting but it was more of an unfitting because of course nothing fit. Hilarious. But I’m honoured and I’m proud. It just felt ridiculous but they let me be myself and go to familiar places.
“So I’m walking around the reservoir in Manhattan and I’m eating a scone which is what I do every day. They let me be in environments which I’m comfortable in but in a dress that I would never wear.”
She also made a video with editor-in-chief Anna Wintour where they switched jobs.
“That felt very comical,” she says. “It was a lot of fun.”
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