In 11 Questions, The A.V. Club asks interesting people 11 interesting questions—and then asks them to suggest one for our next interviewee.
An actor and comedian who’s best known as the internet’s beloved “queen of the geeks,” Felicia Day has starred in both traditional television series like Supernatural and Eureka, as well as web-based shows like The Guild. With an army of fiercely loyal fans—her YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry, has more than 1.3 million subscribers and 2.4 million people follow her musings on Twitter—it makes sense that Day would branch out into even more media. Her latest project, the memoir You’re Never Weird On The Internet (Almost), is out now.
1. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Felicia Day: It’s a tie. One of the worst jobs was when I [played] a crack addict with no lines in a VH1 movie when I moved to town; it was 3 a.m. in downtown L.A. and I was literally wearing a bandeau and I had a huge fake cold sore on my face. That was pretty bad. Then when I was in violinist in Austin during my college years, I played a beautiful event and then it turned out it was the anniversary of some young woman’s death, so I couldn’t stop crying while I was playing my violin because it was so sad. It was awful.
The A.V. Club: Were other people crying or was it just you?
FD: Everybody was crying, but I just showed up and thought I was playing for some kind of a tea or a wedding or something. And I got there and found out it was not what I thought at all.
AVC: What was the VH1 movie about?
FD: It was called They Shoot Divas, Don’t They? or something. A friend of mine was actually the producer.
I have a picture—it might be in my book—a behind-the-scenes picture where I’m wearing a spangly non-outfit and, just to make me look gross, they put a huge sore on my mouth, which I was like, “Well, if I was a prostitute, I wouldn’t be hired with this thing, I don’t think,” but I don’t know what people are into.
2. When did you first feel successful?
FD: Actually, I have a story in my book about this with my dad, who always thought I should have a backup plan. He’s very supportive but was always like, “If you want to go to law school…” and there was a moment where The Guild actually, in his mind, became something cool. It’s a really nice story.
When you start getting free stuff in the mail, that’s when you know you’ve arrived. Free video games was the first step, but I think we got free Xboxes when we first started working with Xbox and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m amazing now!”
AVC: Does your dad still think you need to have a backup plan?
FD: I think he’s okay with it now. I haven’t asked for any money in a while so I don’t know.
3. If you were a supervillain, what would your master plan be?
FD: I guess I’d want the animals to take over. I’d make all the animals sentient, then maybe they could create a revolution. I can’t watch that Planet Of The Apes movie because it’s too traumatizing, but maybe something like that.
AVC: Like the movie is too traumatizing against humans or against apes?
FD: I can’t watch anthropomorphic animals. Babe is one of my favorite movies, but I just sob the minute I hear the theme song. It’s just depressing.
AVC: So you need the animals to just stay animals, but then somehow start communicating with each other and overthrowing us?
FD: They’d be able to speak English and stuff and we just wouldn’t be able to kill them as easily. I mean, hopefully we wouldn’t.
4. What were you like as a kid?
FD: I was an uppity weirdo. I actually talk about it in my book; I look like a kid you would never want to hang out with so I think that’s pretty thoroughly established. Even if I was brought up not homeschooled and odd, I would have been probably been weird and uppity.
AVC: What do you mean?
FD: Snobby and standoffish because I’m really uncomfortable socially and I think that comes off as sometimes as being standoffish; that’s just me wanting to be alone.
AVC: What were you snobby about? Did you think you were smarter than other kids or that you knew more about video games?
FD: The former. My mom always told me I was smart so I think that’s where that comes from.
5. Who was you celebrity crush when you were younger?
FD: I was really in love with David Hasselhoff and I really wanted to ride in the Knight Rider car really badly. So that’s probably my number one.
AVC: Have you met him?
FD: No. I almost met him at Comic-Con this year, then they canceled. It was devastating.
6. If you had entrance music, what would it be?
FD: God, this is a hard one because I’m really bad at songs. Probably like Sir Mix-A-Lot, “Baby Got Back.” I’m not cool in any way and the irony of that song would probably stave off any grandiose entrance I would ever make.
AVC: You’d have to come into every room butt first.
FD: Like, “wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.” Yeah!
7. What have you done so far today?
FD: I’ve done interviews, I’ve uploaded pictures for my book everywhere, I have a video that I was exporting for the upload tomorrow for my book release, I have curlers in my hair, and I ate a whole muffin.
AVC: Are you typically an early riser? Did you get up early today?
FD: I didn’t get up early. I usually get up at 7:30, but I slept in till 8:30 today because I’m really tired. I was lazy today, but now I’m being punished for it, so that’s cool.
8. Have you ever been mistaken for another celebrity and, if so, who?
FD: I have a story in my book actually about how I used to get mistaken for Emily Blunt, and I’ve been mistaken for Gabrielle Anwar, especially when I was younger, and Alyson Hannigan, which is really awkward because I know her.
