photo - One of the most popular stand-up comedians, Iliza Shlesinger, says she “definitely came up at a time where it was still a little weird to see a woman doing comedy.” Shlesinger will perform Friday at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. Courtesy photo

Opening her latest Prime Video special, “A Different Animal,” Iliza Shlesinger began riffing about Millennials.

“We’ve had it rough,” she said. “We got out of school if we could afford it, and there were no houses and there were no jobs, and our parents said we had to stop eating avocados, and then we finally get old enough to where we’re having kids and buying houses. Just kidding. Still renting.”

One of America’s most popular comedians, Shlesinger is returning to the Maui Arts & Cultural Center on Friday. She is also an actor, writer, producer, author and podcaster and has sold out theaters around the world.

Born in New York City and raised in Dallas, her interest in performing began when she was a young girl. By her mid-teens, she started taking comedy seriously by joining the acclaimed Dallas improv troupe ComedySportz. Shlesinger quickly became a standout performer.

“I was always into watching funny shows on TV that I could sneakily watch after my mom went to bed,” she told The Guardian in 2023. “I would put on ‘Comedy Central’ or MTV, ‘Monty Python’ reruns, ‘In Living Color,’ ‘Absolutely Fabulous,’ and, of course, ‘SNL.’ I would write and film my own sketches, and I joined a sketch troupe in college. From there I got the crazy idea that I could just speak alone on a stage.”

Studying film at Boston’s Emerson College, she joined the school’s improv troupe Jimmy’s Traveling All Stars, learning to write and perform comedy for the stage.

Shlesinger won MySpace’s 2007 “So You Think You’re Funny” contest, and became the first woman ever to win NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” in 2008.

“I definitely came up at a time where it was still a little weird to see a woman doing comedy,” she told the No Filter podcast.

As far as where she finds her material, “I get a lot of material from being honest about my own feelings, my fears and embarrassment,” she reported in The Guardian. “I’m also constantly fascinated by the science, biology, and sociology behind why men and women act the way they do.”

Among her acting roles, in her screen debut “Good on Paper,” Shlesinger channeled a real-life traumatizing experience into a comedy. She played a stand-up comedian who meets a seemingly charming man.

“I became friends with someone who I met on a plane,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “Little did I know from the moment I met that person, everything about them was a lie. Me, my friends and other people all unearthed that this person was a total sociopath.”

She starred in and wrote the screenplay for a new movie, “Chasing Summer,” which premiered at Sundance. Shlesinger plays a disaster relief worker navigating the end of one relationship and the beginning of a new one after she retreats to her small Texas town. “This is a love letter to a Texas suburban upbringing,” she told IndieWire.

Besides movies, stand-up specials and books, she has a podcast, “Ask Iliza Anything,” where people submit questions on topics ranging from bad coworkers, psychotic bridesmaids and a mother-in-law who won’t move out to faking an accent and kilts as wedding attire.

“Iliza Live” will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $51 to $71 and $171 for VIP at mauiarts.org.