Raw, Uncensored: THR's Full, Comedy Actor Roundtable With Ricky Gervais, Jordan Peele and More

right now on close-up with the hollywood reporter there's this myth that goes around that americans don't get irony what does that mean this is my impression of danny glover there's a bomb on my dick we'll hear from the most talked about comedy actors in television thomas middleditch silicon valley will forte the last man on earth ricky gervais derek jordan peel key and peel fred armisen portlandia don cheadle house of lies welcome to close up with the hollywood reporter i'm stacy wilson awards editor for the hollywood reporter and your host let's jump right in i'd like to talk a little bit about your current shows start with will last man on earth was notoriously a hard sell for network television and i'm wondering what was the toughest part of getting this show on the air the hardest part about it they they were into it from the beginning and very supportive but the hardest thing was to have them buy into long stretches of time without people talking that was that was really tricky yeah network execs don't like that very much yeah yeah that was by far the hardest so how did you overcome that well we were very honest about our intentions from the beginning the nerve-wracking part was just thinking that that at some point they would force us to go against their their promises of of letting us do what we wanted to do and and they were battles along the way and not battles just conversations which which uh you know it was nerve-wracking but ultimately they were kind of letting us do what we wanted to do so that was the scary part though is entering into this agreement and thinking oh they're going to make us change it all around and ultimately uh stuck to their promise were there any minor adjustments they asked for oh yeah little things along the way and oh god we wrote so many drafts of that thing and but i will say that by having to do all these things that at times seemed like addressing crazy notes it it ultimately made the the show better i think so i'm thankful for their crazy notes um and some of them weren't crazy but what were some of their notes they have more talking uh you know the little can there be you couldn't show you know don't show a dead body which we thought was important in the beginning and we still here to this day like where are all the dead bodies and we had we really don't know at the beginning right yeah um just don't use real ones they meant yeah and we taking a stand this is about realism yeah yeah but i like that in your show that they're you don't see the bodies we didn't we didn't miss it but the walking dead's on the same night yeah yeah we're covered with bodies hanging out for whiskey you want a whiskey gary whiskey you sure how about you jimmy no okay well does anyone want a whiskey huh greg kevin anton no really nobody trevor terrance trent darby bryce marshall peter thomas max daschle diego how about the rest of you on your current shows what were the best jokes you had to lose or notes that you were given that you just said okay i have to make a concession on this front i'm sure you guys have had a lot of conversations with comedy central about the boundaries well you know you'd be surprised you know this is the network that's you know been successful with south park and chappelle and the word comedy's in the names of comedies in the name so they're they're not afraid of going for it you know the strangest notes that we'll get are things like is star wars really a thing that people care about you know and then of course everyone cares about and you write back what do you say and then we go yeah that's the people still care yeah people just don't care you just write back no doi no that did the sketch not a lot of people cared to be honest so yeah i mean the the younger generation are not as feverish for zeitgeist pieces of so yeah the zeitgeist thing the what what is what is what's relevant you know and we have this we have a very young demo on yeah i mean we're targeted at the kids so we gotta like write sketches about drake and [ __ ] no uh but uh one of the main reasons our show has been successful is that the network has allowed us to go places they've even pushed us you know over the line sometimes and we're we're very lucky to have found that home and have they weighed in a lot on a lot of the race stuff which is kind of you know the questions we have this wonderful thing called the race card which we can play at any point any any time you get a note you don't like it's a black thing and that's the end of the conversation wait until they hire that black executive like that's not well that's that's they're just trying to get around that thank god hollywood does not hire black attacks yeah you're good you're cutting stuff you're safe that will never happen you will be in room 237 and you have free wi-fi there also from 6am to 10am every morning there's a free continental breakfast continental breakfast yes from 6am to 10am so it's continental then fred on portland i know you uh are given a lot of creative freedom we are and i'm wondering what are the challenges of keeping it fresh and after five seasons and keeping ifc interested in keeping lauren michaels interested he's a producer what challenges do you face now at this point well it's mostly for for us and for our fans you know we feel like when we've done a season of a type of sketch we just think well let's just change it up this year so we just at the beginning of every writing session we think okay what's the goal for this season and we've done that every year so far and how are you finding inspiration now for your ass it's never ending so far you know we because we haven't seen each other in a while you know we'll after a few months we'll just say we'll just check in with what each other's experiences have been and we usually write it on our phones like i noticed this happen and if it resonates with the other writers then we think oh this might be worth writing a sketch about or an episode about hi welcome to tiny town micro village little place and that's a tiny micro house yeah it's very very efficient everything is thought out no waste of space anywhere this is a bathroom and a home office can you hand me the uh shower gel please yes coming up yeah thank you thomas i'm i'm uh interested on silicon valley how much control do you have over the funny moments i'd say it's it's fairly substantial i mean i we're all allowed to try things and sometimes they might be like hey not for this but that's mainly because they've got a bird's-eye view of the episode and it's like in their head it's running like 45 minutes and they've got to get it down or that it just isn't funny but yeah i feel like i have a fair amount of contribution and uh either it's in the moment or pitched before we roll but yeah i would say the character is very much an amalgamation of my contribution and plus everybody else's as well as all the little bits in between do you get to improv at all yeah yeah it's not about improv on that show isn't about rewriting a scene or like creating a whole new you know storyline a tangent may evolve but it's more about like character color or finding a little moment that's like oh good that's our little out to get to something else i mean a guy like zach woods who's an incredible improviser his character in the pilot is just like a guy who worked at huli who was taken over to our side but it's all all his little improvs that happened even that didn't even make it into the show that everyone was like oh i know how to write for you now and now he's become this very you know weird guy with a lot of hidden secrets that's just pretty much come out of him and then people seeing that and then like writing for them oh [ __ ] yeah it doesn't matter whoa you okay there richard uh yeah i'm fine sorry i can't really throw it any slower