John Mulaney Is “Never Relevant, and Therefore Never Irrelevant”

Around this time last year, the comedian John Mulaney took his biggest creative risk yet, releasing The Sack Lunch Bunch: a Netflix special The New Yorker described as “not quite a children’s show for adults and not quite an adult show for children.” Whatever it was, it drew critical acclaim. He went quiet for a while, and then the work came in quickly: he returned to host Saturday Night Live for a fourth time this past fall, and announced he’d be joining Late Night With Seth Meyers as a writer and occasional “correspondent” not long after.

Now there’s a new season of Big Mouth, his Netflix animated series with Nick Kroll and a month-long campaign for Marvel Contest of Champions, a mobile arcade-style fighting game. Mulaney picked his own lineup of characters and reprises Spider-Ham, which he first took on in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. GQ hopped on the phone for a wide-ranging conversation: Mulaney talked about why he’s never felt more himself than when he’s voicing an animated pig, and a host of other ideas and projects that are never far from his mind.

This conversation took place two weeks ago, before news broke that Mulaney had checked himself into a 60-day stay at rehab. GQ wishes him a speedy recovery.

Did you see any ghosts today?

I haven't, but I walked past what is supposedly the most haunted building in New York City.

Oh, where is that?

It's a vacuum cleaner store on 14th between 5th and 6th and it used to be a boarding house. My, oh my. Apparently just incredibly haunted. Like, Poltergeist haunted.

Did you get a chill or a bad vibe?

It doesn't give me a bad vibe anymore. I think when I first walked past it, I knew what it was. So maybe I faked the bad vibes. Although I walked by a house that was haunted in Los Angeles and I didn't know it was haunted. I was just kind of like, "Oh, what's this house." And then, slowly, I was like, "I don't like this place. I'm going to walk away from here with my dog." And then I found out it was called the Murder House of Los Feliz and it had a terrible history. That's the only time I've really had a creeping sense of ghouls and ghosts out of nowhere and then have it be proven correct.

I feel like there's a horror comedy in your head begging to come out at some point.

Well—I'm trying to think. I'm not good with horror devices like twists and things like that, but I could write a comedy about someone who's just haunted and scary. I do have an idea—I used to watch this show Ghost Kids: Children of the Paranormal. And it was about real life Sixth Sense kids. And it was very compelling. And I believed these kids. And I always thought that that would be a fun like Bad News Bears type movie, where either one of the players sees ghosts or maybe it's kind of like a down and out of team because they all see ghosts and that's their thing. As opposed to being like the team without much money, they’re the team that sees ghosts, so that's why they're last in the league. And if you think I'm not just making that movie up on my feet, you're absolutely wrong. I am coming up with it as we speak.

Would watch. But I don't want to add to your plate, which is already pretty full. You have this Marvel Contest of Champions thing you're doing, which is a continuation of your Spider-Ham role. Actually, we're coincidentally talking on the anniversary of Spider-Verse—it turns two today.

It does turn two, yeah. I remember two years ago going, "Oh, Into the Spider-Verse is out." I'm not just kidding. I do recall it. You know why? It was the first movie I was ever in, so it was a big deal.

Then it went on to critical and popular acclaim, that's always good.

Yes. Which, Peter Ramsey and Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman, they made such an incredible film that I definitely felt a part of it. It felt like watching a perfect meal being served and I knew I chopped the garlic. I felt in awe of it. And then people go, "Congratulations." I'd be like, "On what?" And they'd be like, "The movie." And I was like, "Oh yeah. That's other people." And they're like, "No, you're in it." And I'm like, "Okay, fine. If you want to give me credit, I'll take it."

Well, how does it feel to be reprising the character again, now, for this campaign that you're doing?

It's so natural, it's crazy. The thing that was fun about doing this character was that I spoke in my voice the way I talk, with slight volume raises. But it took until someone offered me a Spider-Man pig character before I could say like, "Oh, they just want me to be me." I feel like Cary Grant got a lot of those offers where he's like, "I see. They just want the Cary Grant shoot." In my first records, I was like, "What are you looking for?" And they were like, "Talk the way you would."

This also coincides with a new season of Big Mouth. It seems like you gravitate towards voiceover work a lot more often than some of your peers. What is it that you like about it?

Oh, I really like it, first off. It's something about the acting, it's performative fully. If you watch someone do animated voiceover, you're throwing the action into it. You're trying as much as possible to recreate the loss of breath or the fact that you're struggling to get over something. And other than breathing on the mic too harshly, you're able to kind of act in that space. I find it really fun. Also, it's an easier way to do like five takes in a row. You can be like, "Actually let me do five ‘blammos.’" And there's not cameras rolling and a hundred grips and lighting guys, so you can just go, "Let me do five blammos.” [proceeds to read blammo five different ways] “Blammo! Blammo! Blammo! Blammo. Blammo." And that's acting, what I just did. So you can really play around even more so than you can on a set.

