BUDS DIGEST 003 / FEATURE
ADAM SELMAN & AMY SEDARIS
VERSUS THE VOLCANO
Photographed by CHRISTINE HAHN
Styled by ADAM SELMAN
Makeup by MIGUEL RAMOS
Adam Selman and Amy Sedaris photographed in Amy’s Manhattan apartment by Christine Hahn, 2021.
America’s friendliest fashion designer, the always cool ADAM SELMAN chats with his bud, the legendary comedic and creative force AMY SEDARIS in this exclusive conversation for Buds Digest.
Between knowing laughs and a few inside jokes, the pair touch on everything from the origin of Jerri Blank’s wig, to the nugget of weed that brought them together, to the many creative memories they share, making “something out of nothing.”
Selman, who’s namesake sport line continues to make a splash, opens up about his future and past in the comfort of Sedaris, with whom he has worked with, smoked with and shared some of his most memorable laughing fits with. Read on for peak into Amy and Adam’s iconic connection.
SEDARIS: Hey, Adam Selman.
SELMAN: Hey, Amy Sedaris.
SEDARIS: We'll start this by saying we're such good friends that it's going to be hard to sit here and interview each other, but we can have a conversation.
SELMAN: I know, I'm a little embarrassed because we do talk every single day, multiple times a day. So, this is a new for us.
SEDARIS: I thought we'd start first with how we met…
SELMAN: I think this is a pretty good story; I got a call to do a Dolly Parton video.
SEDARIS: “Better Get to Livin’.”
SELMAN: Originally, I was just supposed to dress the extras, which were the women in the accounting department at Dollywood. Then the night before we were supposed to leave [the producers] said, “Hey, Amy Sedaris joined on, do you want to dress her too,” and enthusiastically, I said, “Fuck yeah!”
SEDARIS: Then you came to my apartment, did a bunch of sketches. I thought “Oh my god, who is this guy?” So exciting.
SELMAN: I hate sketching too. It makes me nervous.
SEDARIS: Why?
SELMAN: I just don't like presenting sketches. I don't think I’m particularly great at it. So, it took a lot for me to do it, but I did it really quick.
SEDARIS: I was so impressed as you know. And then you left…
SEDARIS: I stayed up all night and I made you three costumes, I think.
SELMAN: A gypsy, and a carnival… What was the other one?
SELMAN: A ringleader, like, with a monkey on your shoulder. And then, next thing you know, we're in Dollywood, at a Hamptons Inn or something.
SEDARIS: Next to a Chick-fil-a and a Walmart.
SELMAN: You came in for a fitting and I think we just instantly hit it off.
SEDARIS: You were playing… What was the name of the group that you liked?
SELMAN: The Blossoms; girl group. Obsessed with girl groups.
SEDARIS: You are obsessed with girl groups. So, I went down there – it was in the morning or afternoon – and I worked the opening of At Home with Amy Sedaris; that green dress with the… I was in heaven and I didn't bring any weed at all, but somehow we got to talking about weed and you saved that trip because You. Had. Weed.
SELMAN: I brought a nugget in your gypsy cap, in a fold of the fabric, and I just pulled out a nugget and I convinced you to stay longer in Dollywood because we bonded so much. And we laughed. I mean, we've laughed really hard together.
SEDARIS: And then we became really good friends and we didn't even call each other for a while, but whenever we would call each other, we would spend the first five minutes of the phone call laughing at the fact that we called each other. Weren't you making dresses for RuPaul, then?
SELMAN: I was. I don't know if it quite started then, but I was working for Zalde at the time in the Chelsea Hotel. I was finishing up Michael Jackson, actually, and then I had to do RuPaul’s dresses – it was just a whole different time of glitz and glamour.
SEDARIS: I just remember how much room it would take to make a Rupaul dress. You would need a long hallway.
SELMAN: Yeah. I lived in a basement apartment and I couldn't even lift the mannequin high enough because she's so tall in my short-ass apartment. So, obsessed with drag obviously, but that’s sort of a pinnacle of drag. You know, what else? Where else am I going to go after that? Didn't a drag queen make your Jerri Blank’s wig too?