give it another cut richard uh no i'm fine i don't want to uh maybe someone else wants to who's next if someone has to go i'll go but it seems very frightening that's why i think sometimes the second series of something is better than the first because when you write it you don't know who's going to play it then you cast then the second time you know who's playing you'd be building their physicality there it's so funny because first time i shot the office lots of improv and in the cold light of day the scripted lines worked better than the improv lines because they made sense yeah it made more sense there's a lot of times where you watch either comedy either on tv or film where you can kind of just you could tell right sense that it's like actors trying to throw funny lines in there yeah when it seems out of place it's like all right yeah they're above it they were yeah exactly and they can kill on set because they're killing set yeah exactly the crew laugh because they haven't heard it before and you get it this is your guy he's back now finally i'm somebody i feel sorry for boom ups because when they're doing a great take and they go boom in everyone looks them whereas if an actor sort of laughs everyone goes oh isn't that cute he's he's ruined the line because he's laughing oh he's great thinking [ __ ] out he's ruined every token i went in once come on carl and it is carl yeah don how about on house of lies have you had the there's a lot of uh i would say raunchy material have you had to pull back on anything no i mean on showtime it's it's more the more the best can you do more you know and that's it's obviously it's fun about that show that we get to really uh let our id run run wild a little bit and matthew carnahan our show runner and the creator of it is really instrumental in that but the network's always really behind us and we haven't run into anything that's that we've had a lot of pushback they're actually very i mean a lot of times you get really bad notes from the studio but they're they're very smart and really kind of have their ear to the ground about the things that they think will work and don't work do they weigh in because your show really is an amalgam of drum drama uncomedy in a way that most of these shows aren't are they weighing in on this is too dramatic this isn't funny enough you know is there like a you know a ratio of of laughs that they need to keep it i think actually we're the cast is always pushing to have it be more funny we want to do you know bigger things and we have the the guys to do it you know ben schwartz and josh and kristen that are really really good and we we want it to we want to want to do more but it is a tricky balance trying to find which foot you want to be on some people believe in the dharma of non-attachment some people believe in the dharma of loving kindness but i've come to realize that i believe in the dharma of search and destroy i believe in the dharma of take no prisoners i believe in the dharma of kicking ass how do the rest of you get inspired comedy is not an easy thing to keep fresh real life is obviously the biggest influence on me and i assume most comedians who do anything that could be called observational and realism in the production of it is i'm a quite a slave to that as well what about derek specifically it's such an odd concept i try and write about what i know and i've always done that you know i worked in an office for 10 years wrote about it extras i was fascinated that i was now in this entertainment game and i thought might be interesting to other people and a lot of my family were care workers i suppose i wanted it to be a bit of an antidote to all the stuff i'd done you know i'd done a lot about fame david brent was about a normal man getting famous from all the documents i'd watched in the 90s and extras the golden globes there was a lot about me about fame and i wanted to sort of go back to ordinary people you know it's my favorite thing making the ordinary extraordinary that i think that resonates more and then the funny is sort of easy it's sort of easy to be funny and get a laugh comedy is really a normal person trying to do something big and they're not equipped like i was going what they're gonna put a jacket on me what what that's a big problem put a jacket on me that that'll ruin everything but you deserve a jacket ricky you deserve it but i just i don't know it's that sort of thing that things you're not equipped not being ready or equipped is so funny nervousness and with that arrogance arrogance and stupidity thinking it's okay so you're laughing at them that's what it is you're either laughing with them or out and that's the thing you know you laughed at david brent he had the blind spot it was the difference between that chasm between how he saw himself and how we saw him whereas with derek it's more you're sort of on their side they're saying funny things and they're meant to be funny so it just it depends what angle i learned that from lauren hardy there's in the office there was lots of idiots there was lots of stands and one ollie there was one tim just thinking you know you've always got to have that who's just who's your stands who your all is there's nothing funnier than real life it's euphoric it just feels great and that's my inspiration really a bit early in it the early bird catches the worm babe what if the what if the worms have no lion what what if the early bird gets up and goes on to go and catch the worm and he gets there but that day the worms overslept and i read somewhere you said um the brits may be more equipped for satire because you're more comfortable with the losers in life well it was this myth that goes around that americans don't get irony which is totally it's ridiculous what does that mean it's they don't do it all the time to brits me and it's the first one to get out a sarcastic comment and americans don't need to do that you know sometimes they say oh you look good a brit would go what do you mean what are you after i mean i look good what do you want you know we're suspicious because we're life's losers we celebrate life's losers we root for the underdog and as soon as the underdog wins forget it next next next i hate him we made you i'd like to know from each of you who's been most influential on your comedic style or what you think is funny now is is there someone who in your life is an enduring inspiration or influence christopher guest ferguson he's a good one i just saw dave chappelle come back after a long time gone and it was really about 15 minutes of material and about an hour of the audience just taking him wherever and it was unbelievable to watch it was like a high wire act and i've just never seen anybody so able to i mean he literally had nothing he was like what do you guys want to do and somebody would say something and it would immediately turn it into a thing and that would be five or ten minutes and it was killing and it was like improv it's like jazz to me and really feels weird to say it but it really is true that i watch all of you guys and i just youtubed you the other day and showed it to my kids the bit you did with the peyton oh the coach the dance it just kills me so i mean i look at you guys all the time and every time i see ricky at an event the the first time i when i sat with you and lucy k at the emmys and i was literally just watching them go and just it was great they saw each other oh it was the best it was just the best so he's great yeah he's my he's my um i think most current guy that i think he's he's he's sort of an american you in a way well i would hate that keep that in mind that's amazing no but it's true you're i think the two of you really get to the heart of the humanity piece of comedy yeah i think that's his sort of secret he goes out and he says the most horrendous things but you know he's a struggling father bringing up two kids who he