Depression. Being told she’d have to “settle” because she was overweight. Mending a damaged relationship with her dad. Though actress Gabourey Sidibe discussed many serious topics during her Chicago Humanities Festival talk in the Heller Auditorium on May 11, she managed to keep her audience laughing throughout the evening.

Sidibe, best known for her current role as Becky on Fox’s series “Empire” and the title role in the 2009 movie “Precious,” which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, recently published a memoir called “This is Just My Face.” Her visit to Parker was part of her national book tour, which had previously taken her to New York City, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Sidibe’s memoir describes her childhood and rise to fame, highlighting her experience as an African American woman. Recently other speakers, including John Lewis, Natalie Moore, and Kelly Fair, have used Parker’s stage to talk about how being a person of color has impacted their lives and work.

Journalist Britt Julious sat onstage in a plush, navy chair beside Sidibe, guiding the conversation and asking her questions about her process. To begin, Julious asked Sidibe how she determined what to include in her memoir.

“Instead of deciding what was going to be in the book and what was not, I just decided to write what mattered to me, what made me feel good,” Sidibe said while flattening her black dress. “I started writing about something that bothered me, something that had been on my spirit for years. I felt really horrible while writing the first sentence, but by the last sentence, I felt relieved. It was like there was a Lego piece lodged in my chest, and getting to the last sentence allowed the Lego piece to fall through, and it no longer bothered me.”
Then Sidibe’s tone shifted as she reflected on how she forgot to explain her hatred of dinosaurs in the memoir. “You know that there are some evil scientists out there waiting to make Jurassic Park,” she said. “You’d think it’s really cute, but what if you had to walk down the street, and here comes a pterodactyl–boom, everybody’s dead.”

Audience member Jerrica Tisdale enjoyed hearing Sidibe speak.  “I knew she was funny because I’ve seen her on talk shows,” Tisdale said, “but it was nice to hear more insight about how she grew up, and her insight to the world in general. I loved seeing her comedy mixed with more serious things.”

Sidibe told the audience that she first started using humor when she was five years old, and her understanding of sarcasm separated her from most kids her age. She told jokes to get others to like her.

“I realized that if I made someone laugh, they sort of enjoyed me,” Sidibe said. “Starting with my dad–my dad’s this super staunch African-Muslim guy–I would watch ‘Benny Hill’ with him. He would laugh at that, so I was like, ‘I’m going to get him to laugh.’ I’d try to get my dad to laugh, and also try to get the kids at school to laugh. I remember my parents got me a joke book, and I’d just tell jokes all the time, and I decided that I wanted to be a comedian.”

Among the humorous moments, there were a number of times when Sidibe resonated with audience members on a deeper level. While she spoke about her experience with depression, she elicited head nods and “mmms” from the crowd. “For some reason, I think, in the black community, it’s hard to wrap your head around being sick with something you can’t see,” Sidibe said, the audience applauding when she added, “Jesus is so great–but I needed medication, fam.”

During a question and answer period at the end of the hour, fans expressed their appreciation of Sidibe before posing their questions. “I want to say your performance in ‘Precious’ was everything because it was very similar to my life growing up,” one woman said. “I’m so happy–you don’t even know–to see how your career has flourished because you’re amazing. The things that you say in interviews about how you have confidence and love yourself have really touched me because you don’t see a lot of black women who don’t look like Beyoncé getting a platform to say that ‘It’s ok that I don’t look like Beyoncé.’”

Junior Jalen Benjamin enjoyed attending her talk. “I think that she is an excellent role model because she is very confident with herself and her body, which I believe that a lot of young people aren’t,” Benjamin said. “My main takeaway from her discussion focused on getting the respect that you deserve from people in this world.”