The laconic comedy one-off who has garnered a cult following due to his laid-back persona is making a break for the big time with his new variety show. Can he become a mainstream star? Possibly – just don’t call him a slacker

“He’s a slacker, he’s a slacker!” shouts Hannibal Buress down the line from his temporary base in Los Angeles, where he is filming his new Comedy Central show. He’s not reprimanding some unpunctual relative, but instead mock-berating himself with the tag he’s often given (the Fader billed him as “Comedy’s Most Respected Slacker” on their recent cover feature).

I think people like to put certain labels on you because you don’t talk really fast.

“Yeah, I don’t know about the slacker thing,” he says. “I think people like to put certain labels on you because you don’t talk really fast.”

Buress certainly doesn’t talk fast. His Chicago drawl and laconic demeanour mean the slacker label in one way feels fitting, but for a stand-up who’s been gigging since his teens, worked on SNL and 30 Rock as a writer (and had a bit part in the latter as a homeless man), ran a successful weekly comedy show at the Knitting Factory and starred in New York millennial comedy hits Broad City and the Eric Andre Show – it doesn’t feel that apt.



The whole slacker thing reached a nadir recently after he appeared on Chris Hardwick’s Comedy Central show At Midnight, where he participated in the rapid-fire quiz show after recording a segment for Conan O’Brien’s show and working on his vehicle Why? With Hannibal Buress, with fans assuming he was stoned – when in reality he was just shattered.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The big questions: Hannibal Buress Photograph: Comedy Central

“I was a little out of it. I shouldn’t have done it because I was tired and then people were like: ‘Oh, he was super stoned on the show’, like no, I just had a 12-hour day with four hours sleep and shit.

“I don’t think I could ever be high on television because I would freak out about all the cameras and all the people looking at me,” he says.

It doesn’t appear that his workload is going to lessen any time soon either. He’s writing, appearing in and executive producing the show, which shoots the same day it airs and will sit between the new series of sketches from comedy duo Key and Peele and the final month of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.

He’s described it as a comedy show version of Michael Jackson’s Remember the Time video and “Weeds meets Breaking Bad meets Chelsea Lately” but today he’s using simpler terms: “It’s a sort of a variety talk show; sort of talk show, and there’s some man on the street stuff.”

Locating the show in LA rather than New York was a very deliberate decision (“I just work better in LA, it’s a bit slower”). Buress wanted to get his head down and hone the show (“I’ve got pretty much the bare minimum, just clothes and, work and focus on that”), which is the first time – apart from his comedy special on Comedy Central – he will take centre stage on television rather than playing a supporting role. He’s so serious about it, he hasn’t even brought his Xbox with him.

His profile has increased over the last couple of years by one event more than any other. It all started at the gig in October where he called Bill Cosby a rapist, triggering the avalanche of accusations from women that the veteran comic sexually abused them. This week, testimony surfaced in which Cosby admitted to procuring quaaludes with the intent of giving them to women with whom he wanted to have sex.

Buress has shied away from the topic in interviews since (he told the AV Club that “That was one thing that people, the media kind of grabbed on to. I just do my work,” while he told a crowd his intentions were far more small-scale: “I guess I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Show reruns”). Apart from that incendiary incident, his emergence as a cult star has resulted from his role as Ilana Glazer’s laid-back, put-upon boyfriend Lincoln Rice in Broad City; and as co-host of the Eric Andre Show, a bizarro late-night hit.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hell awaits: Hannibal Buress on the Eric Andre Show. Photograph: Adult Swim

“I’m always surprised by the people who watch the Eric Andre Show,” he says.

“I’m surprised when a 28-year-old woman who looks like she has her life together recognises me from it, and she says ‘I like the Eric Andrew show’, I’m like ‘For real? You watch that?’. Or like a 55-year-old black dude: ‘The Eric Andre show I watch that.’ Fuck. That’s great.”

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It is genuinely outsider television (although it was the most popular cable show with 18- to 34-year-olds in its time slot) with Andre and Buress trapped in a kind of comedy purgatory that looks like a disastrous late-night show. His turn on Broad City means people react differently to him as well. “Yeah, a lot of people only know me from that. If they find out I do stand up they’re surprised and shit.” He laughs. “They’re like: ‘I just thought you popped up on that.’ It’s a different energy. It’s interesting seeing how people react to a character like that and a storyline different. When people see you in a pseudo-relationship on television with a way different energy to doing stand up.” He goes back to shooting new seasons of both Broad City and the Eric Andre Show in September.

The reaction to his new show might be different again as he makes the transition from cult concern to potential mainstream star in his own right. He says that his focus and enjoyment at the moment comes from watching his show and the sketches develop.

“Yesterday we did a piece where it’s an older guy and he was in a scene by himself,” he explains. “He wasn’t super comfortable, and it wasn’t flowing, it was fun to say ‘Hey man, the character is an egomaniac. He’s crazy, just say whatever say it in your words don’t worry about the script’, and then he just let loose and the crew was dying. It was a cool moment to be able to convey an idea to someone and be able to see them execute it.”

Hannibal the showrunner might be the best version of the comic yet.