Your appetite for T.J. Miller may vary. I’ve never really found him to be that entertaining, but my taste isn’t some sort of universal bellwether.When it comes to comedy, in fact, my taste is probably a very poor gauge of mass appeal. (See also: my longstanding belief that Danny McBride is aggressively not funny.)

But when news broke that his popular Silicon Valley character was going to be hastily written off to accommodate Miller’s desired exit from HBO’s popular series, it nearly broke the Internet:

I guess Mina and I have very different tastes when it comes to comedy. And that’s fine! Humor is subjective!

So when this Hollywood Reporter interview with Miller dropped last night, it was snapped up by those folks looking for some insight into why HBO and Miller would come to this agreement. And those people likely came away disappointed, as Miller took the opportunity to do some performance art. It’s possible to glean some things between the lines, but try to make sense out of answers like this:

Will you watch the show going forward?

Oh, I don’t watch the show now because I don’t have time. I’m making comedy for people to laugh because their life is essentially tragic. I mean, I’m a fan of the show. I will be forever. If I have a terrible day, I’ll probably tune in to see what Zach Woods said on an episode because you know he’s a winner.

Or this:

You mentioned your schedule being crazy. How much of it was about that?

I was sick of telling my wife in earnest, “I’m going to slow down the schedule. We’ll have more time to spend in New York.” And even when I thought of leaving, she said, “Look man, this is a character people love. They feel like they’re friends with him.”

And although that makes for a terrible time at the airport because everybody high-fives me, grabbing your ass on the way to your f—ing plane to Omaha, Nebraska, to do standup comedy — these people want to know, “Do you really want to walk from what many would say is the cushiest situation in television? The platinum age of television.” And I said, “Yeah, I think that would be really interesting.” If you’re going to be unsafe and unstable … then let’s see what happens.

There are some more earnest sections, including how HBO and Miller mutually decided that a new standup special should be the priority over the show. The whole thing is probably worth reading, if only to play the “WTF?” game.

But this feels more like Joaquin Phoenix in full-on I’m Still Here mode than anything else.

[THR]

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.

2 thoughts on “T.J. Miller gave an inscrutable interview about his Silicon Valley character’s exit

  1. I saw his stand up special. I like TJ Miller a lot in every movie/show he’s been in (except Cloverfield). The stand up special was the worst stand up special I’ve ever seen. It was borderline cringe-worthy. I hope he does another movie soon.

  2. Rumour has it he left because he was caught masturbating into a female co-stars high heels.

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