Hannah Hart made her way to internet fame after getting drunk on camera while trying to make grilled cheese, minus the cheese. Now, she’s starred in movies and TV shows, performed on stage and written two books. Talk about a wild ride.
Hart is in town this weekend for BookCon 2016, where authors and pop culture personalities (or people, like Hart, who happen to be both) meet.
In 2011, Hart kicked off her “My Drunk Kitchen” legacy after trying to make a grilled cheese while drinking wine. Long story short, she forgot to add the cheese and, five years later, she has more than 2.4 million subscribers who watch her get tipsy and cook on her YouTube channel, MyHarto.
Since launching the show, Hart has had tons of guests, ranging from fellow YouTuber Tyler Oakley to Lance Bass of ‘NSync. Her favorite guests, though, are her friends. If she could have any guest on the show, however, she’d have to go big.
“Beyonce or Patrick Stewart,” she said, when asked who her dream guest would be. “For Beyonce, we’d have to do something that reflects her Texas roots. For Patrick, I guess we’d have to do something classically English.”
In 2014, Hart decided to take her comedic drunk cooking to print, penning her first book, “My Drunk Kitchen: A Guide to Eating, Drinking and Going with Your Gut,” a book that she calls a “self-help parody-meets-drunk cooking” book.
Now, she’s writing her first memoir, “Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded,” due to be released in October.
“This has been a lot more intense,” Hart said of the writing process for “Buffering,” compared with her previous forays into writing. “The first one was more creatively taxing. … This is more about allowing yourself to express what you’ve been through, then you go back and shape it.”
Writing is not the only way Hart has been able to unleash her creative energy. In addition to her YouTube channel, she’s also starred in the 2014 independent film “Camp Takota,” toured alongside other YouTubers Grace Helbig and Mamrie Hart (no relation) with their successful #NoFilterShow in 2014 and will play Dyna Girl in the upcoming revival of the popular ’70s TV show.
But despite dabbling in a little bit of everything, writing will always be Hart’s first love. “I love to write more than anything,” Hart said. “I grew up in a household where books were sacred, and it’s always been my passion.”
Writing a book, though, is similar to crafting an episode of “My Drunk Kitchen” or planning a stage show.
“It’s just different forms of the same process,” she said. “It’s very free-form. You decide which direction you’re trying to go in, decide the structure and go back and edit or revise.”
When it comes to visiting Chicago, Hart is no newbie, and not afraid to indulge in Chicago’s favorite food: deep-dish pizza. With one caveat.
“I love deep-dish, but I can’t do it at night,” she said. “I have to do it at like 2 or 4 p.m., when I still have time to burn it off. If I eat it at night, I just feel terrible.”
Uh, yeah, I feel you there.