loves so he can say anything it's a brilliant piece of placement and then he can be angry about everything and i think that's the thing with you you can get away with murder in a narrative comedy if you'd like the guy because he's doing it for a good reason because it's all about intention and that's the thing we're all flawed we all make mistakes we're all struggling we all want to be popular so you recognize that guy straight away and you want him to win but you like him failing i go back to lauren hardy what i loved is that they were delusional and they tried their best and they failed and they got get up they got back up and they had another crazy scheme you know you're with them i think comedy is more about empathy than people think it is an intellectual pursuit but it helps if you if you root for the guy well but then there's also i mean i i love love love just despicable characters you know like brent like the politician character that you know you played on snl i forget the name will uh tim callahan i mean these characters that are just sort of they're they're hateable they're delusional and uh i think one of the first guys that taught me that black people can do this was martin lawrence you know on his show he had his character martin payne was he's a dick he's kind of an [ __ ] he's totally flawed he was like this ralph uh kramden type where his you know his flaws were totally visible he had that blind spot totally arrogant totally arrogant and still you loved him still you empathize with yeah i find that it's fascinating that these characters you know brent you hate him yeah but he's so flawed and so desperate whereas there's people someone having a comedian coming out and telling you what a great day they've had and how brilliant they are it's nothing remotely funny it's like someone saying what a great holiday that there's nothing in it for you you want someone to come out fall over and go that's the second time to die yeah they're falling over for your pleasure you want to know they've had a bad day too i think it is best comedy lets you know that there's nothing wrong with you there's nothing wrong with you yeah we are we all have it fred how about you who's who inspires you i think amy poehler in the way that she just keeps making things the fact that she's behind broad city kind of says a lot about her she's selfless but she still wants to make comedy and i think our show we in our writer's room we talk about key and peel all the time we're just like you've been sort of this way into things we're like well they were able to do it like this so also like don said i'm inspired by everybody here i'm not shy about well he wasn't shy about saying it either but like i absolutely all of your shows i'm so glad that we all get to do all this stuff together you know well shifting gears a little bit what bugs you most about comedy today is there a trend in the business that's irksome to you is there idiots confusing the target of the joke with the subject of a joke it's happened getting worse and worse the last five years i've it's social media it's everyone well and this past week trevor noah kind of experienced the downside of tweeting that but i don't even mean you you haven't got a get out of jail free card with it was just a joke i don't believe that you know and i'm all for political correctness right but it's not about that it's about stupid people misunderstanding the joke and then getting angry about it at least understand the joke before you dislike it i think it's a knee-jerk reaction and people accept it there was a review once of one of my comedy gigs and the guy said ricky gervais should be banned his subject matter deals with two of my friends went to see him and they tell me well that doesn't count yeah void does not count you know it's like it's got a blog yeah yeah but this is a national newspaper yeah getting getting angry in general why yeah i know who cares i know it's like compliance most complaints if someone complains about something and your customer services yeah and you phone them up so just regarding your client and go oh oh well don't worry about it i just wanted to they just want to be heard and they're okay yes and it's these people that aren't heard enough so they demand it they can't believe we get away with saying stuff because they don't get it they don't get what we're saying and that's the problem most people do but it's they've misunderstood it only takes a small percentage of people to sort of ruin it essentially well it does really but you've got to ignore them really you've got you've got to fight through them even notes which is a nice calm and much more collaborative thing i haven't had to take notes but that's because i didn't go to places where they would demand them and so my compromise was going to fringe channels that i knew wouldn't do it but that is a that is a compromise you know less people watch my shows you know you want to go i can't i can't change that and you get tired of that in the early days it's like you're dealing with some of the notes i had with that i just thought you can't argue comedy it doesn't make sense it's like arguing with someone whether they've got a pain in their leg it doesn't make sense i think you can argue comedy some people just either it's your taste or you your perceived everyone's taste you can be like that's not funny and someone could say yes it is exactly that someone if someone says i'm not funny they're right if someone says i am funny they're right it's because do not mean it it is taste right i would say for me like a kind of a gripe is i would say in feature comedies right now there seems to be a staleness in terms of mainstream feature comedies there seems to be some sort of formula where kind of like everything works out in the end and you'll see the two-minute trailer and you might as well have just already seen the movie there's nothing else to it now there are some exceptions some weirder things out there that are always like nice and surprising but i would say like the big ones i i there's very little that i'm like titles no that's true but that's because it's there's you know they've someone's put you know 50 million out there that's another thing there's high stakes and they do all the the notes and the change so they make sure you know you're going to see the film you saw last week and it's just as good you're not going to waste it 15 bucks and and and it works and then again i could be not the right person to be the arbiter of what is good or not because there's plenty of tv shows that get millions of viewers and i'm like i can't even sit through 22 minutes of it so are they i feel like you're talking about my show now because my show is the only show that's like 22 minutes almost exactly yeah because he looked your direction yeah i looked right at me but still then like how who's going to believe me you'll be like yeah but you don't like the things that everybody else likes but that's why you only do it you only have to please one person as creator and that's yourself and that's the only thing you can go on everything else doesn't matter because as many people are going to love it more people are going to hate it anything you say someone will find it offensive and it's like if you don't internalize that i think you stop trying you go to the safety to the comfort zone you don't reach for things that are going to possibly but it is it's very difficult to have that conviction where you go i like it i think it's funny it's there are enough me's out there but it's getting better now because there's alternatives you don't have to bow down and go for that yeah people are breaking all over the place you know and for the first 15 years you know i did compromise and go to smaller channels but you know netflix comes along and the sky's the limit no interference and it's there for people to watch if they want it and i think