Margaret Cho is turning to music and theater in the face of 2025 upheavals

A recent record-breaking “Celebrity Jeopardy!” victory meant Margaret Cho not only got to stan host Ken Jennings, but the pioneering comedian and actor also advanced to the “Celebrity” semifinals on behalf of Friendly House LA, a nonprofit she described as “helping women with homelessness, mental health issues and addiction.” Cho adds “Helping women, trans women and nonbinary people in need of addiction recovery and treatment is very pricey and often out of the reach of a lot of people who are struggling. It’s a really, really important place.”

This month the five-time Grammy nominee for best comedy album also celebrates her new musical release “Lucky Gift.” The album will be available on Valentine’s Day via her Clownery Records label, with a special “Margaret Cho and Friends” show at Largo on Feb. 13.

The coming year sees Cho in the second season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” on Disney+, which she calls “super cool. I got to work with Kristen Schaal, who I love.” She “especially loved” acting next to “the incredible Sandra Bernhard. I am a Bernhardologist, and I was able to prove that when I got to spend all that time with her recounting all of the different things that I loved about her career and her life.”

Additionally, Cho reteams with her “The Doom Generation” director Gregg Araki in the thriller “I Want Your Sex” alongside Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman and Charli XCX. Plus, she says, “Johnny Knoxville fell in love with my dog Lucia on set.”

The 2025 leg of Cho’s Live and Livid tour began at the Brea Improv in January and continues at North American theaters and clubs through May. Celebrating her 40th anniversary in comedy, “It’s been great!” Cho said emphatically during a recent conversation with The Times. “People are excited to hear a take on what’s going on, to hear a progressive woman’s perspective, a queer woman’s perspective, an Asian American woman’s perspective.”

“Music is a passion outside of any other kind of work,” Cho says.”So music is something that I always do, but it’s more social and it’s relaxation. It’s like a form of therapy to write songs, as a way to make sense of the way that my life is going.”

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

What were your experiences during the January fires?

I evacuated. I’m right by the Eaton fire, and I’m back in my house now. I have three cats and a dog, so it was incredibly stressful. It’s kind of hard to get my cats in their carriers. But when I pulled the carriers out and I got everything ready, the cats were already sitting in the carriers. They knew that my energy was off; that I was being really serious. I wasn’t messing around with them. It was intense, but as long as my cats and my dog are safe, I’m fine. I said goodbye to my house. I’ve lived here for 25 years. I didn’t bring anything that has real value to me. And when I came back, I was like, “Wow, I didn’t take any photographs, any documents, any money. I was just so into the cats.” I think it’s a miracle that we’re fine. But it’s also an unfortunate reality, what’s happening right now.

The two main charities I was supporting were the Pasadena Humane Society — who were reuniting people with their animals, helping animals that were lost in the fire, and housing animals for people in evacuation states who can’t have their animals with them — and Altadena Girls, which is about healing the mental trauma of losing your home in that very shocking, traumatic way. It was put together by a young girl trying to help other teens. That is so meaningful and beautiful. There were so many people who rose up out of this. The firefighters did an incredible job. I have so much gratitude towards Southern California, the generosity of people who live here. People have a false idea of what L.A. is. It’s not all shallow people or people who are only out for themselves or Hollywood or showbiz. It’s real people who have incredible generosity in their heart. I think that was proven.

You performed on a Hotel Cafe benefit Jan. 31 for MusiCares. On the comedy side, how have you seen the community coming together?

It’s anything we can do to help our artistic communities. Comedians are great because they’re so generous, and a lot of comedians were really affected by what happened as well. I also love the Hotel Cafe. They’re always ready to help. We did another benefit there for Asheville, N.C. [following Hurricane Helene]. They’re so incredibly generous and thoughtful of other people. Musicians losing instruments, to me that’s particularly painful. Sometimes you can’t replace these things.

Your last music album was released eight years ago. Why was this the right time for “Lucky Gift”?

Some of these songs I recorded a long time ago and didn’t have the thought to release them. Then other songs were newer, and I realized they actually came together great as an album. My normal life is focused on being a stand-up comedian. That’s really what I do. And then on top of that I’m an actor as well. Music is a passion outside of any other kind of work. So music is something that I always do, but it’s more social and it’s relaxation. It’s like a form of therapy to write songs, as a way to make sense of the way that my life is going.

What can you communicate with music that you can’t communicate with comedy?

It’s tonally the way that you paint the picture with the instruments that you use, the production, the way that the sound is processed and where it sits in your ear as it’s going in. It’s very emotional, and you react to it in a very primal way. At least I do when I listen to music. I listen to it with my whole heart. I am moved by it, and I’m engaging with it on a level that I don’t necessarily engage with other art. Most people don’t necessarily go back to the same favorite movie or favorite comedy bit like they do with their favorite song. It’s something that I keep going back to. My favorite songs remain my favorite songs, and then I revisit them more often than I do any other kind of art.

