Even those familiar with Brian Posehn’s work might be surprised by just how much the actor/comedian has done. You probably know his work on MR. SHOW, his run as Kevin the mail guy on JUST SHOOT ME, his stoner coupled with Steve Agee on THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM, his bit parts in stuff ranging from SEX DRIVE and THE KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM to FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER and THE DEVIL’S REJECTS, his voice-work on shows like AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE (where he played The Wisdom Cube), KIM POSSIBLE, TOM GOES TO THE MAYOR, MISSION HILL, and SYM-BIONIC TITAN, or his stand-up as part or separate from THE COMEDIANS OF COMEDY.
What you might be less familiar with is that he’s also a musician who recorded a single called “Metal By Numbers” with Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Joey Vera, among others, a podcaster whose Nerd Poker features comedians playing Dungeons and Dragons live, and a writer, who wrote a run for Deadpool from 2013 to this past June, as well as a sitcom which he mentions none-too-fondly below.
With UNCLE NICK, he adds two notches to his resume: that of producer and of dramatic leading man. Sure enough, he’s front-and-center in the film, and is in pretty much every scene as the drunken, lecherous uncle who's a little more upfront, honest, and cantankerous than the other members of his family. At about the halfway point, we start to learn the root of Nick’s behavior, and from then on, we’re treated to a side of Posehn that we’ve never really gotten in any form, and he rises to the occasion spectacularly, getting dramatic and emotional without sacrificing the character’s hilarious nature. It’s at least as big of a statement of talent as his buddy Patton Oswalt’s performance in BIG FAN (which, as he mentions below, shares some similarities with this film), and proves, once and for all, that Posehn is an actor that’s been underutilized up until this point. But most importantly, it’s often jaw-droppingly funny, and made me howl in laughter way more than I had expected.
Read on to learn about Posehn’s preparation for the role, how Errol Morris earned an executive producer credit on the film, and why he doesn’t think Fox is going to go out of their way to show him DEADPOOL early:
VINYARD: This is a pretty big dramatic role from you, which I don’t think I’ve seen before. How’d you get your hands on the script, and what was your reaction when you first read it?
POSEHN: It took me a while. It was kind of handed to me through a friend. My writing partner on Deadpool knew the producer, writer, and director, so they didn’t go through the traditional route of agent to managers. They just had my buddy flip it to me. And I didn’t read it! He sent it to me on my computer, and I just let it sit there. Finally, it took him goin’, “Dude, man, they wrote it for you! It’s really good. Read it you idiot!” It took that, being coaxed by my friend, to finally read it. Once I read it, I was like, “Oh, this is awesome.” Like you said, I haven’t done this kind of thing. No one’s ever approached me to do a movie where I’m the lead and in practically every scene, and my character even has a name. Not only he has a name, but his name’s the name of the movie. That just never happened.
VINYARD: Were you freaked out by the dramatic heft at all?
POSEHN: A little bit, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do. I’ve been looking for something where…I hate to use the cliche actor shit of “stretching” or whatever, but I did. I did want to do that. I did want to prove that I could do more than walk into a scene, say something stupid, and walk out, which I’ve been pretty successful at doing. I love doing that, but you are kind of waiting around for something bigger and better.
VINYARD: You’re listed as a producer on the movie. What did that actually entail, practically?
POSEHN: I was pretty much the first person cast. Where I was most helpful outside of actually performing in the thing was I helped them get the rest of the cast together. If you’re a fan, you know that a lot of them are people I’ve worked with before. I worked with Missi on SARAH SILVERMAN, I’ve known Paget for years, and Scott Adsit I’ve known going back to MR. SHOW. They were all people I suggested and that we reached out to, so that’s really where I did the most work. Even going down to the girl that played my, not “live interest,” but the girl I’m trying to bone throughout the movie. Embarrassingly enough, she was my former babysitter, so that adds another layer of creepiness. That’s just the way it went down, it was like, “Oh, she’d be perfect!”
VINYARD: What about Jacob Houston (who plays Nick's nephew, Marcus)? He’s hilarious in the movie, how’d you find him?
POSEHN: He’s really great! Yeah, that was straight up the casting director. I’d never seen him before. He was awesome, he really stands out.
VINYARD: The film really takes a turn when you give that monologue about halfway through. How did you get yourself in the zone for that?
POSEHN: One of the episodes we did of SARAH SILVERMAN, this episode called, “Breathe,” where no one’s going to let Steve (Agee) and I adopt a kid because we were giant stoners, so we make a robot and we bring him to life praying to Satan. That episode actually has a turn there. We had to play it real. The robot gets killed, spoiler alert, but we had to play that super serious. That’s what our director, Rob Schrab, wanted, so I had a little experience crying and playing something real, but this was different from that. I did what anyone who’s inexperienced with that stuff would do, I hired an acting coach. The production wound up using her for other people too, but that was one of the first things I did, was reach out to her and get her help for the parts I had to be real. I knew I could be a smartass. I knew I could walk in and say creepy shit. I’ve done that before, but there was this speech where I felt I was going to need somebody’s guidance.
