Catch HBO star/podcaster/talk-show host/stand-up comic Chris Gethard this Tuesday night in Vancouver!
On his Beautiful/Anonymous podcast, Chris Gethard fields a random call and talks to a stranger. As the comedian himself admits, this is can go a lot of ways – funny, sad, neither. Which is why, when he comes to Vancouver to record a new episode tomorrow night (Tuesday May 30) at the Biltmore Cabaret (2755 Prince Edward St.), he’ll also do a set of stand-up.
Besides Beautiful/Anonymous and his standup comedy career, Gethard hosts his own TV talk show, The Chris Gethard Show; starred in the 2016 Mike Birbiglia film Don’t Think Twice; and is a cast member on the hit Comedy Central series Broad City.
Other credits include Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central), The Office (NBC), Parks and Recreation (NBC), Louie (FX), and Bored To Death (HBO). You can also catch him in his own HBO comedy special, Career Suicide. We talked to the 37-year-old New Jersey-ite about the podcast, therapy, and his upcoming Vancouver show.
Q: One of the main topics of Career Suicide is your own struggle with mental health. Do you think people might look at you and have trouble reconciling this successful comedian with this person struggling with anxiety and despair?
A: I’ve been doing comedy for 17 years. You can only look at the past two and feel like I’ve got a lot going on. There were 15 years of struggle in there, where I felt like nothing was certain and I did not have a firm foundation at all.
One of the things that I’ve really learned, and that I try to underline in Career Suicide, is that I always had that feeling, that if I could just get successful then all of this would go away. It’s pretty faulty logic to think that you can achieve something and it’s going to fix what’s inside you.
There is a potential for backlash where people might go, “You’re talking about how sad you are on the HBO special, but you have an HBO special!” I understand that. But it presumes external things can fix internal problems. At the end of the day, anything I achieve isn’t what makes me feel more stable and healthy. It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of therapy, a lot of medication. My ability to really heal up internally is what allows me to get into a place where I can approach success in the first place.
It’s a complicated thing. But my hope is that people will understand this is real, it’s not an image, it’s not me trying to invent problems to make myself interesting.
Q: Is the podcast a chance to do some psychoanalyzing yourself?
A: I try to actively not be a therapist. My therapist listened to the show and said to me, “You have to be careful. You have to draw some lines.” I’m aware that I’m just some dope comedian and I don’t know how to fix people. I get that. That being said, I’ve managed to carve out a little space for myself in the entertainment world, and I like using that platform to let some other people say some things they think they need to say out loud. I think there is a little bit of a public service aspect to it. I like that people feel they can open up to me, that I’ve built this thing where emotion is on the sleeve, where it’s not pressure to get a laugh every ninety seconds.
Q: The show coming to Vancouver includes some standup, as well crowd-work and a taping of the podcast, is that right?
A: Yeah. When I do this podcast, I tweet out the phone number, and it’s like a lottery. 5000 people try to call. It’s really nuts. So we’re taking a one in five thousand chance. It could be hilarious, it could be sad, it could be gripping, it could be totally boring. So I feel honour-bound to come out and put on a good comedy show. That way if the call is good, everybody’s like, “Man, that really pushed it over the top,what a great evening.” And if it’s a total disaster they’ll be like, “Well, at least I got my money’s worth before that.” But that’s part of the fun for me.
Q: Will this be your first time in Vancouver?
A: It is. I can’t wait. The only negative thing anyone’s said to me about Vancouver is that it’s too clean.
Tickets to Chris Gethard at the Biltmore Cabaret are $22.50 at ticketfly.com.