“There’s a lot of mental health problems in comedians. So I wanted to address that melancholy that comedians have, because comedy is a form of coping,” Cho says.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

On first listen your song “Funny Man” is clearly about a troubled comedian, but you’ve recently specified that it’s addressed to Robin Williams.

I always had to follow him, which I think is really horrible and wretched for a young comedian to have to follow Robin Williams. He was the secret owner of the comedy club that I lived across the street from called the Holy City Zoo. He would ride his bike across the Golden Gate Bridge and do these shows every night. All the comics were there, Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, all of these comics that we know now. But we were all just kids. And everybody would go to the club at the end of the night to see Robin performing. We were there every night, just laughing.

His death was so horrible that people still don’t talk about it. And they didn’t want to talk about him as an artist, even. It’s almost as if he never existed in a lot of ways, because of the trauma that we all felt at his loss. Which is really sad, because he was a great artist and also a great humanitarian. The song was written around when he died [in 2014]. I formed an outreach for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco called BeRobin, which was to mimic Comic Relief, which is what Robin was doing in the ’80s with Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, this big homeless outreach charity all comedians did. So we did that in San Francisco, we collected a lot of donations, we would steal electricity and play in encampments and give out food and supplies and money and all sorts of things, and play these songs.

This is one of the songs that was played, and I had a huge band, so everybody wanted to play. Bob Mould came and played shows out on the street. Roger Rocha, who I wrote that song with, was our band leader. Boots Riley came. We had horns; we had drag queens. It was just phenomenal. So I love that I finally get to release the song. It’s really emotional, but I talk about Robin and funny people who don’t feel so good inside. It’s a pretty common thing in my industry. There’s a lot of mental health problems in comedians. So I wanted to address that melancholy that comedians have, because comedy is a form of coping. Laughter and making jokes is a trauma response. It does make sense that people who have a highly evolved sense of humor do that, because they’re people who have been in pain.

The song “You Can Be You” seems to be delivering a very needed message for an uncertain time we’re all finding ourselves in.

That song is about Nex Benedict, who is the nonbinary teenager who died. It was a horrible situation that happened in Oklahoma. They were getting bullied at their school, and they were beat up. The government failed them, teachers failed them, the community failed them. And right now, we have a horrible situation where these trans, nonbinary and queer kids are under siege by our government, which makes no sense. The song is about talking to queer kids in this situation and urging them that they can be themselves, they should be themselves, and it’s OK to be themselves. It’s a responsibility for queer adults to try to reach out in whatever way that we can. For me, it’s going to be art. I do it in my comedy, but I thought it was effective in a song. So that was my response to “What can we do to help younger people feel like they’re being understood and seen?”

The “Lucky Gift” album art has a retro feel. There’s a vinyl layout style to it. Are you referencing a better era?

It’s like the ’90s does the ’60s. It’s also a little bit of comedians doing music, like Tracey Ullman, who I love. I also love the yé-yé girls of the 1960s. I like the aesthetics. It was that vibe. And a lot of the instruments that we use were pretty old. To me, it was very retro feeling, where it felt like a new optimism. That was my goal.

Is optimism part of your political mindset heading into the next four years?

It’s about “How can we make fun of them?” They hate when they are laughed at. They cannot stand it. They’re rather humorless. I think that Trump and Elon Musk want nothing more than to be funny, and they’re so not. They just can’t. That’s the one thing we have that really does drive them crazy. So make jokes at their expense. You can be the richest person, but if a joke is made at your expense, it’s hard to pay for. So I appreciate that.

Celebrating her 40th anniversary in comedy, “It’s been great!” Cho said emphatically during a recent conversation with The Times.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

You canceled working out your new “Mommy: A One-Woman Cho” Jan. 10 and 11 at the Elysian. Has the show continued progressing?

I’ve been writing about my mother and her sisters. I play my mother, her two sisters, and myself in the show. And I have been working on this for legit 10 years. Unfortunately we had to postpone because of the fires, but we will be back. It’ll go back up in April, as of now. That’s another direction I’m kind of moving into: theater. It’s a different space; it’s a different way of writing.

I’ll be doing my show at the Elysian, which is another favorite. They have so much variety. I love to go see shows there. I love to perform at shows there. It’s a special place.

Any Valentine’s Day plans that you’re looking forward to?

I’m doing a show at Largo to release the record on the 13th, the day before. My animals are my Valentines always, so I’ll be definitely kissing them all the time. To me, it’s just another day because I love every day. It seems like not a fun time to have to be loving only on that one day. I want to have romance every day.