Even before she steps onstage Jan. 5 to host the 82nd Golden Globes, Nikki Glaser is making Hollywood history. She is the first woman to solo host Hollywood’s “party of the year.” (Others, like Sandra Oh, Amy Pohler and Tina Fey, did it in tandem.)

Glaser is up to the challenge. “Hosting the Golden Globes is scary!” she tells the GG website. “It’s a well-lit room, which is not conducive to comedy; there are a lot of people I admire, which also is not conducive to comedy. It’s live, so you can’t do retakes. The level of difficulty is through the roof. And that’s thrilling to me.”

Glaser is best known for her standup specials about her funny (and explicit) personal experiences, and for stealing the show at Netflix’s “The Roast of Tom Brady” earlier this year. The Globes will tap into her years of standup experience, but it’s a different beast.

Soon after she got the job, she reached out to Ricky Gervais, three-time host.

“He said ‘Be yourself. Do what you did at the roast and employ whatever method you used there. And don’t forget that you’re not one of them. You’re not a movie star, you’re not a TV star. You’re at the Globes, you’re the host and you’re a comedian and that’s your job.’ That was really refreshing to hear.”

After Glaser’s Brady roast, fan Jennifer Lopez enthused “She annihilated everybody!”

Glaser is grateful, but that’s not her goal here. “I’m known as this brutal roast queen who pulls no punches. But I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or set a bad tone. Everyone is ‘We want it to be slightly caustic. That’s what the Globes allows you to be.’

“It’s Hollywood making fun of itself. People didn’t sign up to be roasted. What I’ll do at the Globes is a much more acute form of joke-writing, to call out some things, point out hypocrisy, and make jokes about Hollywood, but you want to do it without ruining anybody’s night. Those people are there to be celebrated.”

It requires a lot of work to come up with jokes about films and TV shows that won’t be stale by January, and to walk the delicate line between spoofing Hollywood and annihilating everyone.

Will she get close to annihilating everybody?

“That’s what Ricky did with his third time hosting, with a tone of ‘I don’t care anymore, this is my last time hosting.’ But he had earned that; I haven’t earned the ability to annihilate Hollywood. I’m not a household name. There will be a very different approach than from a roast. With a roast, I was given the job to annihilate, but that’s not the case here.

“I would like some people to say ‘You said what we were all thinking!’ I hope to say things that will make people say ‘Wow, I can’t believe she said that.’ ”

She also is clear on whom she’s targeting with her comedy.

“I’m representing the audience at home. You want to kill in the room, but most of the audience is at home. You need to structure the act for them, and remember this is a televised event.

“If there’s a struggle between appealing to the audience in the room or the millions of people watching at home, the latter group will always win. There are so many insider jokes possible, but even jokes about ‘The Bear’ being considered a comedy — I don’t know that the general public cares about this. But there’s a way to serve both.”

She was surprised when her agent and manager made a joint phone call to ask if she was interested.

“This was not on my radar at all; I didn’t even know this was being talked about. I love that they called me with a question: ‘Would you want to host the Golden Globes?’ Who would say no to this?” she laughs. “It was a moment in my career I’ll never forget. And everyone has been so positive and super-supportive.

“This isn’t what I thought my career would look like, playing in a room full of A-list stars. Sometimes I will have a delusional moment like ‘Am I an A-lister?’ And the answer is no, I’m a comedian, I need to do what I was sent here to do.”

“It’ll be the first time I see a lot of these famous people. Meeting Jennifer Aniston has been a goal of my life since I was in sixth grade! So being in the same room will be ‘Whoa.’

“Tina and Amy did some planned interaction with celebrities in the audience; that would be a dream. All those actors are there and I think some of them will be game to play.”

This past year has been explosive in terms of politics. Will there be political jokes?

“Who knows what the landscape will be? The Globes will be right before the election is, hopefully, certified. There will be political material, but I’m not going to go too heavy into it. There’s no question you’ll have to talk about politics. And I don’t know how to prepare for that. Those jokes might be written that same day.”

Part of her homework is to make jokes during the games preceding the awards show. “I took a gig with the NFL where I’m roasting NFL games. My team and I will write jokes during the game. I wanted to rehearse writing jokes at the last minute  in a high-stakes atmosphere.”

She has watched previous Globes telecasts. “I’ve studied them, those are some of my favorite monologs of all time. I hope people will see the influence but think ‘She did it her own way, this is not just a ripoff.’

“I’m extremely appreciative of this role I play. It’s the pinnacle of my career so far. I’ve reached my Everest in getting to host the Globes! I hope it’s something I get to do again.”

Announcement of nominations will be Dec. 9, with the ceremony taking place Jan. 5, at the Beverly Hilton. The 82nd annual Golden Globes, the first major award show of the season, will air live on Jan. 5, 2025, at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET on CBS and stream on Paramount+ in the U.S. (live and on-demand for Paramount+ with Showtime subscribers, or on-demand for Paramount+ Essential subscribers the day after the special airs.