Hotz’s misery has company
Comedian says he does everything wrong, but his fans are eating it up
If the distinctly Canadian brand of winter misery has a comedy mascot, it’s Jeremy Hotz. You know who he is. He’s that comic who turned whining and social anxiety into an art form, delivering his jokes and observations with a cupped hand by his mouth or rubbing an eye.
For the last few years, he’s toured the country in the harshest of winter months. He plays Massey Hall tonight in the midst of his latest crossCanada tour with Just for Laughs. Predictably, he’s got some complaints about the timing.
“It’s a big Just for Laughs gag, I guess. I’m miserable so they throw me out there in February. I get the joke, but quit doing it,” Hotz teased in advance of his performance.
“Personally, I think that they are trying to kill me. They don’t want me to tour anymore. So this is their way of saying, ‘Enough.’ Or they live in Montreal where the weather’s horrible and they want me to experience it because I moved, like I can’t see it on the news. I moved for a reason.”
A staple of the Canadian comedy circuit for decades, Hotz is a distinct and immediately recognizable performer. Though open about his battles with anxiety — “I’ve been told by certain analysts that it’s amazing I can get out there because its such a stressful field, but I’m more comfortable onstage than off sometimes; I’m all screwed up” — the comedian tends to favour a free-form style of performance. He may embark on a tour with some planned material but is most comfortable playing with the crowd and improvising new tangents. Enough so that he’ll be offering fans recordings of every performance on this tour since few are identical.
“I feel like there are a lot of comedians who do the same thing in the same order every night and they’re wonderful at it. I’m just not one of those guys,” Hotz says. “I can’t be that meticulous about my act because that sort of thing gives me anxiety. So I try to keep away from writing material or anything else that might advance my career.
“I’m sure you can tell as we’re talking, it’s not an act. It’s an extension of my personality more than anything else. Yeah, I’m introverted and caught inside, but once the show progresses I come out of that shell.”
Hotz might be quick to mock his career, but he’s succeeded in acting as well. He won a Gemini for his work on the CBC series The Newsroom ( an award he assures the Star sits proudly in a box with his childhood hockey trophies) and was part of Speed 2.
“That was when I was all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I believed it would be a great movie. Then I started work and could tell I made a tremendous mistake,” he quips.
In fact, the comic always hoped to write and star in his own TV series; it just never worked out. “Which is OK,” he says, “because you’ve got to see me live and, to be honest, I look better from far away. I recommend sitting at the back of the theatre.”
At least Hotz can take comfort in knowing that he’s always got a home bringing his misery to the masses onstage. It’s a special gift for frozen Canadians who can relate to his personal brand of misanthropy, even if he’s got an odd way of describing his appeal.
“Everything I do is wrong,” Hotz says. “I put my hand in front of my face. I turn my back to the crowd. I do everything that you’re not supposed to do. But when you put it all together, I guess it works. What else am I going to do, work at Harvey’s? I tried when I was young and, quite frankly, they didn’t like the look on my face.”