NO SHY GUY
Thomas Middleditch has found a TV home in Silicon Valley but admits to being a little strange as a kid,
Things sure have changed for Thomas Middleditch.
As a kid growing up in Nelson, B.C., playing copious video games such as Dungeons & Dragons, he was bullied for being a “little weird and shy.”
Now he plays video games as a shy but gifted programmer who stands to potentially make millions in the role of Richard Hendricks in the HBO hit Silicon Valley.
The second season premieres Sunday at 10 p.m.
Middleditch stars as one of a crew of social misfits who found a startup company in the series co-created by Mike Judge ( Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill), a sort of tech-world Entourage.
“Their company got their success last season and now that they’ve turned into a real company, what are you going to do with it, how are you going to get to the next level?” Middleditch says of the new season.
“Pretty early on, some major obstacles come up, so damage control is needed. And also there’s just an evermounting pressure cooker and yeah, more bong will be needed,” he says of the characters’ propensity for smoking marijuana.
In person, Middleditch comfortably channels his scruffy nerd persona with generous doses of witty selfdeprecation.
“I have a fairly pragmatic view on all those bullies that came before, because everybody makes you who you are now,” he says of his past.
“I probably wouldn’t be this way if I hadn’t been bullied. Not that I loved it, but it taught me a few things. I don’t hate anyone or want to rub their faces in it. OK, maybe it would be a little fun: ‘How do you like me now?’ Nelson is a bit of an artsy town, yet as small as it is, it has a theatre community. I got into performing fairly young and went from, like, a shy kid to a total weirdo.”
But a weirdo with a passionate obsession, as he explains how he dropped out of the University of Victoria and rolled onto the comedy train to Toronto.
“I always wanted to do comedy. So I went to Toronto to try and be the next Kids in the Hall. After a couple of years, I went to Chicago to do Second City . . . the T.O. school denied me entrance. After a couple of years, I then went to New York.
“I was always pursuing comedy to wherever I thought the next step would be. “I met Mike Judge when I was working on my own cartoon for MTV; it did not air. But I got on with Mike and then did a few voices on Beavis and Butt-head because of it. I got along with his people and they’re going, ‘We’re writing this tech show for HBO and you’d be right for one of the guys.’ I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, sure?’ But it ended up becoming a reality.”
The series is shot in and around Los Angeles, not the Bay Area, home to where the real Silicon Valley. Even the “bro-house” where the posse hangs is created at Sony Studios.
But Middleditch has found some parallels between Silicon Valley and Hollywood: “All the sharky elements of Hollywood are similar to sharky elements in Silicon Valley. It’s obviously different, but the deals are the same. And you get hot then you’re not. And there’ve been a few times where I go, ‘Huh, this is like our world in Hollywood!’ ”
Middleditch says he has a lot of e-gadgets but also some non-tech hobbies, including becoming an amateur carpenter:
“As an actor, you get so busy you can’t breathe, then you get time and then, rather than just play more video games, I wanted to try to do something a little more productive, not in the nerd wheelhouse range. I bought some carpenter’s tools and have built a few cool things, like this great table from an old door from a merchant ship from World War II.”
“I have a fairly pragmatic view on all those bullies that came before, because everybody makes you who you are now.” THOMAS MIDDLEDITCH STAR OF SILICON VALLEY
Middleditch says that if Silicon Valley had come out 15 years ago, it might have seemed a little too inside baseball.
“Now, not only are more people into technology and paying attention . . . others are making billions off it. That stuff gets headlines.
“By those virtues alone, people can relate to it.
“Then again I know people who don’t even work in the tech industry who say, ‘I work in a regular office and this is just like our place.’ And also the characters have relationships and issues so that even if you’re not into tech, you can laugh along.
“As for working with Mike Judge, it’s just surreal and I’m totally happy to be part of it.”