Robby Hoffman Will Always Feel Poor, No Matter How Rich She Gets

The Daily

Robby Hoffman, an Emmy-nominated comedian and actress known for her role in *Hacks*, reflects on her upbringing in a poor, Hasidic Jewish family in Crown Heights, New York, and how her experiences with poverty, trauma, and identity shape her comedy and worldview. Despite her financial success, she continues to feel emotionally poor and struggles with spending, especially on luxuries.

Key takeaways

• Poverty and trauma from childhood deeply influence Hoffman's relationship with money and success.
• She feels emotionally disconnected from wealth, even as her career thrives, due to ingrained scarcity mindset.
• Her comedy stems from authenticity and discomfort, using humor as a protective mechanism.

Transcript preview

From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Comedian Robbie Hoffman seems to be everywhere these days. She's been praised for her scene stealing roles in Hacks as Randy, a former Hasidic Jew from Crown Heights who becomes a Hollywood assistant, and in Steve Corel's HBO Comedy Rooster in which she plays a blunt protective roommate. Hoffman grew up poor in a Hasidic community herself, the seventh of ten children, with lots of trauma. Despite their religious roots, her family supported her when she was outed in her teens. That life is the source of a lot of her unfiltered comedy, including her Netflix special, wake-up. There's so much I wanted to ask her about. Money, fame, marriage, and what they mean in our celebrity and wealth-obsessed culture. And boy, did she engage. Okay, and action. And actually, and we're in the way. The thing. Okay, and action. Robbie Hoffman. Yeah, can you imagine? We're actually in your home. It's weird because you guys said, and I was saying this a bit, you said, oh, they have to do it at your house, because we want the person to be comfortable. But what you do is you come to the house and you totally rip apart, like, this is not, like, like, like, Do you know what I mean? It's like you want me to be comfortable with the couches and where the the whole house is moved. Yes. So it's kind of counterintuitive. We want the subject to be comfortable but then you come in the house and you move everything that's good, right? And I did notice sometimes when you see an interview you see them sitting in the middle of a room in their chair and I go, that's their living room. How weird to walk. Do you feel like a very nice chair. The house is. The house is, that's, that's, that's, that's beautiful. That's their living room. How weird to walk in, but now I understand they move everything. I have these chairs, these are my chairs, but normally they're there. They're very nice chairs. They're very nice chairs. The house is beautiful. Do you feel comfortable? No. Fair. But I'm not comfortable a lot. So don't worry. I'm comfortable being uncomfortable. Mm-mm. Are you comfortable making people uncomfortable too? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Great, then we're in for a fun conversation. We're in for it. All right, so we're going to talk about more of this later, but as you have often talked about, you grew up really poor. And I wanted to start though with what is the weirdest thing now about finding yourself with money and fame? You know, I don't know if weird is the word. I think it's tremendous, it's amazing, everything I've ever wanted was to make you know life is weird everywhere I my weird doesn't you know me seeing stuff it doesn't change necessarily based on my socioeconomic status because I still see Now I just see rich people in their weirdness. I was poor, I saw us, you know what I mean, and I saw that. Now I see new weird things, you know, it's like you go to a different level of a video game. There's other challenges and there's other weirdness. How would you compare the rich weird to the poor weird? The rich weird is way weirder and worse because it there's like a humanity that's that is missing my favorite is a people like me who grew up poor and then by the grace of God got some money and now we could be like like, oh my God, how weird are these rich people who've been like this since birth or whatever, right? Small things like when you go into a rich person's house and nobody's allowed to go in the fridge. Right, the poor have much less but it's like when you go to their house it's like, of course, take take take, you want a Coke, you want a Sprite, like we just everybody went in the fridge. But the biggest fridge, like we just everybody went in the fridge but the rich they have the biggest fridge but nobody can go in the fridge right so it's a small thing like that that paints a bigger picture a bigger problem of generosity right generosity generosity seems like a small thing but I've only I've mostly seen generosity in poor households. It's not to say it doesn't exist, but it is notable. Whenever I meet a rich person and they actually were helpful or great, I mention it. It's worth mentioning. Are there things that have stayed with you about having really struggled because my mom came as a political refugee from Cuba with basically a suitcase and and no matter how comfortable she is. No, no, yeah. She's a hoarder. She is a hoarder because she says it's because she lost everything so young. Yeah. She can't throw anything away. She's 87 now and that has stayed with her. Is there anything like that for you? Everything stays with you. Everything stays with me. Everything stays with you. The way that I am. of Meagre beginnings and we speak the same language. I equate it to literally dating outside of the faith. Gabbi and I getting married, we dated inside her faith. No, she's not Jewish. Nothing to do with that, but she grew up meagre, so did I and that helps our day to day. We speak the same language. If we're grocery shopping, raspberries are 799 and I'm not in the mood to spend that. I don't care if the money's in the account. I'm not in a place emotionally to drop 799 U. emotionally to drop 799 U.S.D. A little thing, her raspberries. We