that makes you more bulletproof i mean one day i'll just be in my youtube channel you know obviously 19 views and it's just you being like hey guys here's how you put on makeup yeah i only need one down thumb 18 up one down that's not bad yeah i gotta click up some more there's twenty one so i would like to know who or what first taught you what it means to be funny let me start with ricky oh why oh no you're the funniest keep that in um whatever out of spirit um well i if you don't count do you mean as soon as you understood that it was a career because my first thought was my family and my older brothers and friends like five six i realized it felt good to laugh and make people laugh and that was very important to me growing up that i was always attracted to funny people before anything else you know and i sort of kept that really but the first time i understood it was people doing it for my pleasure and was lauren and hardy and i still think it began and ended with them because i suppose it's about empathy and it was it wasn't just the jokes or the lines or the craft it was the fact that i sort of loved them i loved watching them and i wanted to be their friend so i suppose it was it was understanding empathy and and that sort of thing see now i've gone first right and the serious pretentious answer he's gonna do a one line he's gonna be funny it's gonna be laughter how about will are you gonna be funny no well i mean and now i i you know you talk about going first and i have to go second after just a a wonderful answer and i really i got sucked into the answer i don't know how to answer i mean that you know so much of it is is exactly his answer you know uh just you know wanting to please ricky's family and it's not good to like make them laugh i mean it's like you know all the same the same stuff saturday night live was a a big deal for me and then letterman before it was before he was on wasn't it yes yes right before why before that thank you yeah but yeah you know those things it just made me so happy and i was like oh my god this is what you know what a delightful thing if i could do that for a living it seems like so much fun and thomas how about you well i'm uh the token canadian and i for me it was kids in the hall you know just just like click on over to the cbc on monday nights or whatever it was and see those guys it was just so they were so weird and absurd and they always sort of like challenged absurdity which i always loved and the monty python movies i think flying circus was like too crazy at times but those movies combined their love of madness with narrative which i think i mean me personally when you get to sink your teeth into a good story and laugh along the way is always always a joy best answer vote yeah that was pretty good i mean you'll edit that down right yeah yeah i like that as well because i think that was became aware that i was jealous of grown men acting ridiculous and i thought well i get told off at school for being a fool and mucking around but they're doing it for a living and i think that was the the thing i thought this would be great no one can tell me not to do it because it'd be my job then i remember thinking that yeah and i can finally dress as a lady and people will think it's great that's root one that's the funniest thing you can ever do as a comedian if you're a man is dress up as a woman yeah that's rule one oh that's brilliant yeah fred how about you um i'd say early on it was probably friends and then cartoons i suppose you know like watching bugs bunny and stuff and then um friends came before the cartoons i'm saying friends my own friends oh you're wrong i was like wow they stole that that's so like oh no but that's good no take it ross and rachel will they won't think that they're well when i said friends they knew what i meant when you said friends they thought it was that show but that's my but that's my appeal is the mystery like you know am i being meta am i sort of like jumping ahead too far like that's the you get from it what you want and how did how did you know that being funny had value in your life i i felt like it had currency with my friends when we talk about um like sc tv where it was kind of like a secret show in a way and you can kind of talk about something you'd seen you know the night before and same with snl as well it was a sort of way you could kind of impress each other by like doing impressions of impressions or characters so i would say somewhere in there i think it's certainly bonding isn't it it's the first thing that i always thought that's my type of person with what they liked what they got what they didn't get totally yeah yeah and also survival i mean you may see me and say that guy's a really cool guy he was probably always really cool but yeah there was a time where you know laughing i thought you're probably the yeah the bully 100 100 yeah i was like a bad one definitely the bad one and so the bad canadian yeah yeah so i made laughter my weapon and i killed people with them here comes the canadian yeah watch out jordan jordan how about you yeah i mean seven years old bright-eyed bushy-tailed vicky gervais comes on the screen i no that's ricky actually is very instrumental to me i think you're just uh a rare genius oh that's a bit much that will be covered let's cut that because i feel uncomfortable with it um no early on it was it was snl and in living color you know i i was a huge fan of phil hartman just a utility player on a sketch show i just loved the fact that he could take any role and just bring such truth to it amazing just vocal work and when living color came around it just showed me how important sketch is to push boundaries to walk this tight rope line and and step over the edge and sometimes it went too far and it was just it was exciting and it was just it was magical to watch and of course eddie murphy on snl as well and don i think probably first it was my family i just remember really having a connection with my mom because she would say anything and just going wow you can really just say anything and if it's in the right spirit it's you know it's really bonding and it was the same thing with my close friends and families like i don't think it's that much different we we learn early that making people laugh and you laughing yourself is kind of the best feeling you can get yeah and when you can share that just you know in in and bullying too and then the the ways that you can reach across to people that you thought you would have no connection with and you guys laughing like oh wait a minute we're not that different and this is actually a way we can and then they get back to kicking your ass but at the beginning you had a nice laugh yeah it was nice you're a funny guy you are a funny guy you think you're pretty funny huh yeah well well well look who the comedian is what would you say is the worst job you had coming up in the business and this can be in showbiz or otherwise i used to install cable in the crawl spaces uh of apartments and probably crawling over asbestos and rat [ __ ] was pretty bad but stealing from the apartments that you could get into and like stealing their weed stashes and stuff like that that was fun yeah bonus not that that's you know condoned no no no no no i wouldn't if they're kids watching why why are you watching yeah while you're watching first of all why why are you watching go to your favorite viral video site see someone get hit in the nuts anything yeah don't do this how about you will what terrible i mean this is gonna sound weird because it's not you know it's an office job but it was i was doing what my dad did i was working for a financial consultant it was just really tricky because i started thinking i wanted to go into comedy but like it was really scary to to break away from what i had thought i should be doing with my life and go for this crazy thing so that was you know