Nailed It host Nicole Byer was asked ‘to be blacker’ when starting her career in Hollywood

Nailed It host Nicole Byer says change in Hollywood has to start at the top

Nicole Byer, comedian and host of Netflix cooking show Nailed It. Picture: Supplied

‘We need you to be more … urban.”

Comedian Nicole Byer is given these directions from a casting director in a sketch she wrote and produced a few years back. It continues with her being asked to “be more black … Spike Lee! Urkel! Oprah!”

It’s a funny three-minute “audition”, but the host of the Netflix cooking show Nailed It says it’s exactly what happened to her when she started out in the industry.

“In the beginning of my career I would be asked point blank to be blacker,” she says. “Now I find sometimes I’m not the right kind of black for things, they want someone who is a little rougher around the edges than me.”

So many characters of colour — black, Asian, Latino — seem to be struggling to overcome adversity, Byer says, and actors going for these roles are pigeonholed into damaging stereotypes.

“That’s a shitty hurdle that white people never have to overcome,” she says. “White people just get to be … people. A character for a white person isn’t overcoming their struggle because white is the norm, white is what you automatically think of.”

Having established herself in the industry through her stand-up, a number of web TV series and a successful podcast, Byer no longer faces the same type of humiliation in the casting room.

“I’ve hit a point in my career where people know what they’re getting, for the most part, before I’m called in for an audition so usually I’m called in to be a funny person,” she says. “I am black and I love being black, but I don’t need to say ‘I’m a black woman’ in every line.”

The New Jersey native isn’t confident of seeing monumental change across the industry in her lifetime, but believes she knows what needs to be done to get it moving faster.

“I think change has to start from the top, and the top of the pyramid in Hollywood is network executives or movie executives,” she says. “Those are the guys who green light things, so once you have people of colour in those positions, then you won’t have ‘this is the black version of this’ or ‘this is the Asian version of this’, you’ll just have creatives telling stories and people will see it,” she says.

Byer’s style of comedy is crude and in your face — she likes to tell things as they are and that makes her a perfect fit for a series that showcases some pretty horrendous talent.

Nailed It is a cooking show like no other, an alternative take on the competitive food TV craze that has been a staple of networks for the best part of a decade. There’s little hope of uncovering the next Curtis Stone or Maggie Beer on this show, with shocking home bakers tasked with whipping up some pretty complicated creations.

Nailed It turns the traditional cooking competition on its head, with contestants producing hilarious fails.

Another spectacular fail from season one.

The show’s first season saw contestants attempt to bake a three-tier wedding cake by one of New York’s finest cake decorators Sylvia Weinstock, a shark attack cake complete with a surfer stuck in huge teeth and an almost life-size cake of Donald Trump’s head. What comes out of the oven is a sight to behold.

“But they’re so perfect. I can’t remember who it was in season one but the Trump cake with the red eyes, oh man it was so funny and she was so proud. I just loved it,” Byer laughs.

The host compares the efforts of those on her show to one of the worst Hollywood movies ever made.

“Nailed It to me is like the The Room of baking shows — Tommy Wiseau put so much work into that movie and it’s … wild. I appreciate the effort that goes into each of those horrific things people make,” she says.

Apart from the finer baking details handed out to the contestants, most of Nailed It is unscripted. That’s a bit dangerous for someone with Byer’s quick tongue, but it’s nothing those behind the scenes can’t fix before it hits the air.

“I make about eight dick jokes a day until someone goes ‘can you stop?’ and I go ‘oh OK, sure’,” she laughs. “Or I’ll push back and I’ll say ‘guys, we’ve got nine hours of footage, you can just cut it out, let me tell my dick jokes’ so they don’t censor me. They just censor me in the edit.”

Nailed It Season Two now streaming on Netflix