San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Being Jerrod Carmichael
From his coming-out comedy special ‘Rothaniel’ to his daring new film ‘On the Count of Three,’ it’s all about authenticity
The new film “On the Count of Three” includes not one but two scenes in which a man blasts Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” on a car stereo. In the first, his best friend turns it off. The two men have decided to end their lives that evening, and the friend finds it too onthe-nose to listen to a song about suicidal ideation on their last day alive. Later in the film, when he is alone in the car, the man blasts “Last Resort” anyway and yells along to it.
The absurdity of this recurring bit falls in line with the rest of the film, not quite a dark comedy as much as a daringly humorous drama. “On the Count of Three,” now in theaters and on demand, follows longtime friends Kevin (Christopher Abbott) and Val (Jerrod Carmichael) as they make a suicide pact and spend the rest of the unpredictable day tying up loose ends.
Those familiar with Carmichael’s work as a comedian, from the semiautobiographical NBC sitcom “The Carmichael Show” to his HBO comedy specials, may not be surprised to learn this type of film marks his debut as a feature director. He is known to push boundaries, to linger in the spaces others tend to hurry past. In his latest comedy special, “Rothaniel,” Carmichael comes out as gay; he spends much of its latter half sitting in contemplation, even admitting to the audience that “at many points in my life, I thought I’d rather die than confront the truth.”
Speaking over Zoom on an afternoon in early May, Carmichael notes that he has most often encountered discussions of suicidal ideation anchored by those who have overcome such thoughts — and “very thankfully” so, he adds. But he also finds value in exploring the thoughts themselves as a way to hopefully better understand the circumstances in which people like “On the Count of Three’s” Kevin and Val find themselves.
“I’m not here to give answers,” Carmichael says. “Just to bring my own questions.” (This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Q:
How did this project come together?
A:
Well, I had met Ryan (Welch) and Ari (Katcher), the writers, a while ago ... and we were trying to find a film that captured our shared tone. Me, Ryan and Ari have a really similar sense of humor, and it only works for us if it feels real and it feels like high-stakes comedy. “On the Count of Three” was an idea they had that I had talked with them about for a while, and then we went to try to get it made, and it was the hardest movie in the world to get made. I guess it makes sense. It’s not shocking that people shy away from it. We got turned down by everybody. Major studios, obviously. I always felt like it was very indie, so that made sense. In my head, I was thinking about the list of people who said no, and the joke I didn’t make is, “Man, I’ve been turned down by people who have since been #Metooed.”
We finally found financiers, David Carrico and Tom Werner. Lucky to have them as partners, and they contributed. But even still, there was a limit there. I don’t think anyone really fully saw it, what we were trying to do. It cost me a lot personally, to be honest. A lot of my own money. It’s a very difficult movie to get made. Even starring in it — actors were kind of unsure. Starring in it, in part, was a product of necessity.
Q:
Had you initially envisioned someone else stepping into one of your many roles here?
A:
I never really considered myself in any specific part of the project. ... It was like, “Oh, I like this idea, I like this concept,” and I tried to see it through. I contributed a lot to the script for “On the Count of Three.” They were asking if I wanted to be credited as a writer. I want to create a credit that just says “With love from.” “With love, Jerrod
Carmichael” at the bottom of the script. Not written by, directed by, starring or whatever.
Q:
This film is a really honest — a brutally honest — way to talk about suicidal ideation. Why didn’t you shy away from telling this kind of story?
A:
Because it’s so true. A lot of what you hear about suicide is — thankfully, very thankfully — on the other end of it. I’ve very seldom seen things explore that space between: the thought, and having a day exploring that thought. What was interesting about these two characters to me is that they are regular people. The circumstances are very basic life circumstances that can affect people different ways and can sometimes feel like a massive weight.
It’s a dangerous moment, having those thoughts. A lot of times, if left unshared, it exists as a secret. I’ve been let into some very personal moments with friends, like the moment that the movie lives in, and it only makes sense if it’s real. It only makes sense if you realize how real the stakes are between the thought and the potential end of your life.
Q:
In your most recent comedy special, “Rothaniel,” you talk a lot about keeping secrets and decide to share things you’ve kept private in the past. As an artist, what compels you to bring light to these secrets?
A:
I’m sure it’s the psychological trauma of keeping one and the hopes for the freedom that relieving that can provide. I always just want to talk about things. Even my work as a closeted man was still about talking about these little tender pockets of things that aren’t talked about. I think it was in the hopes of, once it’s out there, we can feel better.
Even the process of getting the film made, hearing people say no and why — it’s a lot of, “you just can’t” and “we just can’t.” Those things seem super attractive to me because I need to know why. Why is this a red button behind glass?