i've had jobs that were harder and jobs that were not fun to do but this was the one that really like dragged me down because it was really hard to go away from the thing that my dad did how did you do that it just i just stayed at it for so long that it was breaking my spirit and and finally it broke me i got it i bought them down you know father right i'm leaving working with i'm going to l.a after all the success i've brought you boy i'm going to be a comedian of course i you know the second i called my dad and said i'm you know i don't want to do this i want to try to do comedy he was incredibly supportive he was like i don't know why you were doing that in the first place you're terrible at this job i've been trying to fire you for three years i just couldn't work up the courage in those jabby jobs were you like the funny guy i find i shut down on the jabby jobs and i'm not me like when i think about the old job jobs that i had people weren't interacting with me like you're gonna be so funny because right now you're being funny right now i'm just like i don't know i'm just trying to walk these dogs and pick up the poo yeah the more manual labor it was the more quiet yeah yeah yeah i could be anyone else fred or jordan i had this job once where i worked for this nightclub like a disco nightclub and i had to go around like leaving piles of passes uh in stores all over the place like so i had this bag it was really heavy and i had to go into stores and sort of like just like leave a little pile of like get into this nightclub free and that was long hours carrying a lot of stuff and no one wanted me there you just wanted to be the dancer in the cage didn't you yeah at last what was the return for that i i still don't know how that worked no it was a joke job yeah exactly it's a joke you know we gotta do get some kids to get out there and put some passes out how about a most mortifying audition you know i i've got nothing i got everything i had to write myself apart so i didn't audition for anything so i cheated i i went around that when did you decide you needed to write your own stuff i fell into it it doesn't sort of really count with me if it does okay well well i was sort of 36 37 i i've worked in an office for like 10 years which is what the the office is based on but i wasn't thinking i was going to write a thing about this one day i was the funny guy okay but um no i mean you don't have to yell at me no we started off saying you're the funniest person whatever some of those other guys that work there said yeah i wasn't ninth i was one okay you're number one funniest guy no but i fell into it then i got a job in a radio station and again it was still sort of admin and then i started popping up on air and it all sort of happened from that you know i think i went along for one audition for an advert and it was dreadful and i didn't get it and i i never want to do that again i can't i'm no good at auditions i hate it okay i've brought the whole tone down dude there is no good audition i mean i mean there's it is an exquisitely mortifying experience for me one of the more recent ones i had actually i went in for ant-man did you get it the funny thing is i actually did get it but the the audition itself was a nightmare this was edgar wright was directing it at the time and ended up not directing it but i went in it's one of these things where they're like you got the gig who who's telling you this by the way it's my manager or you know it's yeah it's it's a done deal they just want to see on camera and that's the worst that's the worst it's already done and so i go in there and it's like one of these things it's like you know four lines that i've i'm an aunt what are you doing just stick to the script yeah oh there's some sugar what are you doing don't don't no no no improvising needed we don't need you to go off script i've got my own outfit now you and your friends make a bridge no just climb up go ahead and climb up i don't know look i'm like an anne i'll carry that look i'm just like that was the problem i came dressed as my aunt arlene and i totally missed the thing you kept turning the camera and saying it's a bug's life yeah and it was it was one of those things you just you start and you think you don't need the script and you're back in and you're like so what was the reaction in the room first of all i i sold my own self i was like that was [ __ ] that was awful i i apologize i wasted your time and edgar was very like no no you see you're good it's it's trying to he's doing a british accent i was trying to is that right well done well done mate blood but um you know then this is and this is i guess how hollywood works now is that i had the worst audition in my life and then i got the role anyway how about the rest of you i used to everything no matter what i would do would do this weird southern accent for some reason i remember i went in uh james bond yeah i went uh i went in to read for the part that jimmy fallon got he was like the manager of the and i did in this weird southern accent they said like try it again without the southern accent i think it got more southern the second time i just couldn't didn't think that my own voice was interesting enough or something i don't know what it was but that was the good thing about snl is that you're doing your own thing you mean the audition for a certain amount of control yeah you can make up your own words as opposed to trying to guess what other people are looking for you're like this is what i got do you like it so that one was so nerve-wracking i thought it was terrifying did you audition personal too i did it was fine in terms of auditions but snl is a bit of a gold standard it's a bit of a gold medal that were you to get it you could wear it around gold medal style and auditioning for it is so nerve-wracking i don't know if it was like that for you guys but you get your three characters or three impressions or whatever you want to do you have such a limited time to do it you're on that stage where you've seen every saturday and it's you know lorne michaels and the crew and everybody and it could very easily happen where you're just up there sweating and no one's laughing like well they generally don't laugh right i mean they did for me but like they were howling they were on the they were on the floor schumacher calls he said stay by the phone it's gonna happen um but yeah it was uh but it was also an honor just to audition i think that's one of those shows where you're like oh yeah i'll audition and i'll get it that's great as long as i get to its own badge of honor you might say yeah the failed batch of honor uh i would like to know what is the craziest thing you've ever done for a laugh or for a role airplane i'll start with thom wow you have to do a lot of crazy stuff on house slides yeah and whenever i get naked it's really laugh-worthy i guess i mean the crew laughs i i feel bad i don't know that's a really hard question the craziest thing i've ever done to get a job or when you have the job or does blowing somebody count absolutely no no that's crazy it's not that easy anymore wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait no it isn't wait i didn't get the job by the way and it seemed like it was a setup i want to do that one more time can you just do does blowing someone count um i don't know does blowing somebody count nice that was great comedy round two when were you the most wrong about a sketch or a joke or a bit that you'd written or performed and it just i did my friend and i when i was a senior in high school in denver uh there was a comedy store in larimer square and they had an open mic night and i was like oh i think we can do this we think of ourselves as being pretty funny so so we went home and we came up with the routine and we went back that night and did five minutes and it was great and we crushed and people loved