T.J. Miller tries everything

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This article was published 09/11/2017 (3114 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

T.J. Miller’s morning meal is delivered to his Edmonton hotel room in the middle of his interview with the Free Press.

“I’m having a very Canadian breakfast,” says the comedian, who headlines the JFL Alternative Comedy Tour in Winnipeg on Nov. 10. “Canadian bacon and whisky.”

When a reporter suggests he make it even more stereotypical, he says, “Oh, that’s a brilliant idea,” and asks the server, “Can you bring me some maple syrup?”

https://youtu.be/W_DSOnOQnuk

It’s Miller’s first time hitting some of the smaller Canadian standup markets and he’s throwing himself whole-heartedly into it, visiting Hamilton, Ont., Kelowna and Surrey, B.C., and Red Deer, Alta., as part of the 10-city jaunt.

“It’s been interesting for me to see more of the country, because we do Deadpool (Miller plays wisecracking sidekick Weasel in the film series) in Vancouver and then Toronto is where Jay Baruchel lives, so we shot Goon 2 there. And Montreal is the Just for Laughs epicentre, so I’ve been there.”

The tour also features New Zealand comic Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) and host Nick Vatterott. Although Miller is the headliner, he’s at pains to spread the love to his fellow comedians.

“We live in a world now where top billing goes to he who is most celebrity and that’s me right now, because I do a lot of work in Hollywood,” he says. “But honestly, I look forward to watching Rhys and Nick each night more than I do to putting on my own show.”

The Denver-born performer released an hour-long HBO standup special, Meticulously Ridiculous, this year. But he is perhaps best known for his acting — he played solipsistic stoner Erlich Bachman on four seasons of the HBO comedy Silicon Valley (a role he unexpectedly exited in May) and starred in the Jason Bateman comedy Office Party — and does voice-over work in such films as Big Hero 6 and How To Train Your Dragon.

He also boldly owns his turns in such C-grade animated fare as Yogi Bear and The Emoji Movie, in which he voiced the “meh” emoticon. He gamely trades insults with an animated orange slice in the Super Bowl ad for Shock Top beer and he’s fond of bringing up his role as Mr. Mucus in the Mucinex cough syrup commercials.

One imagines his agent tearing out his hair over a client who never says no, who refuses to establish a predictable comedic brand.

“Not in a world where there is no zeitgeist,” Miller disagrees, laughing, “where we’re fractured because there’s too many outlets, too many places to consume narrative and media and everything. And actually, it’s not the agents who are tearing out their hair — although, as you correctly asserted, they tear at their hair and they tear their hair out; we’ve got a lot of agents with patchy bald spots.”

“But for a while — and this is part of why I think the exit from Silicon Valley was not just about me — it’s that I was only one on that show coming to HBO, saying, ‘This standup date moved; OK, I’m working this weekend; Deadpool needs me at this time.’ It’s a lot of requests: ‘Can I go on television to promote this different thing?’”

“Understandably, the networks are saying, ‘You’re diluting OUR brand; you’re becoming more T.J. Miller than Erlich Bachman.’”

It’s tough to imagine the performer being anything other than himself. He’s brash but focused, with a clearly defined philosophy. During an interview, he repeatedly stresses that his reason for doing comedy is altruistic. He’s not fussy about the medium as long as he’s reaching audiences.

“I have this mission statement of ‘make everyone laugh as much as you can,’ because tragedy really permeates everyday life, now especially, but I can’t reach everyone through an appearance on Johnny Carson; that just doesn’t exist anymore.”

“With the Mucinex commercial, I can make them laugh for 30 seconds… and it’s the superior cough syrup on the market.”

The tragedy Miller references is, in this case, largely Trumpian, but he doesn’t dabble much in political comedy.

“I’m beginning to understand that people really need the service I’ve been providing — they need distraction, they need happiness, they need reframing,” he says. “They need a lot of things that we as comedians do. They don’t necessarily need our political opinion or our progressive ideology. That’s not vital to people right now because it’s still such a fresh wound and it’s still so scary.”

“I talk bigger picture, larger than government or nation state — just to talk about what it’s like to be a human being.”

If that sounds a little lofty for your Friday night comedy needs, rest assured there will probably be burping and, as Miller puts it “my sillies and my old car-horn noises.”

If anything, the performer has more leeway than most to do whatever he wants onstage, whether that’s veering off on absurdist tangents or engaging in lengthy periods of audience banter, because he’s not relying on standup audiences to be his bread and butter.

“Yes, some part of me thinks I died in 2010 and that is just a trying period in heaven,” he says, acknowledging his position of privilege.

“But remember, I’m the Mucinex man,” he adds. “A lot of standup comedians didn’t spend hundreds of hours becoming a better voice-over actor or freelance at advertising agencies and then come to a project like Mucinex — which is the superior cough syrup in North America and maybe the world — and say to them, I’m not just a voice-over guy, I’m going to help write these spots.”

“I’m not living paycheque to paycheque but that’s because I put in the work.”

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @dedaumier