Chelsea Handler pushes even more boundaries on Netflix docuseries

Published 11:21 am Wednesday, January 20, 2016

All it takes is two sips, and then she’s done. She lies back on a mat and closes her eyes, listening to the shaman’s hypnotic chanting. There’s a bucket next to her, in case she starts vomiting.

But she doesn’t. She isn’t even nauseous. In fact, she barely feels anything at all. Chelsea Handler has traveled all the way to Peru to get high on ayahuasca, and it isn’t working.

“I was feeling buzzing, and then it just went out the window,” she tells friends Jenny Mollen and Daniel Maurio, who have also consumed the Amazonian plant brew.

“I feel like I had too much,” Maurio replies, looking sweaty and scared.

“It’s just the initial, then you’ll be OK — just breathe it in,” Handler says, before muttering to herself, “I could easily operate a 747 right now.”

Somehow it’s not entirely surprising that Handler was immune to the effects of the hallucinogen. There’s a toughness to her that even substances seem to have a difficult time permeating. In high school, after doing mushrooms or acid with her friends, she was always selected as the designated driver. In her five books, she talks about how much and how often she drinks alcohol.

“I just have a high tolerance for things. But I’m sure now that I’ve said that, someone’s gonna see me face down in the lobby of a hotel,” she says, sitting in her bedroom months after her trek to South America.

Handler decided to experiment with ayahuasca as part of her new docuseries, “Chelsea Does,” which will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, a day before it launches on Netflix on Saturday. In each of the series’ four episodes, Handler explores a different topic: There’s one about race and prejudice, in which she visits an old Southern plantation and sits down with prominent leaders like the Rev. Al Sharpton and former Israeli President Shimon Peres. In one on marriage, she goes on a painfully awkward series of blind dates and then grills an ex-boyfriend.

She explores technology by traveling to Silicon Valley to pitch her own app and learn what streaming is from Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings. And of course there are drugs as she tries mixing alcohol with Ambien and also invites her friends over for a marijuana-infused dinner.

The series, Handler says, is meant to serve as a tonal introduction for her new late-night talk show, which will debut in May on Netflix, where it will be streaming three times a week in May. After eight years on E!, she quit her show “Chelsea Lately” in 2014. She loudly declared that she was ready to distance herself from the Kardashian-affiliated cable network, telling Howard Stern that she felt she was “getting dumber” with each episode she filmed. It wasn’t long before she’d teamed with Netflix.

It seemed a logical move for Handler, who has always had a reputation for pushing boundaries. She’s the first major star to experiment with the platform on a streaming service, which has the potential to reach far more viewers than the 600,000 who typically tuned in during her final season on E!

Handler clearly aspires to be taken seriously, though that desire sometimes seems at odds with her reputation. Even though she publicly trashes many celebrities, she also pals around with them, counting Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sandra Bullock among her closest friends. Tabloids reported that her recent 40th birthday party — attended by a handful of A-listers — was so raucous that neighbors called the police to complain.

“I know what people think of me. I’m not an idiot. I’m sure they think I drink too much,” she says. “People never show you the ugly side of things. . But I can be myself and have my same personality and explore richer or more interesting topics. I want these docs to inform viewers of the direction I’m going in with my show. Imagine Google but as a TV show with me as your host — and swearing. You’re finding out information in a cool way that’s fast, so you don’t feel like you’re watching ‘60 Minutes.’”