Q:
So how did you get Christopher Abbott to hit the red button?
A:
A friend says this about me, and I think it’s very true about Chris: It’s about access to fearlessness. Chris, I think he was excited by the material and he connected with it in his own personal ways. But even beyond that, I think he understood it and what we were going for. I understand what it means to be a giving actor from being with him. It’s funny, the process and the film have a lot of parallels.
Q:
It does seem like it.
A:
You asked me a question about the film, I’ll tell you about the special. You ask me a question about the special and I’ll go back to the film.
Q:
I mean, everything is interconnected, right?
A:
I hope I just don’t sound like a lunatic, but it’s all from the same place. I can only really do stuff if it feels true. If it’s true to me. I have to connect with it.
Q:
Are there different takeaways for you, personally? With a fictional piece like this versus a stand-up special?
A:
I don’t see “Count of Three” as fiction. I see my work as an actor — that sentence sounds pretentious because I don’t even think I’ve earned that sentence, “my work as an actor.”
Q:
You are an actor, though. I think you’re good.
A:
No, no, no. I’m an actor and I’m learning and I’m growing in it. Like I did Yorgos Lanthimos’ (upcoming) movie “Poor Things” last year, and that felt really good. I was happy to be there. I feel like as much as I know how, I give myself to the process. That felt like fiction in the best ways, right? I’m just saying my work, for me. It’s all kind of documentary.
It’s all kind of real to me.
Q:
Do you think that’s a product of working in the contemporary era? Do you think you’d have that feeling while creating a period piece?
A:
I wonder. I think if I could connect to it. I got really obsessed with the apostle Paul. I had a conversation with Lucas Hnath about him. That was great. He’s my favorite playwright. Because I see so many similarities the more I read and understand Paul, or understand the things written about him. His obsession with narrative, self-narrative and the narrative of others. If there were ever anything there, it would be because of that. It would be because for two years of my life, three years of my life, like a lunatic, a part of me truly felt I was the apostle Paul.
Q:
So you’re in all your projects, whether it’s literally you or not.
A:
I’m almost, to be honest, realizing it during this conversation. I’m realizing how true things even have to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve acted in things that aren’t necessarily me, and those are fun. But anything that is mine — the “With love from” things, from “The Carmichael Show” to “Home Videos” to “Count of Three” to “Rothaniel” — is really just me.
Q:
That seems to be what people connected with in “Rothaniel.” It becomes a conversation with the audience, which I have not often seen in that format. What was it like to let go and allow that to happen?
A:
It’s a great combo of trust and skill, right? The plan was to unravel, as much as that makes sense. The plan was, for me, to relinquish control as a performer from even my presentational way of demanding and stories and jokes and things you see throughout the first half of “Rothaniel,” into trustfalling into whatever happens in the room and letting that stream of emotion and the call-and-response from the audience dictate where we went.
It was me, trusting the skill of Bo Burnham. He’s my best friend. Forget the art for a second, the personal process — he was here for all of it. That trust also shows in the product.
Q:
A similarity between “Rothaniel” and “On the Count of Three” is that they don’t have answers. And the questions they ask are so heavy. Do you leave these projects just thinking about them forever or are you a person who can shut that off?
A:
These questions kind of linger, especially recently. I’ve been in a very impressionable state in my life, really a transition period. There have been things said to me or asked that linger, that kind of echo and come back on walks and in the shower. For me, the fun is exploring. “Carmichael Show” was probably a bit more topical, but it was fun to explore all these things. We never really found answers there, either.
I wish there were a word to describe that in-between thing, because I think a lot of my work hits this tone, this unanswered-question tone. Like melancholic happiness or exuberant sadness. I’m trying to think of how to describe it. It’s this pocket. Some music describes it. It’s how I feel when I heard the sounds of daytime television, like soap operas. “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” And that sweeping, beautiful, sad music.
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It’s August in Colorado, and I’m chasing my sons, ages 9 and 11, down Paper Boy, a fast, banked dirt trail at Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park. They’re way ahead of me as I lean into one of the final turns. The trail angles downward, then shoots up, and momentum carries me up a pitch so steep that I would never be able to pedal it on my own. That same speed pops me off the ramp at the top. I stand on my pedals in the air, land with both wheels on the ground and veer left, exhilarated.
In this innocuous game of chase, I’m riding more fearlessly than I have all summer, and I feel like a kid myself. I’m not really thinking, just flowing along with my bike as the trail undulates and crosses a road before heading through a thicket. Into the trees I go, then over a shallow creek. For a brief moment, all is sublime: the slant of the sun’s rays through the pine boughs, the promise of the skinny trail.
