If comedian Jim Gaffigan’s face looks familiar, it’s perhaps because you saw him in a Sierra Mist TV commercial. Or sitting on a toilet in an episode of “Sex and the City.”
The former comedy-club regular with the Everyman mug is now enjoying a different sort of recognition: Fans know him for routinely filling 1,000-seat performance halls, placing him among a select handful of stand-up comedians.
Expect Gaffigan, 39, to get even more exposure in the coming months. He will appear in the M. Night Shyamalan movie “Lady in the Water,” which opens July 21, and will star in the TBS comedy “My Boys,” out in November. There’s also his ongoing role in “Pale Force,” on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
The guy with the self-deprecating, Midwestern sense of humor also has a pair of comedy hits with his CD and DVD, both titled “Beyond the Pale.” He spoke by phone – initially with a cracker in his mouth – about his predilection for food, his preference for curse-free humor and the mixed blessing of being mistaken for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Q: You joke a lot about food in “Beyond the Pale.” What is it with you and food?
A: Food is very important. It seems like everyone eats food. Don’t you think?
You’ve recently jumped to a new level of popularity, selling out 1,000-seat theaters. What allowed you to rise above the comedy-club circuit?
A combination of a lot of things, but I think that definitely my appearances on “Conan” helped a lot. And then Comedy Central did a special (“Beyond the Pale”) that really exposed another hour of material. Then there are some people who come to the show because I was in “Super Troopers” or because I went to the bathroom with the door open on “Sex and the City.” I’m just glad they’re there.
There are some people who have said they want to go to a show where they can bring somebody and there isn’t the expectation that I’m going to do graphically sexual material or curse a lot. I didn’t really aspire to be a clean comedian; I just kind of wanted to weed out curse words that I was personally using as crutches in my jokes. I’ve been described as “a little naughty, but not nasty.”
Have you been endorsed by the Catholic League?
I have been endorsed by the Fancy Pants League. It’s weird, because there is always a certain level of someone being upset with something you do.
Like what? The makers of Hot Pockets, which you make fun of?
I have discussed some religion stuff, and there was a woman who called into a radio station that was furious. And I put the call on my CD because I thought it was so funny.
I don’t really desire to offend anyone. Me kind of growing up the pale guy, I didn’t want to be the person that fed into making one or five people in a room feel uncomfortable to entertain the rest of them. I don’t desire to do it, but it’s inevitable. For every 99 people that think you’re funny, there’s going to be one person that’s angry and doesn’t enjoy it.
At the Sundance Film Festival, you were mistaken for Philip Seymour Hoffman. You seem to have the kind of face that people say reminds them of someone else. Does this happen a lot?
People would say, “I know a guy that looks like you,” and I’d say, “Well, tell them “Hi.’ Tell them to get sunscreen.” There’s always a couple of us everywhere.
What are the pluses and minuses for being confused with Hoffman?
The plus is I think he’s one of our finest actors and the negative is that in the entertainment world, from my experience, you either get too much respect or none. When you’re compared to somebody like Philip Seymour Hoffman, I feel like you’re getting a little bit of both. People are like “Wow, you look like a really talented guy,” but in another way, they’re saying, “I have no idea what you’ve done over the past 15 years.”
Your DVD includes footage of your first stand-up performance. You looked so mature back in “91 in glasses and a suit. You really don’t look like you’ve aged a day.
I think I used to have a joke about looking old. I was doing a commercial 10 years ago and they were casting me as a 40-year-old, so it’s one of those things. I was kind of born old.
But you still look the same.
I still look the same (pause) because I’m from another planet.
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