Even if you think you haven’t heard of Girl God, you probably have. One or both of the LA-based, best friend comedy duo seems to go viral every week. April Clark has made a name for herself in comedy circles with hilarious, deeply irreverent tweets (e.g. “My dad was poly so we moved around a lot as a kid”). Grace Freud has written countless bits for the Eric Andre Show, Rick and Morty, ClickHole—and she also has some great tweets.
Together as Girl God, their surrealist, often offensive sensibilities swirl into a truly uproarious—if at times uncomfortable or groan-inducing—whirlwind. They riff on simple setups, bouncing the joke back and forth so endlessly that, by the time Freud and Clark reach a punchline, the audience might find themselves questioning what is real and what is comedy.
Last year, our sister publication the Stranger lauded Girl God as the “Most Famous Trans Comedy Duo of All Time”—which, according to our research, appears to still be accurate.
Girl God returns to Portland for a second time on Tuesday, April 4, so we reached out to see what—if anything—may have changed about their live show in less than a year. Clark was held up in a meeting and running late, so we started one-on-one with Freud, which is how we discovered she is a god.
[This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]
MERCURY: You’ve been living in LA for a couple years now, but Clark was still living in New York when you two met in 2020. When did she make the move?
GRACE FREUD: April didn’t really, like, exist until I thought of her. So, she “moved” to LA last May, but really when I wanted her to be there she kind of just appeared. She doesn’t have much of a backstory or history, as far as I’m concerned. April’s probably one of my mind’s greatest creations.
Wow, sounds like a lot of work went into that creation.
FREUD: Yeah, so much work, you know? I had to invent transgender, so that she could be transgender.
That’s so kind of you!
FREUD: Yeah, I mean some people would say that it made things pretty rough for her, but I think it just gave her a more compelling backstory. I think she’s really done great things with the whole transgender thing.
You two just flew in from Phoenix last night. How was your time there?
FREUD: The thing about Phoenix is it’s a spiritually devoid place. There are no vibes. But again, since this whole world is just a creation of my own mind, Phoenix, Arizona is really just my crime against it.
Yeah, why’d you do that?
FREUD: I fucked up! I don’t know! Sometimes stuff springs forth that I didn’t consciously create, but I have to recognize that it still came from me. So I would like to apologize to the world for creating Phoenix, and to every resident of Phoenix for creating them.
Was the show good at least?
FREUD: The show was good! People were really into it. It was interesting, it seemed that—and again, this is totally on me because I made these people up—people were a little bit more reticent to laugh at certain jokes. But that was also the day of the school shooting, and we actually have a lot of school shooting material. When you write a good amount of school shooting material into your show, you kind of just have to deal with that when one happens.
[At this point Clark joined the call, and mentioned to Freud that she had been on the phone with a showrunner.]
Did you just say you’re working on a show?
APRIL CLARK: I can’t talk about anything, but there’s a couple things we’re working on. Grace and I have a million bajillion things going on.
FREUD: We made a movie, and we’ll be premiering the first trailer for it… possibly in Portland.
Can you tell us anything about the movie?
CLARK: We ultimately cannot tell you what it is yet, contractually.
FREUD: Is it not good enough to you that trans women made a film? Is that not a good enough sell?
You performed in Portland for the first time a little less than a year ago. How’d it go?
CLARK: That show was great. We performed at this place called the Old Church, and it was straight up an old church. They named that thing accurately. It was really fun, people really came out. We had never been there before, and we’re psyched to be back.
FREUD: At that show, some chick laughed so hard she slammed her head into a pew and got a concussion. So at this show, we said, “No pews! No pews at the venue!”
CLARK: At this show, someone’s going to die. For real this time.
FREUD: Their head won’t be stopped by the pew. They’ll go all the way to the ground where it’ll hit so hard it will cave in.
CLARK: We’ve actually installed anti-laugh spikes on the back of all the chairs, so that if you laugh too hard you’ll stab yourself and die.
How has your live act changed or evolved since you were last here?
CLARK: Well, we’ve written a totally new show. It’s less of an evolving creature now. Our last show in Portland was kind of crazy-wild. We brought three people up on stage and taught them how to do comedy for an hour.
FREUD: And now they’re all super successful: Hannah Gatsby, Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K.. All three of those guys came out of that show.
CLARK: And only one of them has gotten canceled for jacking off in front of women in hotel rooms. Only one!
Can you tell me a little bit about the comedian touring with you, Will Sennett?
FREUD: He’s a very bad man.
CLARK: No, Will deserves better than that. Will is an incredible comedian, and one of our best friends in the world.
FREUD: And I’m only best friends with real pieces of shit.
CLARK: When you’re trying to choose someone to bring on tour with you to open for you, you need to bring someone who is actually funny. And that narrows it down to just two people, one of whom is Will.
FREUD: It’s pretty much Will or Bill Cosby. And sadly, things didn’t go that well with our friend Bill.
CLARK: You know, I never even really liked his comedy, but he’s a great hang.
Tell me about the future of Girl God. Anything exciting on the horizon that you can talk about?
CLARK: We can’t officially, technically announce anything. Basically, we’re gonna be stars.
FREUD: We’re in development, as they say. But I will say this: If you don’t hear anything about any big projects from us by November, assume we’re dead. We will have buried ourselves alive, probably in one of the beautiful [temperate] rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.
CLARK: We’re also really excited, we’ve invented a new sexuality. And this one probably won’t put you in jail!
FREUD: Yeah, we’re not really talking about details yet, but this new sexuality is exciting. It’s risqué. But we don’t think it’s technically illegal.
Girl God performs at the Hawthorne Theater, 1507 SE 39th, on Tues April 4, 8 pm, $20-25, tickets here, 21+