What's interesting is when you first get into the voiceover booth—normally I'm coming off the subway and I haven't been talking and yelling, so everyone comes into voiceover... it's not that they're rusty, it's more like they're just used to speaking in an inside voice. So the first takes of any animated thing, be it Big Mouth or this new Chip n' Dale project or Spider-Verse, the first takes are always like, "Hi, this is Peter Porker. I'm here. I'm a reporter. I want to help, too." And they're like, "Okay, great. Now do it with energy and as if you were definitely Peter Porker and not someone who was just on the subway."

You have the Chip 'n Dale thing with Samberg, I'm sensing a theme of voiceover characters here.

I love how you said that I choose them. I must admit, I, for a long time, very much wanted voiceover work. And then Big Mouth, then Spider-Verse came along and I was like, "Yes, yes." So I don't want to say I just accepted these films because I would take anything, but more like I was really open to it and then they offered it, so I took it.

What about the Spider-Ham role, specifically, do you enjoy tapping into, especially now that you're getting to do more of it this time around?

I like that he takes his day job seriously. He has an air of he's always pushing the reporter thing first. I like that he ... I don't know if he ... Maybe compared to some of the other Spider-Verse spider creatures, he might have the highest EQ. Seems very sensitive about himself and others, but I mainly like that he talks in an old timey voice and says stuff like blammo. And I think also can't help himself with ham puns. Anyone who goes for jokes constantly, even though they know that they're completely hack and stupid is always a hero.

I want to talk about how this year has been for you creatively, because around this time last year, you were coming off Sack Lunch Bunch, which was arguably one of your biggest creative risks and it really paid off. How has your creative process been impacted by this year?

If you heard that spoon, it's because I'm eating a bowl of Fruit Loops. Working in this new reality, at first I thought, "Okay, now's your chance. Literally, you'll be alone without any collaborators. You can write anything you want. There's no clock.” And what I realized was I really like working with other people, which was not hard once people really dove into working over Zoom. At first, when I heard about that, I was like, "There's no way people are going to work this way." I don't know why I was so skeptical, but I was. And I definitely was thrilled once I started being in touch with friends again and collaborating on new Sack Lunch Bunches and did the Oh, Hello podcast, “The Life and Death of Princess Diana.” Once I was back, even virtually, with the people I love, collaborating with like Nick Kroll or Marika Sawyer, I felt much more at home. The idea of sitting alone writing, maybe someday I'll have my ADHD under control and will be able to do it. I'm normally on stage with an audience or with other people writing Documentary Now or recording Big Mouth or these movies. I'm not Philip Roth. And I know you think I'm Phillip Roth, Frazier, but I'm not.

Oh man, you just popped the bubble.

I know, I'm sorry.

Has working on Late Night with Seth Meyers given you that structure that you were seeking?

[laughs] It's really fun and it's really fun to go into an office and work with friends. It is not simply a case of structure. But yes, it is nice to have an office to go to where it's super safe. After doing Saturday Night Live, I thought, I really miss going into a workplace. When I realized I had the very lucky opportunity to go into Seth's show, I was stoked because I realize not a lot of people can recreate that or have that interaction right now. So I'm extremely lucky to be able to.

Watching your segments made me wonder, would you ever build up to having your own talk show? Just John Mulaney and guest?

Well, it's interesting you say that from my segments. I don't know if the persona I'm playing in those segments would get his own talk show. But I always wanted to do a talk show where the guest is always someone from a job that I don't understand. I'd love to interview a dog catcher and be like, "What is that like? How do you feel about yourself? I'm not judging, but I am a little. How do you feel rounding up dogs and taking them to the pound?" I had two ideas for a talk show once. And by ideas, I mean I thought about them in the privacy of my own room. One would be just interviewing people who do anything that interests me. And I don't mean like on the ground and I'm watching them do their job. It would be like a talk show set and they'd come out and there'd be a band and so forth.

The other thing was just to have only elderly people on—which I obviously would not do now due to the risks—but I just thought it would be great to talk to old people, especially if they were comfortable talking about being at the end of their lives and just go, "Did you like it? Did you not?" Ideally, maybe like a four year old and an 84 year old, or a 40 year old and a 94 year old would be our ideal lineup.

It's like an inverse Sack Lunch in a way.

