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May 27, 2015

Comedian T.J. Miller On Life 'Behind Enemy Lines' in Hollywood

Thursday, May 28 @ 40 Watt Club

Photo Credit: Comedy Central

T.J. Miller is everywhere. Whether he’s micromanaging a team of programmers from his living room on the hit HBO sitcom “Silicon Valley,” being blown to pieces in Transformers: Age of Extinction or voicing a sentient ball of mucus on a pharmaceutical commercial, Miller’s deadpan delivery and on-point comedic timing are unmistakable.

Outside of his aforementioned contribution to the Transformers franchise, it’s Miller’s role as Erlich Bachman on Mike Judge’s “Silicon Valley” that has done the most to increase his profile. A bathrobe-wearing, pot-smoking investor, Erlich’s vulgarity and faux-philosophical musings more closely reflect Miller’s on-stage persona than any other character he’s played in the past.

The success of “Silicon Valley” has changed Miller’s career in a variety of ways, but the comedian says he is still in a pre-fame state of mind.

“It's certainly added to my draw as a standup comedian,” he says. “It hasn't particularly affected my onstage comedy, but I am beginning to understand that I have to talk about Hollywood onstage to show the audience that I see this world from their point of view. I don’t consider myself really a part of Hollywood—I’m more behind enemy lines as an international agent of espionage, reporting back intel.”

Miller has also amassed an impressive resume of voiceover work, starting in 2008, when he voiced the faceless yet ever-present cameraman, Hud, in the found-footage monster movie Cloverfield. Since then, Miller has landed a string of high-profile voice gigs, including roles in How to Train Your Dragon, Big Hero 6 and Gravity Falls.

Miller has a theory about why his raspy, slightly sarcastic voice is such a hot commodity: “No one else sounds as much like a drag queen with the accent of a Midwestern rodeo clown from Colorado who chain smokes cloves and yells for a living.”

Miller also says there are benefits to voice acting that he enjoys from an artistic standpoint.

“Ever since Cloverfield, I became fascinated with the challenge of comedic acting with only your voice. It's sort of strangely the opposite of clowning/miming, which is another medium of comedy I do, where you have to use every part of yourself except your voice to make the audience laugh. You have only your physical skill set. So, the inverse is equally as challenging, and it's also fun, because you get to do 30 or 40 alternate takes. For an improviser like me, that's just a damn fun time at the office.”

With his standup and podcast work continuing, as well as sequels in the Dragon and Big Hero 6 franchises and a role in Marvel’s Deadpool all on Miller’s upcoming schedule, he’s not looking to slow down. Indeed, the comedian has a hell of a lot of things on his plate. But that’s just how he likes it.

“I've always thought… that to be a great comedian, you have to be proficient in every single medium of comedy,” he says. “So, I see these different mediums of comedy as just part of my larger objective, which is to make people laugh and perhaps see the world through the jester’s eye. That can then help them either distract themselves or navigate their hard, tragic, existentially questionable and sometimes very dark life.

“That’s all I want,” he continues. “And maybe to make a girl pee her pants a little… Just every once in a while, [and] you know, from laughing, not from fear.”

WHO: T.J. Miller, Cash Levy
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Thursday, May 28, 8 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $21

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