Pete Holmes On ‘Crashing,’ and Finding Himself as a Performer
“I’m still discovering small things about myself.”
In HBO’s Crashing, currently in its third season, comedian Pete Holmes plays a fictionalized version of himself as a new stand-up coming up in the New York comedy scene. No longer “crashing” on couches, he’s now crashing in his personal life and career.
The real Pete, producer, writer, and star of Crashing, when describing the many times he’s bombed onstage, had trouble picking just one instance.
“It’s like picking your favorite nightmare,” he told NYU Local over video chat. “There’s a YouTube video that I made called ‘Pete Holmes — bombing!’ It was me opening for Bill Burr maybe 10 years ago, and it still comes to mind.”
The video in question features dramatic music, titles and editing. Holmes has clearly always found his failures as a comedian entertaining; the “Pete Holmes — bombing!” video can be seen as a prototype of Crashing, a microcosm of the fickle nature of comedy and connecting with a crowd. This relationship between a comedian and the audience — gaining their trust or losing it, boring them or exciting them — is one of the dichotomies that propels the story of Crashing.
The series blends true stories of Holmes’ early career with fictionalized touches. In one episode of the new season, Pete gets a big break when he’s asked to do a Christian comedy tour, performing at chapels and Christian colleges. This is loosely based on Holmes’ real experiences, which also circle back to his fascination with comic-crowd dynamics.
“I did some shows in chapels and Christian colleges because I went to a Christian college myself,” he recalled. “Once I really lost one of those crowds because I said ‘S.O.B.,’ I saw one of my old professors and said ‘Norm, you old S-O-B!’ and the crowd went deafeningly silent.”
Holmes’ act, known for its relative cleanliness in the comedy scene, provides a good example of the many contexts a comedian must consider when relating to a crowd. “It was so weird to take my shockingly clean set from the West Village, put it in a chapel, and suddenly it’s dirty,” he said.
This season, Pete on Crashing is constantly rejected by a broker at the Comedy Cellar (Estee Adoram), who insists that she has “plenty of white guys talking about nothing.” This struggle, to define oneself as a comedian, is the centerpiece of this season of the series. Holmes, in real life, is happy to say this searching period is mostly over for him.
“I struggled with my identity as a performer for a long time,” he opened up. “I’m still discovering small things about myself, but most of the big rocks have been turned over and excavated. There are exceptions to that — I watched an old Bo Burnham YouTube video expecting him to be so different and not know who he was, but he’s the same. Just smaller and younger.”
Holmes was kind enough to give this reporter some advice on growing as a comic.
“You’re a comedian, Graham?” he asked. “I’d say it takes about 10 years. That’s the case for most people I know. It just takes a little time.”
One of the major avenues this self-discovery takes, Holmes says, is through networking. “That’s sort of what Crashing is all about, comedians helping each other and popping in.” Holmes relates this to this season’s many cameos, including an unplanned one by Amy Schumer. “It wasn’t in the script … we were filming at a club by her house, she popped by to say hello, and I asked her if she wanted to be in the scene.”
The first episode of the new season features a cameo from Jaboukie Young-White, who plays a young comedian who’s quickly lapping Pete. The real Holmes, though, doesn’t take offense to young come-ups who outpace him, remarking that “the rising tide lifts all the boats.” He added that the increasingly diverse voices in comedy make for better laughs, riffing that no one wanted to hear about the sauna in his room behind him. “That’s not even a nice sauna. That’s a free-standing sauna.”
Of course, Holmes has done his share of networking, and has a laundry list of his comedian friends who he’d like to have on the show in the future: “Seinfeld would be a really fun cameo. I’d love Hasan [Minhaj], or Kumail [Nanjiani], or Hannah Gadsby would be a really interesting episode I think. The list is as long as comedians I admire and that’s a very long list.”
Crashing airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on HBO.
