Crystal vs. Gad: A comic collision
Unlikely pair play uneasy partners reluctantly bound by a late-night show
CULVER CITY, CALIF. Growing up in the ’50s, Billy Crystal’s comedic heroes included Sid Caesar, Steve Allen and Jackie Gleason. Growing up in the ’80s, Josh Gad’s were Robin Williams, John Belushi and Billy Crystal.
That gap — Crystal is 67, Gad is 34 — and their accompanying perspectives on comedy and life are at the heart of The Comedians (FX, tonight, 10 ET/PT), which stars the pair as back-biting FX-comedy-show partners named Billy Crystal and Josh Gad.
The generational disconnect is “what attracted me. Even though you’re both going after the same goal, you’re doing it with a different set of rules, coming from a different history,” Gad says in a joint interview with Crystal. “I have 30 years that I’ve built on in terms of what I’ve been exposed to. Billy has … what? Is it triple that?”
Crystal jumps on the dig. “Matthew Brady took my résumé photos,” he says. “I did the White House Correspondents Dinner for Buchanan.”
In the show, based on a Swedish series, Crystal ( When Harry Met Sally, 700 Sundays) is the legendary comedian who must reluctantly accept the up-and-coming, more demographically desirable Gad ( The Book of Mormon, Frozen) to get a new late-night sketch show on the air. That leads to barbs and more discomfort, even if the characters are comically embellished alter egos.
“When we decided we were going to play ourselves, it came with an understanding that you’ve got to do and say things that you don’t say or do in real life, but it would be really fun to have that bizarro part of you come out,” Crystal says. “It makes the show interesting. It makes it awkward. Some of the funniest moments are when we’re quiet or seething or circling.”
The jibes can be painful because of their connection to reality, says Gad, who gets poked for one of his less successful credits, short-lived NBC comedy 1600 Penn.
The insults “are based in a form of reality that is truthful enough that it can hurt. When you do that, you sort of have to pull each other into a huddle and say, ‘Are we going to be OK?’ ” Gad says. “And then we have that Thelma and Louise jump together. If we’re going to do it, we’ve got to commit. I think we did — and then some.”
Crystal says he has much in common with Gad.
“Even how many years apart we are, there’s a kinship of familiarity that we have with aspects of the business and things we both like and dislike,” he says. “It just felt like the right thing.”