Let’s start at the beginning: you grew up in San Francisco; tell me a little bit about that?
I grew up there. What’s great about San Francisco is it’s a big comedy town. There’s a big stand-up comedy tradition, and it’s a major part of the city’s night life. It was a great way to grow up - I was surrounded by - you know, like in the morning, on the radio, there would be like a lot of comedians and there were shows all the time.

I started doing sets when I was fourteen, and I started to actually be a professional when I was sixteen, so there were a lot of places where I could go and there was a big comedy scene I could dive into.

Do you think it would have been possible to grow up there and NOT end up in comedy, or was it something destined to happen for you?
Oh yeah. You can grow up there and not get into comedy - you can do a lot of other things - but, I mean, comedy is not necessarily the natural inclination for people. It’s not an easy business, and it’s not something that people would normally want to take on.

A lot of people even regard the idea of being a comic as a kind of a nightmare. You know, they just don’t want to even attempt something like that, so it’s something that people definitely decide to do. It’s not an inescapable kind of thing.

Fourteen is very young to start any career. Were you funny as a very little girl?
I don’t know. I mean, I remember being a very quiet child. I had a very active imagination and a very active kind of inner monologue that was going on all the time. Now, I look back and I think that was funny, but I wasn’t like a class clown, or anything like that. I was really very, very shy.

It seems that many comics and comic actors all share that element, that shyness.
Yes. It’s a very common thing. Most comedians that I know are pretty painfully shy people. In fact, most artists I come in contact with. I work with a lot of musicians, and a lot of different types of artists and they’re all super-introverted, but I think that’s what you need to create. I think that you need that inner calm to be able to do that.

That makes sense…. While we’re talking about comic personalities, one of readers asked who your primary influences were?
Well, I really loved Richard Pryor, and then I loved Eddie Murphy, and then as I got older and in comedy, the people I really watched were Whoopi Goldberg…Rosie O’Donnell - she was very influential - and Roseanne.

And then later on, I really loved Janine Garafalo, who I think opened up a whole new world of possibilities in terms of comedy - you could do things that were more personal, things that weren’t traditional, weren’t the joke-setup-punchline sort of thing. You could branch out and do different things as a comedian which was really important and exciting.

Speaking of personal…one of the recurring themes in your work is stories about your mother. Does she watch your act?
Yes! She thinks it’s really great and really funny. And she’s always trying to offer me things to put in there, you know, to be a part of it, but it never really makes it. It’s always stuff that she says off-hand that I usually steal.

Oh, but that’s the best - it comes from life.

“[My mother is] always trying to offer me things to put in there, you know, to be a part of it, but it never really makes it. It’s always stuff that she says off-hand that I usually steal.”
Yeah. I think that’s always better. It makes more…to me it makes more of an impact when it’s things that are not as self-conscious.
But she does enjoy being part of it.

Is your dad still with you?
Yes. They both live in San Diego and they just joined a country club and they’re really happy.

That’s great! We’ll revisit your comedy career in a bit, but first, let’s talk about Drop Dead Diva. You’re currently shooting Season Two - which just premiered.
Oh, yeah. It’s on. It just premiered on Sunday.

Tell me a little bit about how you got that part?
Well, I was working on my album, which is finally done, and which will be out on August 24th, but I was working on it with an artist named Jay Brannan writing songs all day and then I went to go see his show at night and Josh Berman was also there in the audience.

Josh Berman is the creator of Drop Dead Diva. He approached me and told me about the show and I got the script the next day and I was really interested and it seemed like a great project.

I was the first person cast in the show and we came to Georgia to shoot it and so that’s been the last two years. It’s been great. The premiere was Sunday, and it was a tremendous hit so I think we’ll be here for a while.

Can you tell us a bit about your character, Teri?
Well, I play the assistant of the lead character, which is Jane, and so I kind of provide her with all of her legal information and all the base information that she needs, sort of like a Moneypenny character, if you ever watched James Bond. It’s kind of like I give her her assignments…. It’s an easy job. I mean it’s an easy job for me. It’s probably a hard job for Teri. I think it’s a difficult job in general, but I just think my part of it is very easy.

This is obviously not your first experience working on a series. How has the industry changed since you were working on All American Girl sixteen years ago?
I actually don’t know - I don’t know if it’s changed all that much. I mean, it’s kind of the same to me. I mean it’s like…it’s different in that it’s a different kind of a show, certainly, and it’s a different way of shooting. It’s not a sitcom, so it’s almost like making a movie in a week. It’s quite intense.

But I don’t think things have changed all that much in terms of the way things work and the way things are. I don’t know…I feel like there are a few more Asian-American faces. There are a few more women in lead roles and then also in our show we have more of an acceptance of different kinds of beauty. And that’s really cool, but that’s not - we’re the exception - we’re not the rule. I don’t think things have changed all that much in TV at all.

Is there anything special we should look for in this season?
There’s a lot of great guest stars coming up. We’ve got fantastic appearances by people who were regular. We had Paula Abdul in our season premiere - she’s like a regular on our show. Rosie O’Donnell will be back for multiple appearances - she’s a regular on our show. Also Cybill Shepherd, Ricki Lake, Leelee Sobieski…. We just have a lot of great, great people.

Drop Dead Diva runs on Lifetime TV on Sunday Evenings. Check back on August 1st for part two of our interview with Margaret, when we discuss her upcoming album and tour, “Cho-Dependent.”