Then I emerge into what feels like a party, a line of 20 or so people at the bottom of Olympia Lift. Bass pumps from a large speaker, and all around me riders who look like comic book characters — they’re wearing full-face helmets and have gladiator-like pads on their chests, backs, elbows and knees — wait in the lift line with
their bikes for their turn to ride a chair. The air is alive with laughter and glee; everyone, myself included, seems to be riding an adrenaline rush of their own.
This is downhill mountain biking. Also known as lift-served or gravity-assisted mountain biking, this mode of riding differs from cross-country in one key regard: Instead of pedaling to the top of a mountain — or uphill at all — downhill mountain bikers ride lifts or gondolas to the top, then let gravity do its thing on the way down.
Downhill mountain bike parks are usually located at ski resorts, a seasonal solution to monetizing the ski resort infrastructure outside of winter. Like their winter counterparts, the parks are staffed with trail builders and
If you go
WHERE TO STAY
Zephyr Mountain Lodge: 201 Zephyr Way, Winter Park, Colo.; (970) 722-0707; bit.ly/zephyr-mountain-lodge
Located near the Winter Park Resort gondola, Zephyr Mountain Lodge offers ride-in/ride-out one-, two- and three-bedroom condos. Condos from about $219 per night.
Gravity Haus Winter Park: 78869 Hwy. 40; (970) 557-2340; gravityhaus.com
Located in downtown Winter Park, this dog-friendly boutique motel has 38 rooms, a gear “library” where patrons can rent equipment, and a co-working space. Rates from $159 per night.
WHAT TO EAT
Durbar Nepalese and Indian Bistro: 47 Cooper Creek Way #222; (970) 363-7081; durbarbistro.com/winterpark Authentic Indian and Nepalese food with vegan, seafood and meat offerings. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 4:30 to 9 p.m. Entrees from $14.50.
Pizza Pedal’r: 125 Parry Peak Way; (970) 726-5944; pizzapedalr.com
A popular family-owned pizza joint at the base of Winter Park Resort. Open daily noon to 3 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m. Small pizza $10.95.
Big Trout Brewing:
A locally owned craft beer brewpub with a satisfying menu of salads, soups, sandwiches, pizzas and appetizers. Open Thursday to Monday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Entrees from $8.
50 Vasquez Road; (970) 363-7362; bigtroutbrewing.com
WHAT TO DO
Trestle Bike Park: 85 Parsenn Road; (970) 726-5514; trestlebikepark.com
Winter Park Resort’s downhill mountain bike park offers a variety of trails for all levels. A summer riding school holds private and group lessons, and shops offer rental gear, including bikes, helmets and pads. Bike rentals, as well as day and season passes, are available.
INFORMATION
playwinterpark.com
as my sons pulled away from me in a clearing and had their own joyful ride down, I stopped worrying. It wasn’t that I let go of fear, it’s just that fear was not part of the calculus. I was simply riding my bike with the same love I’d brought to the sport 30 years earlier when I got my first mountain bike. In the three decades since, riding had been how I made friends, explored new places and became surer of myself — athletically and emotionally.
Becoming a mother nearly ended that part of me, but downhill mountain biking, which I never would have explored without motherhood, brought my riding full circle. By introducing my children to downhill mountain biking, I had inadvertently spawned their love of the sport and, in turn, reignited my own. These days, I am back to riding not like a mother, but like myself.
I tried to explain this to the boys over bottles of root beer after that terrific August day, but they weren’t having it. They aren’t old enough for soul-searching or nostalgia. To them, riding bikes is throwing a leg over the saddle and pointing downhill.
Having recaptured my love for speed and even a little air, I’m right there with them. in Washington, D.C., went on an Oceanwide Expeditions cruise to Antarctica, the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island for his honeymoon.
“We typically take nonrelaxing vacations where we want to see as much of the world as possible in the time we have,” Heckmann said. “This cruise fit right into our travel type, though the cost was far more than we usually pay.”
Shruthi Baskaran, a global agricultural expert and food blogger in Seattle, took a polar expedition cruise with Quark Expeditions, selecting it for the level of expertise and access on offer.
“We had incredible excursions led by Antarctica glaciologists and wildlife experts, and even had the opportunity to camp outside one night,” Baskaran said. “It was truly surreal to see how quiet and undisturbed the area was, and I left with memories to last me a lifetime.”
Note: Potential travelers should take local and national public health directives regarding the pandemic into consideration before planning any trips. Travel health notice information can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s interactive map showing travel recommendations by destination and the CDC’S travel health notice webpage.