Pete Holms – The Pete Holms Show

By starrymag | March 20, 2014

Q) Who were your biggest comic influences growing up?

A) I love that question. I was a really big Steve Martin fan. I really loved him as a stand-up actually. Of course, I enjoyed his movies quite a bit, but his albums from the 70s were really, really great as well. And also Bill Cosby was a big influence for me, kind of that storytelling. I grew up religious so I loved a lot of the cleaner guys and some of the more observational guys. My tastes remain with them a lot, but now I like more of a Bill Burrs’ and that sort of speed these days.

Q) Are you in awe of joining you know, the late night talk show realm of characters so to speak?

A) Yes, I would definitely use the word awe. That’s the perfect word. I actually got to sit down with Seth Meyers not too long ago and we were both talking about what a like, specific group it is and to be invited into that world is of course a huge, huge honor, and it’s something that I enjoyed growing up, specifically Conan enjoyed throughout college and stuff. It is a still surreal and remains quite a trip for me.

Q) Working with Conan, how directly, indirectly, has he been a huge influence and supportive?

A)  Conan couldn’t be any better if he tried. I mean, he’s fantastic. He’s always available. It’s this really, really surreal world that I live in where our offices are right – we’re in a different building, but we’re right next to his building, and literally I’ll give a little heads up out of courtesy, but I can just kind of pop over, ask him a quick question, and to be honest sometimes I just go over because like it energizes me to see a hero of mine and to talk to him a little bit, and then we’ll go and tape a show and I’ll have like a little extra pep in me because I got to talk to him. So he couldn’t be more available. He’s wonderful.

Q) So you talk on your show a lot about how you are trying to not worry as much about people not liking you.

A) Yes. It’s funny that you say that. I have a post it note on my desk right now that says “Allow people not to like you.” We’re going to write a monologue about that. Yes, it is really difficult, but I don’t know if you listened to the (Mark Norman) episode, but that’s where we really started to kind of uncover how manipulative and inappropriate and almost sociopathic it is to try and make everybody like you. And I know that’s kind of a strange thing to say but – especially in the framework of a TV show. We’re just being honest to what we want to do. I haven’t run into many haters of the show, but if people don’t like it, if it’s not for them, that’s okay. Similarly if people don’t like me as a person, that’s also okay. It’s all of our jobs as human beings to be genuine, and to be truthful, and not to just warp and adapt to be what we think people think we should be so they’ll like us. That’s the wrong way to live in this world.

Q) Well, do you think that’s difficult interpersonally on set, because you’re supposed to be this very fun, sweet character guy on the show, right? But then sometimes you have to tell somebody I wanted Evian water.

A) Oh, I see. Fortunately I – and this is completely true. I have such a wonderful staff that bring me chilled glass bottle of that Evian constantly that I never have to yell at people. I thought you were going to say it’s kind of tricky in the persona of the show interviewing people you can’t exactly – it’s important that they like you, and it’s important that your audience likes you. So there is a certain amount of forfeiting that idea in small not that noticeable ways, to try and remain like a likable television person. But we’re such a small show, I really enjoy that. I hope these are the early years of our show that we’ll look back on and remember when there was just one room for the writers and we’re all on top of each other, but it’s not very Hollywood, you know? It’s very down home. I like to think of ourselves as an underdog but I like to think of ourselves as doing some really special stuff because we don’t have that fancy shine.

Q) I love the segment on your show, Gabbin’ like Gals. It makes me so sad that I’m not a gal that you know so that we could gab.

A) I think that’s such a sweet compliment, thanks. It is fun being on that couch. I enjoy it as much as hopefully the guests enjoy it.

Q) Like, F, marry, or kill. So we have Steve Martin from The Jerk, Steve Martin from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, or Steve Martin from Little Shop of Horrors.

A) Well, we’re killing the one from Little Shop of Horrors for sure. It’s funny that you say that because we did Place Beyond the PinesRyan Gosling and it was interesting to see how girls would go for that one. That’s the scary Gosling, nobody wants that. But I’m killing the scary one. I’m going to marry the one from The Jerk and then I’m going to fuck the one from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The one from The Jerk infinitely interesting. He’s always bumbling. We have to go on adventures. He’s stupid. I can trick him. He’ll be so grateful that I pull him out of the gutter, you know what I mean?

Q) How do you feel about Jesse Eisenberg being cast as Lex Luthor in Batman Versus Superman?

