As many have pointed out, if T.J. Miller was a woman, right now she would be “unhireable.” She would be laughed out of Hollywood. She would not be put on a pedestal as some sort of unknowable, brilliant, difficult truth-teller. She would be called an unhinged bitch, a diva and a crazy person. TJ Miller left Silicon Valley in a blaze of bridge-burning glory, talking sh-t about his coworkers and employers in an epic interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Miller is still talking now, mostly because he’s got so much sh-t on his plate, from HBO comedy specials to his role in The Emoji Movie to a supporting role in the Steven Spielberg movie Ready Player One. He’s also in Deadpool 2, Underwater and he does voice work for The Gorburger Show. Which explains why he gave another “epic” interview which reads as a crash-course in douchebaggery. You can read the full piece here at Vulture. Some highlights:
He wants to be the next Lindsay Lohan: “Nobody right now is publicly the Lindsay Lohan–train wreck–but–not–quite person. If I’d just said it was an honor to work on Silicon Valley and was thankful to Alec Berg, I would have disappeared. Instead, by being just a little authentic, I infected the news cycle. It’s more important to be polarizing than neutralizing. That’s my position.”
On Louis C.K.: “He doesn’t say anything surprising anymore.”
On Aziz Ansari: “He’s very good at what he does … like Dane Cook.”
Women aren’t as funny as men: “They’re taught to suppress their sense of humor during their formative years.”
This paragraph is something: After a brief digression on the Stoic philosophers, Miller turns to his publicist, whose presence at the table was a condition of his doing this interview, and asks, “It’s entirely inappropriate to smoke marijuana, right?” She says it is. He frowns, then face-spritzes. I ask what the spray is, and he says, “It’s embarrassing for you that you don’t know.” (It is, according to the bottle, Evian Natural Mineral Water spray.)
What he says about the publicist in the room during the entire interview: “Her organization told me, ‘You don’t want to have a reputation as someone who trashes producers.’ Well, talk to every other producer I’ve worked with. All I have a reputation for is being kind and grateful and” — face-spritz — “possibly a loose cannon that’s uninsurable.”
He’s so over the Hollywood thing: “I know it’s hard for people to understand, but I don’t really care about movies or TV. Stand-up is always going to be the foundation of what I do. If Hollywood fired me tomorrow, I would be like, ‘Finally, I can relax.’” Then why not quit? Miller rolls his eyes. “Contradiction,” he says, “is something to pursue rather than avoid.”
His goal: “My goal is to distract people from the tragedy of the impermanence of everyday life. And I can do that best by oversaturating the market. Statistically, I give people a better chance of laughing if I do film, stand-up, improv, podcasts, TV, advertising” — he’s currently a pitchman for Mucinex and Slim Jims — “than if I just say ‘What’s a bigger TV show I can be on?’ I’m not making things for wannabe intellectual hipsters complaining on Reddit. I’m doing The Emoji Movie and Deadpool 2 for people en masse.” He finishes a bottle of water and then crushes the plastic empty in his hand. “In the American Zeitgeist,” he says, “you have to recognize that there is no Zeitgeist.” He nods solemnly to me. “Use that.”
For the love of God, stop snorting cocaine before interviews. This interview is disgusting and I think less of all the directors and producers who are willingly working with him at this point. Only a man high on something (cocaine, his own overinflated sense of his place in the food chain) would give this kind of stupid f–king interview. It’s James Franco-esque performance art, made even more annoying by the fact that Miller is convinced he’s the smartest person in the room and that he has to EXPLAIN how smart he is.
During the interview, he also interrupted the interviewer, David Marchese, several times. The first time, Miller asked Marchese about his life, then explained his rationale: “That was a trick. If you ask somebody about themself in the middle of them asking about you, then they’re flattered and ask you nicer questions during the interview.” Then he interrupts Marchese again with this: “Do you think you’re good at your job?” When Marchese humbly says “I don’t think I’m great at it,” Miller says “I agree.” F–k off, TJ Miller.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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