it and we're like [ __ ] this is easy and so we wrote up some more stuff i came back next time that week did it and i was like we're gonna be i'm on my way we're on our way it's gonna be fantastic i invited my parents and you already know this is headed and the third weekend we d we didn't crush so much it was very very very bad and there's no worse feeling i've ever had than being on stage trying to do stand-up and having it tank i mean i've been in bad plays yeah but there's you can pass the ball you know what i mean you can kind of hide because it's just you as well yeah you can't say you can't certainly say i didn't write that no that's not what i really think yeah you know yeah and i started pushing harder and when you get into that sort of adversarial relationship with the audience and they were just like but it is when you stand up it is like you're coming out saying this is the funniest stuff i can do this is this is my best yeah so so someone not liking it i'm not getting it silence is the worst what the collective sound of a hundred people groaning quietly to themselves that sounded like oh it sounded like oh but it wasn't it was just a bunch of people going uh but all together it was the chorus how about uh will and fred i know you you had a more eccentric taste on snl when you collaborated together you thought oh my god this is going to kill everyone's going to love it it's going to air in the first half hour and then come saturday at 8 pm or whenever they decide we did this one i don't know if you were in this one but i remember this one where liam neeson was the host and we played a german family and we all had blonde hair and i thought it was the funniest thing in the world that liam neeson as the dad kept sitting on everything so like we presented him with a violin and but just he would sort of sit on it as he was lecturing us yeah yes and it was like a doll house that the daughter made but he would talk to her about dollhouses and as he's talking to her he would sit on it it went to dress and i thought it was the funniest thing in the world and it was very very dead silent it wasn't buried it was the absence of sound it was yeah i could hear everything being crushed that he was sitting on and i didn't want to be able to hear it was he game for this did he seem like oh yeah he accents and everything well but now that i've described it i'm thinking oh that was not the best idea no where's the joke are you kidding me bro it's when he crushes all those tiny things yeah that was the one line liam neeson sits on things we have it yes we got it so yeah yeah i mean we would we would do some weird stuff so i think you go in knowing there's a chance of total failure but there was one thing that bill hader and i did he just talked about a couple days ago called fart face you know you do something called fart face you're not expecting that it's going to win any artistic awards or anything but this was complete silence and so you get to the end of the dress rehearsal and you're like oh that's okay i tried it out two people in an office setting it's like jerry i'd like you to stop calling me fart face please he's like oh you got it bill uh sure uh and then josh brolin comes in and he's like hey have you met uh fart face here i thought i specifically asked you to stop calling the fart face so you know we thought okay it's in this office setting people get over the fact that we're just using the word fart face it did not it did people didn't forget that so no one at no point did the guys face fart no that's your point yeah we thought we were unreally a solid sketch here and no laughter and then lauren somehow put it into the show and it met with even more silence even more you know i watched it the other day and i still stand behind that thing you know you can never get you've got ten thousand t-shirts at home with fartplaces you thought they were gonna go like hotcakes after that oh no when you do it in the dirt who do you do it for who's an audience it's like a totally different they bring in like an eight o'clock audience and they kind of judge things according to that and then they bring in the other audience at 11 30. the thing that's humiliating is there'll be a sketch right after and the audience is on board so it's not that they're a bad audience because you're like this audience is dead right one right after that's killed they let us know they let us know one thing that is not advised is doing sketch at a stand-up show that does not work no especially when people have been killing keegan and i did this show that was this was the worst like just flop sweat buckets mortifying this is before the show i'm assuming this is between our first and second season so we we had a show no one knew who we were so the the football names scheduled east west that you know works on television i don't know how we got the idea to come out and just go back and forth and say doing these names it was like all right they beat us off the stage and it was one of those things where we're just we had we had to do like 15 minutes and the crowd is just all lubed up drunk and surrounded and they still weren't laughing and they know they they were and it was an angry mob it was an angry mob and we just it was one of those things we went you're sort of helpless aren't you you're defenseless because you're in character it's like a stand up you can come back it's you you're already doing it it's great you go you want to go we've just got three minutes to do and then we're gonna leave we just gotta do this and then leave i know we had no backup plan all we all we knew to do was like let's get to the song you know it's because it's asking too much of the audience if they just stand up that cuts through alcohol right whereas a sketch is sort of too demanding if it's it's good you know it's going to change gears yeah that's so that was yeah that was a tough tough lesson and now if we did it because the sketch kind of blew up now i feel like the same drunk audience do it again uh i would like to know who are your dream comedy collaborators aside from everyone sitting at this table let's start with fred um he can still say me though you can still see you yeah if you if you went yeah yeah but under the camera no no no she she said before but won't put her in charge she's got the card the president of hollywood she's got the cards i would say um prince you are obsessed with him yeah but someone like someone like in music so that it's like that's really unexpected somebody doesn't take themselves too seriously yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah uh someone who makes a living is a comedic performer i've worked a little bit with louis ck on snl but something with our show would be really fun that's the first person i guess tina fey would be great even though we work together in snl she doesn't count she doesn't count no just be people we haven't heard of or no no people you haven't worked with before i think woody allen just to see what his take on something would be somewhere in some of those people that's a hard one though because a lot of the things that have turned out best are the surprises you know and there may be a lot of dramatic performers who are funny yeah who you didn't know were funny picking back off that i would say one of my top ones decides to of this table would be uh jim carrey but jim carrey in a truman show or eternal sunshine kind of way because he was so he was like you know when we were talking about like big ones when you were younger i mean he was like oh man jim carrey's the best he could do everything he can do everything yeah and i think when he like tones it down and like takes a breath it's just like he's really some truly inspiring performances and then on the other side of the spectrum wes anderson that would be just crazy after seeing budapest so many times just being like how can i get in such a