SEDARIS: Oh, yeah, Perfidia. Perfidia’s great.
SELMAN: Perfidia’s known for the wigs.
SEDARIS: And I gave him a Jerri Blank wig.
SELMAN: Makes Jerri even more of a gay icon, I think.
“I just pulled out a nugget and I convinced you to stay longer in Dollywood because we bonded so much.”
SEDARIS: Then I dragged you into a book project I had, a craft book.
SELMAN: Yes. I'd say that's when we really bonded.
SEDARIS: After meeting you, I thought it'd be great to have a chapter for costume making, because I love costumes and we bonded a lot over that. You made all of those costumes…
SELMAN: It was in your empty apartment. You had just moved in and we would literally smoke… We bought a volcano.
SEDARIS: We invested in a volcano!
SELMAN: You invested in a volcano. I think for a wrap present, you even bought me a volcano.
SEDARIS: Do you still have it?
SELMAN: Yup. So we would smoke the volcano and go at it. We would set up stuff all around your apartment. You'd leave for an hour and then come back and I'd have taped a full seamless backdrop to your wall. Your brand new walls. And we shot it all in your apartment.
SEDARIS: Huge sets. That was a full-on creative project
SELMAN: And never-ending because then I would go back to work and then you’d say “Okay, this week we have to shoot this, this and this.” The lists where the craziest things in the world; candy apples, miniature bonnets…
SEDARIS: A sausage house. It was the best stoner project I've ever been involved in.
SELMAN: We were high the entire time, except for two pictures.
SEDARIS: When I played the angel and that shepherd. Remember how I was so serious?
SELMAN: As you're putting the hair from your brush on your chin.
SEDARIS: You really like to laugh, which is a really great thing about you. You're always up for a laugh and you're a good laugher and you're very good natured.
SELMAN: I think that's why we make good friends. Whenever I hear that people don't laugh like we laugh, it really breaks my heart. We have had barrel laughs, like true, true barrel laughs. I think one of my favorite moments together, as Halloween approaches… We were walking up Sixth Avenue and the parade was going down and we saw a kid. It was really windy and he had a top hat and the top hat blew off of him and it went into the street and got run over – and instead of us helping, we are doubled over laughing and pointing at this poor kid. It's great that we can laugh together endlessly, but I also love that we can hang out and be totally silent.
SEDARIS: Yeah, do nothing together, which is always a test if a good family member or a good friend.
SELMAN: And we've watched very few things together.
SEDARIS: Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice, I think. Um, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle…
SELMAN: A little Bombay Talkie.
SEDARIS: When I met you, the biggest thing was that you were a cheerleader, you were missing a front tooth, you went to church five days a week and you could do backflips.
SELMAN: I might still be able to do a backflip if somebody spotted me.
SEDARIS: I’d like to see that.
SELMAN: I think it's because you were also a girl scout…
SEDARIS: I was a first class girl scout.
SELMAN: I was a competitive cheerleader; I was a junior Olympic gold medalist. I feel like that's why we get along – it's that same sort of spirit and wanting to do things, but there's an innocence to it and there's a competitiveness to it.
SEDARIS: I used to say to you, “What would you do if you didn't get into fashion and all that?” And what was your answer to that, Mr. Selman?
SELMAN: I said I would be a hustler. I moved here at 18. I graduated high school and was like, boom, moved straight to New York. I think if I had stayed in Texas I would have been a hustler. I really grew up doing dirty things in truck stops.
SEDARIS: Dirty things at truck stops??
SELMAN: It was not a great place to grow up gay, so, I escaped, I got the fuck out. I really think I could have gone down a whole different path.
SEDARIS: Well, there's still time.
SELMAN: What would you be doing if you weren't doing what you're doing?
SEDARIS: I would be clean instruments at an abortion clinic.
SELMAN: As I laugh…
SEDARIS: I would say one of the best hearty laughs that we ever had was in North Carolina when we were at the beach – we don't have to talk about what happened – we ran into the laundry room and we both, out of nowhere, just doubled over and were just laughing. It was like a burst of this crazy energy.
