comedians on comedy

A confidence rooted, according to Mark Proksch — who plays a lousy, clueless Hollywood impersonator and actor in On Cinema and its spinoff, Decker — in Heidecker’s “ability to ignore the negative voices in his head that the rest of us listen to when it comes to actually pursuing and accomplishing something. Which is not to say he’s overly confident... See more

“He does such a great job at playing the truly mediocre,” adds Jordan Peele, who cast Heidecker as Josh Tyler (and his tethered, Tex) in his 2019 movie Us . Peele created the role specifically for the comedian. “Not to shatter the magic of his unspoken notions, but this stand-up character that he portrays is so close to being possibly who he is tha... See more

Odenkirk, who appeared in many of the 11-minute Tom Goes to the Mayor episodes that aired on Adult Swim, puts Heidecker in the same category as his Mr. Showcollaborator David Cross, someone with “a certain kind of natural ease at being funny, that I do not think I have, and most people don’t have.” The even rarer thing that Odenkirk sees in Heideck... See more

At the time, Heidecker wasn’t influenced by comedy at all (he didn’t watch SNL or pay attention to traditional stand-up), but by the “weird awkwardness” of artists like David Byrne and the Talking Heads. “In that first video we did, Eric was editing it, and there was a jump cut where he had taped over this girl ice-skating. So it jumped and went to... See more

There’s a lot of young man’s anger in that show that’s kind of disguised as absurdity or silliness,” he says. “I don’t always want to do that. Or if I did do that all the time, it would be awful. It’d just be, like, Fuck this guy .”

Remorse is not something “No Bullshit” guy feels, but seated at Brooklyn’s Purity Diner on a sunny afternoon during his weeklong run at the Bell House, Heidecker is rankled by guilt. In a plain black tee and sunglasses now, he’s replaying the moment he upset a fan when he was in character the previous night. He was doing a bit where “No Bullshit” g... See more