particular dollhouse world will how about you it's a hard question i mean because being at snl we got to meet everybody yeah we've all we've all at least been in a scene with yeah christopher guest and you know katherine o'hara that whole crew those guys are legendary and i mean you know what their process is like man if i could be in one of his movies i'm done hanging up the gloves you have an audition next week christopher guest ant-man but don't worry bro it's in the bag don't do the answer oh you know what you know it'd be great who i haven't seen in a long time is rick moranis yeah what is he he's retired i guess he is huh i think that's the word that would be that seems like the somehow i heard his something's coming out oh he's doing something with somebody we interrupted will will was about to say something oh yeah will was gonna say something uh collaborative john cleese john cleese oh that's a good one can we pick non-living people peter sellers sure of course alec guinness dead fred dead remember him in kind hearts and coroners did you ever see that oh yeah also dracula that's a that's a fictional character though isn't it because he's no i think he's dead never he was never alive he never really actually existed with the cape you've seen him with the are there are there american performers who uh uh bill murray bill murray kristen wiig he worked with kristen wick in a movie i know but i i i can't just because i've does this count now have i worked with you guys now does that count kind of it does actually it does work okay bill murray just one oh and um and uh mickey mouse he's dead wow he died he did die no he did so dracula didn't exist and now mickey mouse didn't die he's still alive from the 1920s steamboat willie that guy's still alive he died yeah he's got a couple of faceless willy that's why i called you in the toilet wasn't there because he was making a noise because he makes he goes who's gonna have a wii now and he gets getting out and i didn't wanna you have to cut this right because it's no you have to put in it this is live and he starts and he starts and so you start playing with the url i'm going yeah yeah here comes the train into the station and most importantly for today i need to see your best or worst impression of someone oh and fred i know this for a fact you do a killer sam waterston it's actually it's actually what got you your job on nuts and all that's true so i'm going to start with you okay why didn't you call the police why didn't you call 9-1-1 thank you what about the worst impression okay worse it's good too sam waterson i thought that was the worst was that not the that was my me at my best yeah nasty how about do your best ricky gervais oh oh come on oh god oh my god that's bad that's pretty good right no no that was good but i mean to do it though it's hard what's this what's that now come on oh no no it's kenny's [ __ ] williams what are you well it's ridiculous no slow yeah yeah why that's all right yeah you yeah that's the best that's the best i could do that was excellent jordan this is my impression of danny glover there's a bomb on my dick i just i always hated that danny glover was like the uncool black dude on a cop movie i was like why are you doing this to us he's a family man why are you on the toilet he's too old for that [ __ ] he was very jowly do you have a worst why don't we force one on you yeah this this is george w bush george w that's great i didn't i surprised myself with that that's always how you get into an impression of just saying but it does work it does work or as mom you thought you would say always the easier ones are the ones where you're doing impression of someone else doing an impression that's wolf farrell's george bush isn't it yes that's true because they deconstruct it they show you the the dots exactly yeah that's true i can do i can do you a little bit but okay i'm an aunt that's based on the story i told earlier and but there was no high pitch so that would be cut out and i'll just be going i'm gonna go what the [ __ ] is that what's he doing the answer to the first question and they go straight to that it's a callback it's one of the rules of comedy okay dawn's in the hot seat now i i don't like beyonce if you no that's because i had crushed that and you guys like yeah he is beyonce yeah i got one billy bob thornton well how what what does billy do i don't i don't know what he does except i don't know you're in the throat i need angelina jolie here to do it properly yeah can we get oh fantastic here we go oh yeah that is good okay ricky what you're up i can't do impressions yes you can alan rickman um buys his swords there that's just the line he said in the film it's just a lime yeah yeah yeah now i know what a tv dinner that's just that's just saying a line like that you've got to get it in the throat yeah exactly yeah no no i'm just gonna do lines um i have a dream martin is a king yeah oh you're just gonna say lion that's good that's good oh when's oh when's the last supper jesus um um judas yeah good yeah he didn't ask he never asked in the bible jesus what do you mean last supper nothing when's supper but i don't think he asked us gave it away that's right he gave it away did you say last of her uh now is it suffering all the romans are like judah you're ruining it what did you do he said he said i don't know keep eating okay i know that you do you do a mean christopher walken and when i say you do you don't do one we had a sketch you must have been in a sketch there's a sketch where everyone is supposed to come in and do a christopher walken impersonation people know that i'm not good at impersonations on the show and so they wrote a part where i just came in to do a bad christopher walken but my walking is so bad that i got removed from the sketch because it wasn't even good enough to be a bad christopher walken wow do it now this is the most exciting right now give me a line give me a line uh do uh i'm the guy that's going to kill your kids i'm the guy that's going to kill your kids okay i don't know what that was that that sound i'll tell you what that sounds like that sounds like saddam hussein yeah it's i was gonna say it sounds middle eastern yeah i i hear you do george w bush right there i tried for you to do it do it do it now george i'm horrible well it was good this is the best do um do meryl streep i choose her oh that was just like christopher walken that's brilliant yeah i can only do kermit the frog all right that's it for it kermit the frog here it's cause your voice is already a little bit there isn't it yeah you know what i knew that i could do kermit the frog because fred did an impersonation of me and i was like oh that sounds like kermit the frog so i thought oh i can do kermit the frog i think that's great okay thomas oh well recently yeah that's what i did in the audition i was like no that's my impression of seth myers okay and next up is but i i've been really into going down a youtube wormhole of paul lind lately oh wow uh just because it's just great and so one of his bits will be you know he's on hollywood square so the guy will be like paul what makes a baby chimp cry he'll say finding out that tarzan swings both ways so hammy and crazy he's like yeah he makes the craziest and like all like the straight men of like the 60s are like he's so colorful blessing and the wives are like i'd leave my husband for you and he's like yeah he's so incredible i love it yeah on that note gentlemen wait no no no no hillary clinton oh my god which email account was that thank you all and i think you should give yourself a round of applause thank you well feels good the wrap all right all right can we go you can nope some of us haven't taken pictures yet i think i could do your face i do that don't tell me i do that don't tell me i think i can deal with this intense i think i'm gonna make me never do that again you