A) Yes, I love Jesse Eisenberg. I really do. My problem is the guy playing Alfred seems like he would have been such a great Lex Luthor. That’s the problem that I’ve heard other people having as well, and I think it’ll be an interesting opportunity for Jesse and Ben Affleck to prove people wrong, and I’ve obviously rooting for both of them. But as far as a classic Lex Luthor, it’s not the first choice. But we tried that. We tried like a classic Lex Luthor with Kevin Spacey and stuff, and maybe I understand what they’re going for. Not maybe I understand, I do understand what they’re going for. So most importantly I can’t wait to see, you know what I mean? Let’s see if he kills it.

Q) Who was your top six for like Luthor? I know a lot of us were really gearing and hoping for Bryan Cranston for him to get the role. So do you think he should get it, or did you have somebody else in mind to play the role?

A) Well, I mean literally it was Cranston and then – I forget the guy’s name who’s playing Alfred, who is like a fantastic Lex Luthor type. Like he really had that classic chiseled bald look that he could be perfect. I don’t know if he’s actually bald, but I mean, just a gorgeous head. But I mean, how exciting would Bryan Cranston have been? That would have been amazing. But I mean, like going for that sort of pouty Lex Luthor, kind of like an insolent kind of different take on it, I think Eisenberg is fantastic. Even if you don’t like him for Lex Luthor you know that he’s incredibly talented, so maybe he can you know, blow away the critics here. Jeremy Irons. Jeremy Irons is the one that I thought would make a great Lex Luthor.

Q) Ben Affleck is Batman and Gal Gadot got as Wonder Woman. Are they the trinity that you imagined in reading about it? It is Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Gal Godot. Is that the DC trinity that you imagined?

A) You see, the thing here is I love Batman, so, so much. The Batman Superman parody that we did was actually very much from my perspective where I’m not a very big Superman fan. I’m not a very big Wonder Woman fan, certainly even less than I am a Superman fan, not because of the character, just not really familiar with the world. So like this whole mish-mash and throwing in your lesser characters and getting them all solving crimes together isn’t my favorite thing. I like Batman. I like a crazy guy with a lot of money going out at night and fighting people with his bare hands. That to me is the classic story that I never run out of enthusiasm for. Once you bring in the guy who can fly and shoot lasers, the rest of the team seems like they’re going to have an inferiority complex so that’s boring. And there’s going to be kryptonite in the third act and who cares? Nobody gives a shit.

Q) Are there any superheroes you wouldn’t want to fire?

A) That I wouldn’t want to fire? Yes, I would never ever, ever fire Batman, one because he’s completely self-sufficient and wonderful and amazing and two he would probably – he wouldn’t kill me because he has a code of ethics, but he’d give me a once-over that I wouldn’t want.

Q) and fans really want to know, are we going to see you touched as Magneto firing members of the brotherhood of evil?

A) I’m going to write that down. We didn’t give it any thought this time around. I mean, for the stuff we’re shooting right now, I do not have a Magneto helmet in my possession, but that is not a bad idea. We were moving a little bit more – I don’t want to do a spoiler, but we’re moving that kind of scenario more into the video game world, just for this first kind of couple weeks of the show. But I would not be surprised if we go back to comic books sooner rather than later.

Q) Are you going to go back to the X-Men anytime soon or you’re going to move onto it later on?

A) I’m curious to see if we could do more with X-Men. We wanted to do Beast of course but because of costume concerns and that was a really big day, we had to kind of prioritize which X-Men we fired the first round, but we’re doing a lot of shows and a lot of time to fill, and I love that world, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we do something again with X-Men, or at least with Wolverine. Jean Gray didn’t even make the list of people possibly to fire because initially the whole idea was that Professor X was the only one worth anything, but he and Jean Gray are so similar, so he would never fire her. The only way I could see her getting fired is if Professor X gets grumpy and fires her because he can do what she can do, but she does it kind of differently. But I think we’d have to do it. We’d have to write it up.

Q) In a hypothetical world, based on the 1979 film The Warriors where your talk show went to war with other talk shows, what would the theme of your talk show game be?

A) I think we would be a group of people in open robes kind of like Tony Soprano getting the newspaper on Sunday morning. I just lovean untied robe. There’s something so freeing about it, and there’s something so freeing about our show. The spirit of our show is an untied robe on a Sunday morning.

 

*CONFERENCE CALL*