SELMAN: I even think our heads butted. I've never experienced… It really felt like another level of elation. It always felt ethereal. And then we had to compose ourselves to go back into the room.
SEDARIS: And we did. We didn’t break. We were perfectly calm. It was a moment I'll never, ever forget. That or the time I took an edible and I had a bad experience and you had to nurse me through that. I was like, “Call the police, call an ambulance!” And you said “You're just having a bad trip.” I said, “If I'm the girl scout that I always say that I am, there should be a Xanax hidden in that little thing over there.” You found it and sure enough, I took half of it and I felt better.
SELMAN: That shit happens. It's also a good lesson; you just don't double up on edibles.
SEDARIS: Well, I didn’t.
SELMAN: Yes we did.
SEDARIS: No we didn… Oh, we did. That’s why I don't like edibles that much. I like weed. I like, you know, actual grass.
SELMAN: I guess I'm kind of open to it all; I like a bowl, I like a joint, I like an edible, but I would stick to the gummies. I don't do chocolate.
SEDARIS: Remember when I thought, “I'm going to find a church; buy a church” and we would have a fellowship kind of thing.
SELMAN: Yeah, we got obsessed with that idea.
SEDARIS: I just thought you'd get like an actor. At the time I was thinking Philip Seymour Hoffman… he would give a lecture on… honesty. Something like that. He would give out a little sermon, a little talk and it would just be our friends, really, just going about and fellowshipping.
SELMAN: Totally. Or even just a weekly story would be so fantastic.
SEDARIS: I just thought it would be such a nice thing to start your own church and just fellowship with all your friends, like how we'll fellowship on Fridays. We have a small group that we get together with.
SELMAN: Yeah, I'd say we're pretty good about that. We're pretty consistent. We have our close group of friends that we really do it with.
SEDARIS: You come up with ideas high, but then, you know, you got to give it the high test. Also, if you come with an idea and you're not high, you always have to go back and give it the high test.
SELMAN: It's always fun to see what you remember from the night before and what sticks. Sometimes you do have to go back and give it the high test or whatever you’re going through to give the high test; a script or an idea, like a design idea, or a bigger picture idea. And you're like, “Is this a good idea?”
SEDARIS: For Strangers [with Candy], I gave it the high test, Paul [Dinello] and Stephen [Colbert] didn't. So, we’d work the script and I'd go home and I'd read it high and be like, “Okay, this works.” Or, I’d be high watching the movie of the week channel, Lifetime. I’d get so inspired by half of those for Strangers scripts.
SELMAN: It’d be so fun to do a Lifetime movie.
SEDARIS: It's the best. Hit and Run.
SELMAN: Haha.
SEDARIS: Tell me what you're doing right now.
SELMAN: I’ve got Adam Selman Sport, which is great. It's really fun. I’m sort of happy to be out of the fashion system right now and just doing my own thing. I feel like that's a really powerful thing, to make the decision ahead of the pandemic, and decide to leave fashion and do something truly unique. I feel like it fits my personality and I love what I'm doing. Coming from a cheerleader background, and my dad was a coach growing up, I feel like I really have that in me to be that person. So I'm working on that everyday, all day for the most part. We launched swim. So I'm super into the swimwear aspect of it. That's really my main focus. Just slow and steady, you know, doing things. My way, as opposed to trying to live up to the system's idea.
SEDARIS: You're so hands-on on every aspect, you know, with the photo shoots again, building sets – you just do it all. You don't meet that many people who can do so much.
SELMAN: I guess I'm not afraid to, if I see the need, just pick up and do it. Which is sometimes not the best way to do it, but it's how I get it done. When I first went into it too, I didn't think about what I was doing or think that I was going to land where I landed; I just love to make things. And that's how we bonded in the first place.
SEDARIS: You would make me dresses all the time.
SELMAN: Stuff for your apartment. I did so much stuff in your apartment downstairs.
SEDARIS: All you. You're high and you're saying, “How about an awning, I can make that!” And so much stuff you did for the TV show, last minute, making all that stuff.