move on. She agrees, we move on. This thing that you just said is so interesting to me that you're not emotionally in the place to spend 799? I think it's criminal. I'm moving on. It's criminal. What does that mean for you? I just, I've never heard that explain that thing. This is crazy. I mean I had a great uncle and I don't know the comparison but you know gas right now in LA is seven is $7 dollars close to yeah okay now when I was a kid I think in Montreal goes by leader not gallon And I think I think like it used to be like 70 cents or something when it reached a dollar he didn't leave the house Like he was like like I bet Uncle Eddie could you take me to my friend's house? He's like are you kidding? Gas is a dollar. I'm going to be downstairs and he just didn't leave his room. I grew up like those like like the day in and the day out. I don't know it just affects me. It's how I you know even the way I purchase things. If I'm gonna buy something I have something I have forever I sold out a tour. I I sold a show I'm writing a book whatever it is I take a little off the top. I make sure it's something I love I have forever. I buy it and then the rest of I sold a show I'm writing a book whatever it is I take a little off the top I make sure it's something I love I have forever and I buy it and then the rest of it I try and be careful with what's the last thing you bought that you loved? Probably in my backpack. I bought a designer backpack for tour and you know as a dyke like me I don't buy purses or anything like that but a backpack is a kin I've had it almost a year and I don't see it slowing down. It's a good investment. Yeah, really good. Really good. Yeah. All right. You grew up the seventh of 10 kids in an ultra-authoristic family. described growing up in pretty brutal terms, what are your earliest memories of your life in Crown Heights? Really bad. I don't speak too much to this, but I can a little bit. Crown Heights is beautiful now, but there were a lot of robberies when we were kids, and I do remember the summers are very hot in New York for the, you know, as the New York Times. I never get, see the New York Times, see the New York Times. on camera? You asked me if I'm comfortable. The New York Times is in my house. No, I'm not comfortable. I'm always excited. The Times is the Times. So no, I'm not comfortable, but I'm excited. I don't need to be so comfortable. Back to the question. We in the summer didn't have air conditioning, but my parents had their bedroom, one air conditioner in the window and it was so hot. It was so hot. It must have the 100 degrees everybody was sleeping in their underwear. My parents had the 10 kids on the 10 kids on the 10 kids on the floor. Some in the floor. like on cause I made mattresses and we would sleep on the floor in our underwear. I had memories. I was very afraid of my father. My mother was, my father was abusive to my mother. You know, I try, speaking about this now, I try and give grace too. speaking about this now I try and give grace too not too much grace but not you know my parents were very young when they had us you know my father was 35 with 10 kids my mother was 30 with 10 kids so they were under a lot of pressure and stress I'm not excusing him, but I don't know that he had the proper resources to deal with anything, and I'm not sure how he was told to manage his family in the systems that he was a part of, the religious systems. So that said, he was very abusive. And we kind of avoided him. What does that mean if you don't mind my asking and you don't have to say if he was physically abusive to my mother for years? And so I kind of always avoided him. us and in fact I remember some bad fights you would speak to us after and say you know but I would never hit you but it's like but you hit ma. It's like you hit ma and my mother is the sweetest you know unbelievable wouldn't hurt a fly so it's like well you you know it's like I don't know we kind of like I just like I remember seeing my fault like I remember once walking to the kitchen. I saw him and I'm and I go oh didn't see you there and I would walk away like we didn't have that sort of a relation I saw him and I'm like oh sorry I didn't see there I'll come back so that was kind of a tiptoey time for sure when did you realize you were funny? Probably later but my whole family everybody was funny. everybody was funny. We just were all funny. My father was very funny and my mother is hysterical. So everybody was funny it was always brutal and funny and And yeah, we laughed at each other, we laughed at ourselves, we laughed at everyone and anything. There was nothing off limits. And if you saw something funny nowadays that like, oh, you shouldn't laugh at that, like my brother would hit you, you see, look at this, you know, like we would always catch funny with each other, like, oh, look what's going on there. So we were pointing, we were looking, we were laughing. Was funny a way to deal with the hard things? cultural, I'm sure. And you need to have rough, there's a roughness to comedy. It isn't polite all the time. It's not sensitive all the time. It's just funny. If you grow up that way, politeness and decorum is kind of to the side because you can't, you can't invest in those things necessarily. I had a joke early on in my career, which my friend Jess gives me a hard time about. my sister worked at Starbucks. And sometimes I would meet her after work and she would close up the shop. So sometimes at midnight, whenever. I don't know if it was 24 hours, but it was like till midnight. And she lived in an apartment, four subway stops away. And she would walk home. She had two very long scary blocks, dead of the winter, snow, dark, that she would have to walk home. Not too far, but not a comfortable walk home. in a very unflattering and I don't know how to say this that wouldn't be disgusting that wouldn't be rude that wouldn't be offensive but she would walk home in a way that mimics somebody with physical disability Okay, she would limp or do something really crazy for