I guess we're catching them a little older than four, but in similar ways, trying to timestamp some of the emotions they have at that age. I'd love to interview a four year old, see how they're thinking and feeling, and then interview a 94 year old. And we as an audience and me as a talk show host would identify the differences, but also maybe there's similarities.

Going back to SNL, you came in right before the election when there was a surge of anxiety in the air. What was it like for you stepping away from that once everything hit in those two weeks of, as we were talking about earlier, electoral college chaos followed? You faced a little criticism of your monologue too.

Totally warranted criticism. Watching [the election play out] I assumed that would happen. I did not think there'd be a winner announced on Tuesday night. And I think I wrote this as a joke for Seth on Late Night, but seeing it, I thought, "Shouldn't it take this long every time, maybe? Like, why do we try to Santa Claus this and do them all in one night?" It suddenly seemed very bizarre to me that we expected it. Like, "I want same-night results before 11:00 PM!” I think, with the executive branch right now calling shenanigans, it seems like that would be more of a recipe for shenanigans than taking the time to do it.

Any time you’re hosting an SNL episode I always look forward to what’s become a series, the Broadway-inspired ode to some New York City minutiae. Would you ever blow that concept up into a larger special-type deal?.

Where someone, namely Pete Davidson, violates a New York City faux pas and then we comment on it by doing parodies of existing Broadway musicals?

Exactly.

If Lorne Michaels were to dedicate a whole episode to it, good Lord, that'd be a lot of work. But yes, I would absolutely do it. If we were to take it anywhere else and make it like an hour film, we would run into the very real problem of not owning the rights to these songs. And parody law, which I became a student of while in Saturday Night Live, is tricky. It's not just singing fake lyrics to a song. You have to specifically be parodying the content of the song.

So for example, let's say back in 2008 or 2009, you had Hall and Oates on Weekend Update and they sang “Privatize,” I-Z-E, to “Private Eyes.” "Privatize my healthcare now." That does not meet parody standards because it doesn't parody the content of the song “Private Eyes.” A song called “Public Nose” would be closer to meeting those standards of parody law, like “Public Nose is living with me.” That is more a direct parody of Private Eyes. I love how I'm speaking about this so academically and my example is garbage. It's very interesting. I enjoy all the legal standards and practices and ramifications of comedy. I learned a lot working in network television.

Speaking of network television, you had the sitcom that didn't pan out, but that was such a long time ago. We're in an era where networks and all these different streaming services are less picky about concepts and creators, seemingly, have more room to make the show that they want. Given that, would you try it again?

A multi-cam, live audience sitcom, the way I did it?

Not necessarily.

I would do the exact show I did before and maybe make a few changes with the audience. I'm not being defiant about it. There were some things I could have done to let the audience in on how I was viewing the show as opposed to being so at face value, which is not how I meant it to be perceived. But there's a lot of editing cuts, takes, the way stuff plays on the floor. I lost the thread a little sometimes. But I meant to make a multi-cam, live audience sitcom that was stupid, that didn't deal with dating, that dealt with things like haunted houses and losing a three legged dog and figuring out how to replace it and does that mean buying a four legged dog and doing anything terrible, or does that mean getting a three legged gerbil, and through the use of forced perspective, building a miniature version of the apartment to trick the person.

I really didn't want to cover topics that sitcoms normally had. And I had a long list of things I didn't want to do and how this was going to be different. And that was all well and good. People didn't take to it. I would do something similar to it, but I also look around at the amount of good television on from I May Destroy You to Pen15 to... list other comedies. You can say, "He went on to list other shows." I kind of go, "What do I have to say in that medium that would be interesting at this point?" I'm not sure I have something to say in that medium that would be interesting, or that needs to be heard. I think part of me and maybe why I fit so well with Spider-Ham was, I'm sort of never relevant and therefore kind of never irrelevant. And I like comedy in that space. With everything going on in the world, I don't know if people need sketches about LaGuardia where we sing, “We're On a Plane To Nowhere” with Dave Byrne, but I hope you'll be happy that it's there.

I think what we've established in this conversation is that there are a ton of different ideas rattling around in your head that you should definitely make happen.

If that's what people took away from this, I'd be thrilled.

I don't want to take too much of your time away from the Fruit Loops—

They're done. They're long gone, Frazier.

We're a year away from Sack Lunch now. One of the key segments in that was talking about fears. After the year that we've all had, I wanted to know if your fears changed with 2020.

Well, I think a lot of people have noticed what isolation is actually like. It's not good for you. I think people have adopted a great deal more compassion, in some regards, for their fellow man. Isolation certainly is… I don't know if it's a fear so much as I now appreciate how scary it is that other people pretty much make life worth living. But my major fear remains the same, which is the Russian mafia.

Originally Appeared on GQ