VINYARD: There’s this tricky balance in the movie between serious moments like that and then the more goofy moments where Uncle Nick acts out. How did you balance that without tipping too much into one realm or the other?
POSEHN: I just tried to play him like he’s a real guy and not a cartoon. Even with the drunkneness, I wanted to pull back on that. If anything, I want you go, “He doesn’t seem that drunk.” That’s a criticism that’s okay, because I didn’t want to go too far and have it be…
VINYARD: BAD SANTA.
POSEHN: Fully cartoonish. It was definitely a line I was thinking about the whole time. I just sorta trusted my instincts that I’d be able to. Like I said, the comedy was no problem. It was the other stuff. But I still wanted to make the comedy funny and grounded, if that makes sense.
VINYARD: Like you said, you played a stoner on SARAH SILVERMAN and you’ve played a lot of stoners over the years, and here, you’re kind of a filthy alcoholic. Do you think there’s something funnier about alcoholism over weed smoking, maybe because it incites more violent behavior?
POSEHN: I don’t know if it’s funnier. It’s a totally different thing. I think with weed, if you’re super, super high, you’re probably not going to act out, like you said. If that was a different thing, if that guy had got as high as I get drunk, my experience is that I’d get really quiet and not make a scene, so that wouldn’t lend to a raucous Christmas comedy, it’d be a more mellow affair.
VINYARD: “Wait, this girl’s only 20!”
POSEHN: With booze, booze gives you courage and the ability…maybe not the ability, but you’ll say things you probably wouldn’t say otherwise. That’s really what gets Nick going in this thing.
VINYARD: Plus, everyone drinks at Christmas, so it makes sense.
POSEHN: Sure, yeah. My family, the males would also take a walk outside, if you know what I mean.
VINYARD: Did you guys get any rehearsal time to refine the rhythm and the relationships and stuff?
POSEHN: We didn’t, because of the budget limitations. I wish I knew exactly how many days we shot it, but I think we shot it in like two weeks. There was time before, so we did that on our own. Like I said, I worked with an acting coach, but I also got Melia (Renee), the girl who plays Valerie, to come over with the acting coach and we did run those scenes, but it wasn’t on the clock, you know? We kind of did that on our own dime. As a producer, doing this for the first time, I wanted it to be good. I want people to ask me to do this kind of thing again.
VINYARD: Did you actually shoot in Cleveland?
POSEHN: No, it was all done in Pasadena in the summer. When we’re wearing these layers of clothes at the beginning, it’s friggin’ hot outside. The exteriors were done in Cleveland, but not with me. I never left Los Angeles.
VINYARD: Did you have any personal connection to the baseball stuff in the film?
POSEHN: Not at all. I’m the other kind of nerd, if you know my history. I grew up in the Bay Area, so the A’s were a big deal when I was a kid, then the Giants when they got good. I’m so old I was around when the A’s were awesome in the ‘70s. That’s kinda it for me. I haven’t followed football or baseball or anything since then. I felt like we have a lot in common with sports nerds. It’s still a religion, and it’s details. I knew details about comics and horror films that I love, so I felt like it’s really close. They’re still geeks. Sports guys might not call themselves geek, but it’s obsessive behavior, and to me, that’s what a geek or a nerd is.
VINYARD: I thought Patton in BIG FAN made that similarity pretty clear.
POSEHN: Yeah, and that was in my head a little when I first read the script. I went, “This is kinda what he did.” That’s how he connected to it, because obviously he doesn’t know football…unless he’s been hiding that from me for 30 years.
VINYARD: I saw Errol Morris’ name in the credits, and I don’t recall seeing his name on any fiction film before. How did he get involved?
POSEHN: Chris (Kasick), our director, had worked with him, had apprenticed with him and had done some work on…I don’t know which film Chris worked on (TABLOID), but they knew each other through that. Errol came on after we had a couple of cuts done already. We may have even appeared at a Cleveland film festival. Then he came onboard with the idea of helping us get a distributor, and he did. He really helped. We shot it a while ago. It’s not like it was sitting on a shelf, because they kept fine-tuning it over the last year-and-a-half or two, and there’s been several cuts of it. But him getting involved attracted NPI and Dark Sky to finally get behind it and pull the trigger.
VINYARD: You just worked with the MR. SHOW guys again, how was that?
POSEHN: Yes, it was the best! It was the same, but different. We’ve all grown up, especially myself. I was an ass when I worked on MR. SHOW. It was a bunch of adults in a room, but we still find the same stuff funny. It was easier than the old show. Part of it is that we only did four, but there just weren’t the fights that there were back in the day. Everybody knows they’re funny, and you’re not fighting over, you know…it was one of my first jobs, so there was a lot of me like, “I’m funnier than this guy!” There wasn’t that this time around, it was just a bunch of old friends making each other laugh again.