AVC: What would people say to you? “I loved you in The Devil Wears Prada”?
FD: That’s exactly what I said in my book. Yes.
AVC: And then what do you say? “That’s not me”?
FD: It gets awkward. I’m trying not to make it awkward and not be a jerk even though they’re the one that is mistaken. It’s kind of like when people send pictures through the mail to sign as celebrity autographs and sometimes they’ll include pictures of other people for me to sign and I want to be like, “This is not me!” I actually, sometimes, will send it back signed with, “This is not me.”
AVC: We’ve had people talk about how they’ll sometimes sign it as the other person as well, just because.
FD: Someone sent me a letter like three months ago that was like, “Hey, me and my sister have collected autographs for the Girl Scouts for the last 20 years. Would you please sign our pictures?” So I thought, “This is sweet.” There were five pictures: one was from Supernatural, one was from The Guild, one was just a headshot, one’s from Dragon Age, and then one is literally my head on a naked body. Not even my body, just my head Photoshopped on a nude body. I didn’t know if maybe they did it themselves because it wasn’t a picture that was available on the web? I don’t have any pictures like that available. Then I searched, so maybe they custom made it for me, which is flattering? I don’t know.
9. If you had to find another line of work, what skills would you put on your resume?
FD: I’ve been thinking about that a lot because half of the time I think, “I’m just going to move to Europe and be something else.” I think I would probably be a writer, like write novels. And I would own a coffee shop because I enjoy being hospitable and enjoy coffee and tiny tea cakes. I would probably try to do petit fours because that’s, like, the next cupcake.
AVC: You also have the violin to fall back on, so there’s always that.
FD: True, but I feel like I did that for a long time and going backwards in time seems counterproductive.
AVC: Why petit fours?
FD: Because usually sweet things balance out better with not sweet things trend-wise. So you have your cupcakes with your juices and you have your macarons and meatballs; meatballs are pretty big right now.
Petit fours are a kind of cake that can be portable and adorable and it’s kind of a throwback to hipster times. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.
AVC: No, it makes total sense. You can bring them to people and put them in a little box; they’re adorable, they’re cute. They’re like marzipan, except they don’t taste gross.
FD: I love marzipan, but it’s disgusting.
10. Do you collect anything? If so, what and why?
FD: I have a lot of dolls of myself; there’s a picture of it in my book, which is kind of over the top, but it’s for the people that give me things. I do collect things people give me.
I also tend to collect foxes. Like on jewelry and little sculptures and pins and purses; anything with a fox on it I tend to get. Or mushrooms; I really like Toad from Mario and Nintendo. Mushrooms are my theme for things.
I like finding books of authors I really love, too. Other than that, I’m not into clutter so I can’t really stand stuff everywhere. I’m kind of minimalist when it comes to everything else.
AVC: In a way, you’re only collecting things you can use. Like, you can wear a sweater with a fox on it.
FD: Yeah. I don’t really collect things just because they’re there.
AVC: And the dolls of you, you can’t just throw those away.
FD: I cannot. I talk about that in my book.
11. What would your last meal be?
FD: I have such bad acid reflux that I can’t eat fried things, so I’d probably drink a lot of alcohol and maybe eat fried chicken, fries, hush puppies, a burger, onion rings; I haven’t had an onion ring in like five years because of my stomach issues. So I would eat just a ton of onion rings.
AVC: So you’d eat whatever you’d want and then say, “Fire it up before I feel gross!”
FD: Fire it up! My stomach cannot punish me now!
Bonus 12th question from Jemaine Clement: “I want to hear about a time where you dreamed about killing someone and woke up thinking it was real.”
AVC: Have you had that happen?
FD: No, I tend to have more anxious dreams where people are shunning or chasing me or I’m late getting to places. That’s definitely a recurring dream; I hate being late to places. I’ve never dreamed about murdering people; I sometimes have murderous thoughts like about the guy who killed that lion. I’d like to punch him in the face and make sure he never goes anywhere again.
I’m not a very vengeful person. I like to accept people; I tend to see the good in everybody, so I’m kind of stupid like that.
AVC: Do you ever wake up and think your dream is real?
FD: Not really. I definitely wake up and feel anxious about being late, even though I’ve only been late to one set before. I tend to set four alarms, and I’m not even kidding. I set my phone, two alarms, and one in the other room because I’m so paranoid about sleeping through an alarm, which I’ve never done. I’ve just accidentally set it for p.m. rather than a.m.
AVC: What would you like to ask the next person?
FD: If you could throw a pie in anyone’s face—anyone in history—who would it be? And it can’t be Hitler because that’s too common.
AVC: Who would you pick?
FD: I think I’d pick Groucho Marx just because I want to be a Stooge. I always thought there weren’t enough girls in the Stooges. Lame.