SELMAN: I'm also good at making something out of nothing. I can really whip something up. I think that is a strength of mine.
SEDARIS: I can do that in the kitchen.
SELMAN: You made dinner tonight, actually. Most people don't have home made meals. And so whenever they come over, or, when I come over at least, you're like, “Hey, I just made this salmon and veg, do you want to come over?” And I’m like, fuck yeah I want to come over, and then I'm stuffing my face.
SEDARIS: I always think, if I'm cooking for myself I can cook for someone else.
SELMAN: Sometimes it is hard to cook for yourself.
SEDARIS: It is. That's why I like the kind of cooking I'm into right now, which I always call “alcoholic cooking.” Where you just put everything in one pot, put it in the oven and you walk away for 45 minutes and when you come back, it's ready. You just don’t have to do anything.
SELMAN: Anything to make your life simpler and easier, I think is the goal right now. Everything is an uphill battle.
SEDARIS: Thank god we have weed, right?
SELMAN: True.
SEDARIS: Where do you really think you're going to be in five years?
SELMAN: I feel like having my own business, I get asked that a lot. I tend to not like five-year plans because I think that everything's moving too quickly for five years. I do like five-year goals, like what do I really want? I really want a house upstate. I feel like that's a grownup thing to do and to own property and own some sort of land, I think it would be good for me. I feel like I'm making steps towards that for the first time in my life. I guess I'm pretty simple. I'm also pretty content. I also just want to take a cab if I want, or to have dinner out. It doesn't have to be extravagant places, because I don't think I'm particularly fancy. If I want to get on a flight and go somewhere, I want to get on a flight and go somewhere. I don't want to ask for permission, or double check my funds to make sure I can. That's my idea of luxury.
SEDARIS: That is nice. You'd be able to buy dinner for somebody, the whole table, being generous that way, I mean, is such a great feeling.
SELMAN: My ultimate goal would be, next year, to rent out a full resort or something and [bring] my closest friends and it's all taken care of. We're going to eat dinner here every night. We're just going to hang out.
SEDARIS: What is that a place in Florida you like to go to?
SELMAN: Florida?
SEDARIS: Excuse me, California.
SELMAN: Palm Springs.
SEDARIS: Let’s do it. We could do it next March.
SELMAN: What about you?
SEDARIS: In five years from now? I mean, I love my apartment so much, you know I do. But I feel like I need to step up. I feel like it's time to maybe move again. That way I can get rid of a lot of stuff, kind of reinvent myself a little bit just to prepare for the next phase of my life.
SELMAN: Right. I think that's healthy.
SEDARIS: I could also easily stay here, but sometimes you do things to push yourself. Especially the older you get. Go to the gym every day because you know you just have to do those things. Maintenance and just making yourself do it while you have the energy. That's one thing, our age difference is like 20 years, which is a lot really, but that's what makes you so cool. He's 40 and he's hanging out with a 60 year old.
SELMAN: I guess I just don’t think about it. We just get along so well and I genuinely never think about it. I also feel like you really listen to my problems and commiserate with me.
SEDARIS: That's the one advantage of being older is you can kind of look back and see things. I have regrets in life, but it's more like not naming Dusty, you know, Buckles. You know, regrets like that. But career wise, could I have worked harder in my forties, in a way? Yeah, but for some reason I didn't. I don't want to kick myself for certain things. I liked being under the radar. I always liked being able to live on life, plus work a little bit, but I didn't really go for the big cheese. I think that was right for me.
SELMAN: I always respected that about you. You wanted to do things your way and it worked out for you. And not many people I think can say that. I think the bigger question is, you said you wanted to get rid of stuff?
SEDARIS: Yeah, I know.
SELMAN: But then what are you going to do with it? Where's it going to go? We got to think about that. Is there an audience who wants it? And which audience is that – where can we take it to? That’s the fun stuff.
SEDARIS: Just curate a place and have a big sale. Everything's 25 cents.
SELMAN: I think we covered a lot.
SEDARIS: We did. Is there anything else you want to talk about?
SELMAN: Um, no, right?
SEDARIS: I think it's good.
SELMAN: Should we just spark a J?
