Hannibal Buress may be widely known for his stint as a writer for “Saturday Night Live” or as one of the scribes at “30 Rock,” and currently as Lincoln in the recently renewed “Broad City.” But Buress is also quite talented at murdering crowds at his shows. But, like, with stand-up. Not cannibalism.
You’ve done a few Boston shows before, is there a reason you like coming back to perform here?
Main reason is ‘cause people come to my shows there. So that’s very encouraging. If they didn’t come to my shows, then it would suck. Good people come to my shows in Boston, so I keep coming to Boston. It’s worked out very well.
Do you find that having to continuously explain your name gets tiresome or that it’s kind of worked out to be a supremely successful way for people in the biz to remember you, even though the reasoning may be a little macabre?
It’s kind of a little bit of both! It is annoying, but it’s still memorable so you have to kind of take what comes with it. And I have to – I mean, I have to constantly deal with people constantly associating me with Hannibal Lector, but you know it stands out a little bit more than other comedians so, that just comes with it.
Your comedy is like listening to someone’s train of thought–there’s a lot of tangents and fantastical elements, like you having robot arms in My Name is Hannibal. Are your jokes just passing thoughts you have?
I think that’s the case for anybody doing standup, for the most part, it’s just you take on subjects and a lot of subjects have been talked about, but it’s just like what you think about them.
You wrote for Saturday Night Live from 2009-2010, how did it feel to be a part of such a legendary show?
I did standup on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and I got the job just from doing a set on that show. That was really cool and unexpected because when you do a late night set on TV, you’re really just hoping to get more fans that’ll come and see you on the road and have a good take to get another late night shows and get booked. But it helped me get a writing job and it was a really exciting time.
After SNL, you went on to write for 30 Rock. How was it transitioning from writing for a live show to writing for a sitcom?
With SNL, you had a thing where you were just working on the show that week and try to get that show done for the week and you’re dealing with a lot more topical things that were happening right away. I would say 30 Rock was more collaborative. It was more about us being in a room coming up with these storylines and coming up with better jokes and you were just trying to make your coworkers laugh. That was the stuff that would get in the script. SNL, the main writing day is kind of just everyone in their own offices – everybody would kind of split off into their own groups and work like that.
Right now you’re doing more on-screen acting work than TV writing, you’re on Broad City and you’re co-host of The Eric Andre Show. Is your career moving more towards performing roles rather than writing roles?
That was always my goal. I started out doing standup, so I’ve been fortunate to have people I’ve worked with early on to be able to get these projects and they wanted me to be a part of them.
On Twitter, you said you were going to be on 8 out of 10 of the Broad City episodes. Will your character be playing a bigger part as the show progresses?
It’ll be the same amount for the character, I mean that’s just the nature of that relationship … I mean, I’m not her boyfriend, but we are fucking.
Have you written any Broad City episodes?
I didn’t write any of the episodes of Broad City and I do not want to, either. The writers and staff there are just doing a cool job. On set, I’m able to improvise a lot, usually we record or film one or two takes as written and then after that we’ll kind of just play around and try a bunch of just different things. I’ve been able to come up with my own lines like that and they’ve made the show a bunch of times. When the kid was in the dentist chair and I told a joke and I made him high-five me. A lot of riffing on the show, from everybody.
You’re also doing a lot of voice acting, you’ve got China, IL and you’re on the FX animated series Chozen. The latter is about a gay gangsta rapper, was that how it was pitched to you?
Chozen, they just sent me the script and the idea and I read it. I thought it was funny and weird so I tried it out. And they just recorded it. I mean, I hadn’t done anything like this before so I recorded it and it came out real cool. It’s actually real fun watching animation just because you might know the script and the story, but you don’t know how it’ll look, so I’m able to kind of watch that show as a fan because I’m thinking, “How are they gonna do this? How is it gonna look?” So it’s just real cool to see what the animator’s doing.
You met Bill Clinton at a Nets game. How did that go, did you guys talk politics? Or basketball?
We didn’t talk anything. He was just walking past me and I took a quick picture with him. There was not enough time to just chat it up. But that was cool to see him at a game, it was way different than when I met Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter, I was sitting in row like 33E and Jimmy Carter was just like walking through the plane making everybody shake hands with him. It was real weird. But Clinton was just walking through chilling, so that was the two presidents I met. It is funny when a president comes into the building, especially a well-liked one like Bill Clinton. As soon as he stepped in, like, the vibe changed in the whole place; everybody stood up, “Mr. President!” So that was a cool moment, I was happy I was able to snap a pic with him.
Is there anything you want your fans who are coming to your show at The Wilbur to know?
I just want them to know that, if they’re coming, that’s really cool. Thanks for paying money to see my show. And I want them to know that they should call their mom more, if they don’t. And they should enjoy themselves, and eat good food … asparagus and stuff like that.
[HANNIBAL BURESS. THE WILBUR THEATRE. 246 TREMONT ST., BOSTON. SAT. 3.8. @ 7pm, 9:45pm/$22.50. @THE_WILBUR]