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 2,355,579

Rating: 4.9116096 out of 5

Keywords: thr, thr roundtable comedy actors, the hollywood reporter comedy actors, jordan peele, the hollywood reporter roundtable, ricky gervais, derek, don cheadle, house of lies, will forte, the last man on earth, fred armisen, portlandia, key & peele, thomas middleditch, silicon valley, emmys 2015, roundtable emmuys 2015, impressions, thr roundtable, key and peele, roundtable 2016, actor, emmy nominees, tv shows, awards, comedy, funny, hollywood reporter, the hollywood reporter

Id: 6Hz2GIowLII

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/cameronken]

I wonder if he was going to be part of Lang's crew. Can't think of any other parts they would have cast someone that famous and comedic in.

[u/[deleted]]

He was going to play some terry that Scott had to draxx.

[u/UNITBlackArchive]

Keegan-Michael Key was in Tomorrowland. I wonder if Key & Peele are on the Disney payroll..

[u/Techno_Bacon]

I..I would like to see that.

[u/jhsounds]

I like how Rhodey is the first one to react to Peele revealing this.

[u/[deleted]]

I love Key and Peele, so if they can work them into something, maybe even directing something, I'd be over the moon.

[u/BardicFire]

this brings up a question, if you could cast Key and Peele as the two main characters in a Marvel movie, which characters would they be?