VINYARD: How has your act developed as you’ve gotten older?
POSEHN: It’s changed. I haven’t changed my style of comedy, but I think the subject matter has changed over the years. I’ve always kind of been honest- well, not in the very beginning- but in the last 15 years, I’ve become a comic who tells stories of what I’m going through, and since that has changed, the subject matter has changed. On my first record, I was talking about getting married, and now, I’ve been married a long time and I have a six-year-old kid, so there’s material about that. Then, you know, my body, and the changes that happen to someone in their 40’s, I thought was funny and relatable, so that’s where a lot of the stuff is now. Losin’ weight, so I don’t know what my next record’s gonna be about, but it won’t be about how fat my tits are anymore.
VINYARD: Has political correctness gotten in your way, with all the recent outbursts by Twitter and the media?
POSEHN: I try and stay off Twitter and Facebook.
VINYARD: Smart.
POSEHN: I think the people in my standup audience are going to complain about the subject matter, unless somebody goes in by accident. I don’t really go to the places where the social justice warriors are. I keep my un-PC thoughts to myself, so I don’t really invite that sort of criticism. I think when you’re on Facebook and Twitter all the time, that’s when you voice your opinion, and somebody goes, “Hey, that’s unfair to so-and-so group!” That’s where the problems arise, at least I’ve noticed that with my friends.
VINYARD: How was writing Deadpool for that run?
POSEHN: It was a blast, man. I’d love to do another thing for them. I just did a one-off that’s coming up soon, an all-Spanish version of Deadpool called Massacre. Basically, a Mexican Deadpool who’s inspired by Deadpool, and they start cracking down on the crime in his area. That’s coming out. I’d love to do another character with them It wound up being so fun, and being a nerd or comic-book reader my whole life, it was a dream to work for Marvel. They’re nothing but cool. They let me do anything I wanted, really.
VINYARD: Was it natural to go from comedy to comic writing?
POSEHN: Only because I also write. I’ve kind of written everything at this point, sketches, sitcoms, and a lot of screenplays, and I had written THE LAST CHRISTMAS for Image. We’re trying to turn that into an animated movie right now. I had experience with all that stuff, and then doing LAST CHRISTMAS made me get how comics are written. I had my friend, Rick Remender, kind of hold my hand through that thing, so I wanted to work with all those guys again, and it wound up being a blast.
VINYARD: Have you seen the DEADPOOL movie yet?
POSEHN: No, have you?!
VINYARD: No. I’m excited.
POSEHN: I don’t know if people are seeing the full cut yet. But is that even a Marvel movie? It’s through someone else, right?
VINYARD: Fox, yeah.
POSEHN: So they’re not really related. And I don’t think Rob Liefeld really enjoyed what Gerry (Dugan) and I did, and Liefeld’s all over this DEADPOOL movie, so I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet, but I hope it’s good!
VINYARD: Yeah, me too. Is there any other movie you saw in recent memory that stuck with you?
POSEHN: My favorite thing from last year was JOHN WICK, and then THE GUEST.
VINYARD: Those are awesome.
POSEHN: Yeah, I dug both of those. Let’s see recently…I saw KNOCK, KNOCK, didn’t love it. WICK and THE GUEST were my favorite movies of last year. I wish there was something this year. I haven’t seen anything this year that blew me away. (EX MACHINA) was good. To me, the key to a good movie is that I want to watch it again, and I didn’t feel that way about IT FOLLOWS, and there was a lot of talk in the horror world about how great that was and how big of a gamechanger it was, but I just didn’t see it that way. EX MACHINA I really liked, but I didn’t purchase it. I didn’t buy it on Blu-ray. I still like to have the physical version of something if I really like it, but I didn’t do that.
VINYARD: Last question: first time I saw you was on JUST SHOOT ME, and I didn’t know who you were, but I thought you were hilarious. You said you’d written several sitcoms. How hard is it to be funny on a sitcom?
POSEHN: Well, it depends. I guess SARAH SILVERMAN by a stretch would be considered a sitcom even though it’s not traditional. That show was easier for me to write than the other one. I worked on ANGER MANAGEMENT, and don’t tell anybody. That was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had, because it wasn’t my sensibility. SARAH was. I just wasn’t a good fit at ANGER MANAGEMENT. I wound up being the comedy police, and frowned on most of what they were turning in. It’s a totally different sensibility, just a different style of writing comedy for me. I would love to do it again it it was the right thing. I’ll probably wind up doing my own version of that, my own version of LOUIS or MARON or SARAH.
VINYARD: Single-cam?
POSEHN: Yes. I love multi-cam when it’s done well, but…I’m not going to go any further (laughs) I’m not going to throw ANGER MANAGEMENT under the bus fully.
VINYARD: I think everyone made out fine, I think you’re okay.
POSEHN: I know, right?
Catch UNCLE NICK at a handful of theaters (visit the official site for the full list) through this Thursday, and is available on iTunes/Amazon/VOD. -Vinyard
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