MTV’s Girl Code star Nicole Byer speaks on comedy

On Monday, Nicole Byer, breakout star of MTV’s Girl Code, visited USC for a night of comedy and discourse. The event called, Pursuit of Sexiness, featured a 30-minute stand-up performance, 30-minute interview and a 30-minute Q&A session. Byer discussed topics ranging from personal character to womanhood.

The event held in Seeley G. Mudd, was hosted by Speakers Committee and was free to all USC students and faculty members.

Byer had audiences laughing with her unfiltered, quote-worthy opinions and commentary that have made her stand out on Girl Code. The show is driven by female comics who dole out tips and start dialogues on the trials and tribulations of millennial womanhood.

“I was coming back from an improv tour and I made really good friends with the flight attendant on JetBlue, and he just took my purse and threw vodka in it and I was like, ‘Gotta get it started’, so I kind of went to the audition really drunk and I guess they were like, ‘She’s a mess let’s take it,’” Byer said of auditioning for the show.

Though Byer is best known for appearances on Girl Code, the actress and writer has been featured on 30 Rock, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Chelsea Lately. Byer, a native of New York City, relocated to Los Angeles to fulfill her career as a comedian.  She currently performs sketch comedy and improvisation with the Upright Citizens Brigade. She has also been in several different web series, including The Pursuit of Sexiness, which she co-created with SNL’s Sasheer Zamata.

“Because I was good at nothing else,” Byer laughed about how she got her career in acting and comedy started. “My mother was like ‘you talk a whole bunch, go audition for the play,’ and then I did it and then people started laughing and I was like, ‘this is for me.’”

From roasting Halle Berry for her role as Storm in the X-Men franchise to finding homeless people in L.A. “very attractive” nothing was off-limits for the comedian, even offering relationship advice to crowd members.

When asked how to let a guy know your interested in him without coming off as too “thirsty,” Byer shot back. “Is she just trying to ‘get the D’, or like a relationship? If she wants a relationship, you just drop subtle hints and if he doesn’t bite it means he doesn’t want it.”

Byer became more serious when asked if she found making fun of herself with fat jokes to be intentionally body positive and inspirational to women, during audience Q&A.

“I like the body I have right now, maybe sure, one day I’ll want to change it, but for now I love who I am, so I think it’s good for women of all body types to hear people say, ‘I’m okay. I love me. This is good for now, maybe in the future I’ll change, maybe not – maybe I’ll eat all the cookies every god damn day,” Byer said.