Margaret Cho may make you laugh, but when it comes to music, she's all business. In a phone call from her home in Peachtree City, Ga., Cho is excited trying to find out what instrument Joni Mitchell is playing on a YouTube video. After some discussion it's decided that it's a mountain dulcimer, an instrument Cho was unfamiliar with. It's likely that by now, Cho will have added a mountain dulcimer to her instrument collection.

"I play the 12-string banjitar, which is sort of a banjo, but it's tuned like a guitar," says Cho. "I have one of the only 12-string versions. It's a giant thing. I have to sit down to play it. It's like playing a telephone booth! You have to sit with it between your legs, which is kind of like a cello, but I find it quite unladylike, which I know it's weird for me to say something like that!"

While music may sometimes be a break from comedy for Cho, she is currently working with Andrew Bird, Jon Brion, Grant Lee Phillips and Patty Griffin on a musical comedy album.

"It's influenced by Weird Al Yankovic and Flight of the Conchords and people like that, but I'm working with some of the most serious music people, ever. They're finding their comedy side and I'm finding my musical side, so it's a lot of fun."

Cho is in the South filming the Lifetime series "Drop Dead Diva," in which she plays a legal assistant. It's strictly an acting gig as opposed to the full-on comedy that she's best known for.

She grew up in San Francisco and began performing comedy at the age of 14 and became a professional at 16.

"I started at such a young age it was never a decision where I said, 'I can do this!' I just did it," says Cho. "I had this leave-everything-and-join-the-circus kind of feeling."

Although Cho had a short-lived TV show in the 1990s, it wasn't until just after the millennium when she began a series of stand-up tours that her career really took off. Cho says people who don't know her expect her to make them laugh off stage.

"But I never do!" Cho laughs. "I'm pretty serious as a person. Most comedians are very serious. Chris Rock, he's super-shy and serious. Steve Martin, incredibly shy and super-serious. Jerry Seinfeld, who is my role model and hero and a great dude, super-serious. Comics are hard-core people. Funny onstage, but when we're off, I think we're probably more serious than other people. ... What we do as comics is kind of a dishonest thing. Being funny is a defense mechanism to protect yourself. So when you actually are real with people you try to not be funny."

Of course, Cho and other modern comedians include personal information onstage that other people would consider intensely private. "I feel like sharing deep truth is important," says Cho. "When you can take something really painful and dark and make it hilarious, that's really great."

Another hallmark of modern comedians is to open up taboo subjects for discussion - and Cho, who has been a champion of gay rights, has certainly made her contributions to the cause. She wasn't sure what to expect when she moved to Georgia to film "Drop Dead Diva."

"I had a lot of preconceived notions about what it would be like," she says. "Being politically liberal, I was really kind of concerned, but I've had such a wonderful time. People have been really kind and beautiful and I've fallen in love with the food and the customs and the way people are. I have a new view on conservatism and social conservatism and political conservatism. I think people are afraid their way of life and customs are being eclipsed by the modern world. People hang on to their beliefs because they're afraid of extinction. ... I used to really demonize it, but now I understand it more. I'm not changed, but I'm a much more well-rounded person by being here."