About (Late) Last Night: Gabourey Sidibe’s nerdy trip to Amsterdam

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‘I worked like a full year, dude,’ said Gabourey Sidibe, justifying her vacation on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on Wednesday night. No one was challenging that she’s earned some time off. Sidibe, as Kimmel reminded his audience, was nominated for an Oscar for ‘Precious,’ her very first film, and now stars in the Showtime series ‘The Big C.’ And so in her first bit of downtime, she took a little trip to Amsterdam. Everyone knows what that means.

Why Amsterdam? Kimmel asked. It was a leading question, but Sidibe deferred, if only for a moment. ‘I won an award or something like that,’ she said with a genuine enough faux-humility. But the host pressed on. ‘I’m a nerd and I don’t smoke pot,’ Sidibe claimed. Actually, it’s kind of a funny story...

So innocent is Sidibe that when she ventured into a souvenir shop to buy ‘regular’ candy, she came out with a lollipop of the marijuana-infused variety. ‘I stick one in my mouth and I’m looking at the packaging and it says ‘weed lollipop,’’ she said. ‘And I get so scared -- because again, I’m a nerd -- and I’m like, ‘Oh crap, I just bought weed.’’ This is the good stuff Kimmel was looking for. ‘I felt like a criminal.’

‘I’m so nerdy,’ she insisted again. As it turns out, ‘it wasn’t weed pops, it was weed-flavored pops.’ Maybe she’s right about the nerdiness. ‘I’m hallucinating thinking I’m high and really I’m just stupid.’ But charming too.

-- Joe Coscarelli