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Neil Hamburger: from onstage boor to offstage bore

For two decades, Gregg Turkington has done stand-up in the guise of a repulsive nightclub performer named Neil Hamburger. The character is equal parts bad-taste pandering and subversive genius, showing us the vile, desperate narcissism behind insult comedy.

And for all that time, Turkington has avoided exploring the character beyond his stage appearances, until director Rick Alverson, who’d cast Turkington in The Comedy, approached him with an idea. The result is Entertainment, and it’s not the Neil Hamburger movie any of us was expecting.

You’ve been very protective of the Neil Hamburger persona over the years, so how did Rick Alverson convince you to make this movie?

I’d been controlling the Neil Hamburger thing for so many years, and specifically not filling in Neil’s offstage life. I thought it was better left implied. Rick had a specific idea about this, and we kind of fleshed out what it would be [like] offstage for this guy. We both felt strongly that there’s nobody there. This person is a broken shell of a man offstage, which is what I always felt was the truth about Neil Hamburger. [Alverson] wanted slow, dead moments where nothing happens, and I was like, “Yes! That’s the story! That’s the real story! He’s just a glum, unhappy person.”

I’ve always imagined Neil wanders onstage through a portal from some parallel universe where his act is funny, and when he leaves he just goes back to his home dimension.

I like that. [laughs]

You’re welcome to use it.

It’s actually more of a throwback to the original vision for the character. [On] the first few Neil Hamburger records, there was no live show. I just made them as fake audio documentaries of a nonexistent comedian. There wasn’t a real backstory because there wasn’t a real touring act. And I didn’t want there to be one, and I resisted it for years. I was three or four albums into it before I actually did a real show. I figure that this Neil Hamburger is more similar to that early one. It’s just grim pizza-parlour shows in the middle of nowhere, and that’s what this was like.

Was it difficult to find the offstage version of the character? 

As somebody who’s not a trained actor, it’s definitely a little intimidating at first. But Rick and I had so many discussions before filming – we really wanted to get on the same page with all this stuff – that I trusted him completely. When we didn’t see eye-to-eye on character or situations, we worked all that out. I totally trusted his vision, which made it easier. I wouldn’t say it was a relaxing project, but definitely I felt very, very comfortable. He would say sometimes, “That was good, but I need less. I need more of a blankness.” I mean, it’s really almost stripping away anything that an actor would do and trying to just become blank. Almost tapping into the subconscious and just not thinking. 

I’ve done Neil Hamburger for so many years that I literally can do it in my sleep – if it’s before a show and I’m talking to someone and they say, “Well, you need to get ready and go into character,” in the time it takes me to put on the outfit, I’m in character. I don’t need to sit there and meditate about it. It’s very second-nature. I mean, if I got asked tomorrow to portray Abraham Lincoln in a teleplay, I would go to pieces. But this made sense. And Rick’s just a brilliant director and very good at getting great performances out of non-actors. 

Well, you’re an actor now. You’re doing a press tour and everything. Is that weird, since so much of the Neil Hamburger act is done in character?

I’ve resisted doing any interviews out of character for, like, 20 years. I did them all in character because I didn’t want to talk about this stuff. And honestly, I still don’t. It’s just that it’s impossible to promote this film [otherwise], and I feel very strongly about this film. I think that Rick outdid himself here, and I want people to see it. 

So I just didn’t see that doing these in character would make sense, especially because now you have this offstage Neil that’s been portrayed for the first time. For me to do an interview as [Hamburger voice] “waaaaaaaa” – it’s not gonna work. It doesn’t make sense, it’s ludicrous. So I just had to give up on my policy of never talking about this stuff, and now I just do it and I try not to think about it. And I try not to read any of these things, because I’m terrified that if I read it I’ll say, “Oh my god, what a pretentious asshole.” And I won’t be able to do it any more.

I mean, I’d be happy to talk about your voice work as Toby Determined on Gravity Falls for an hour. Do people connect that character to you? Toby’s voice is pretty close to Neil’s.

It’s so exciting when someone comes up to me and mentions that. It happens a lot. Like, they were Neil Hamburger fans and they were watching this [TV] show and they heard this voice and figured out it was the same person, and their mind was blown – these two interests that they have that don’t feel connected. 

And it’s interesting, too, with something like that where I’m not controlling it. I’m so used to doing marginal things that few people care about, but regardless, those things are my thing. And then [with] acting, which isn’t something that I was ever pursuing, it’s the opposite. It’s coming in and doing something that somebody else wants you to do. With the voiceover thing, I actually have fun – when I’m in that studio, I’m actually just basking in it. It’s really exciting.

Don’t miss our review of Entertainment here.

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