Comic T.J. Miller coming back to his old stomping ground
Even before his starring role as Erlich Bachman in the HBO show "Silicon Valley," the brash comedian T.J. Miller was in a number of movies, including "How to Train Your Dragon," "Transformers: Age of Extinction" and "Big Hero 6."
But comedy came first, with Miller, 34, getting his first taste of stand-up at his Denver high school in the late ’90s (“I killed,” he says) and jumping into it fully as a student at George Washington University. Then work in Chicago and Hollywood bloomed like the start-ups in Erlich’s manic incubator.
Miller is back in Washington this weekend for a stand-up show at the Lincoln Theatre as part of his “Meticulously Ridiculous Tour.” We caught up with him one morning before he was off to do voice-over for the “How to Train Your Dragon” TV series.
What kind of comedy were you doing at George Washington University?
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I got into this improv group right in my freshman year. And on the first day, I said, “Are you guys all theater majors?” And they all said no. I was like, “What? What do you mean?” And they said, “We just do comedy. He’s an electronic media major, I’m an English major, she’s an engineering major, but we’re all just funny. ... You don’t need to be an actor to do comedy.” ... Like Conan and Letterman and all of that stuff.
So at the time, that blew my young, 20-something mind. And I started thinking about it in terms of: Okay, I better learn how to act, do stand-up, improvise, sketch and make videos, which we were all doing. We did a lot of it.
Comedy, you can change people’s life in 10 minutes, to an hour and a half in movies — and in “Transformers’ ” case, 2 hours 45 minutes. It’s helpful. It’s a kind of drug of elation, it’s a distraction, it’s an antidote for the tragedy that is everyday life. So I thought: I could do that on a mass scale. If I’m funny in a movie, then I could contribute as a comedian and give people comedy to millions of people — Chinese people that I’ll never meet.
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How did you get into the voice-over business?
"Cloverfield," that movie was practically a voice-over [as the unseen cameraman]. That was the first big movie I was involved in, and I was one of the main characters and you don't see me. It's all vocal. ... And that is such a scary thing for your first movie.
Every day of that, I'd wake up and go, "Okay, you have no physicality. Vocally, what's funny about the cadence of voice, and can you change this? Do I need to yell more?" It's all based on the comedy — how do I get laughs, and how do I get people to engage in this character to the point that they'll stick with him and laugh more and more. ... So I do a lot of voice-over work because my voice sounds so weird. And that — plus "Silicon Valley" — was enough so that now I'm in a Marvel franchise.
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You didn’t initially want to do “Silicon Valley”?
I had just done “The Goodwin Games” for Fox. It was canceled even before it aired, and I said: “That’s it. I’m done with being a comedic actor in television. It’s not for me.” That’s exactly when I got the call for “Silicon Valley.” And they said it’s [series creator] Mike Judge, he really wants you to audition.
He does get my comedy, which can be pretty boisterous and strange — not necessarily broad, but it can be intense and volatile — and take that energy and bring it down to the Mike Judge subtlety level.
Has being in “Silicon Valley” changed how people relate to you?
Do you mean the increasing isolation of fame that is slowly giving us a reality-based claustrophobia that makes us more phobic? That kind of stuff? I’m pretty famous now, man.
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I guess I mean, do people expect you to be Erlich?
It’s not like people want to think I’d be like Erlich. I think I’d like Erlich to be a little more like me. Because when you meet me, it’s a pretty similar vibe. The character and I have a similar energy in one way. But — I don’t know how to say this without being arrogant — my manufactured confidence is better than his. I’m a little smoother than Erlich is.
People meet me and they don’t know what to expect, but they expect I either smoke weed or I’m cool. And I can deliver on one of those — or both — at any given time.
Tell me about the stand-up show.
My wife [singer and actress Kate Gorney] does a couple of songs. So you can expect singing, clowning around and stand-up comedy. It’s kind of a dynamic performance. ... I’m gearing up to do a special and preparing for that. I’m very excited because I feel like stand-up is something that is really important to me. No thing to me is more important than the other. But stand-up is a real important thing to me in that you get to speak directly to the audience.
Catlin is a freelance writer.
T.J. Miller Sunday at 7:30 p.m. at the Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. Tickets: $29.50. 202-888-0050. www.thelincolndc.com.
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