Matt Berry

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

NPR

Society & Culture

4.7 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2022

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt Berry asks himself a very simple question before choosing which projects he wants to do. Is it funny? That's it. It's probably the reason why the British actor-comedian is rarely seen in any role that isn't hilarious, or at least mostly funny and kind of odd. That's Matt's signature. Matt has starred in a bunch of comedy shows over the years, his most recent being the hit series What We Do In The Shadows. It's a mockumentary about vampires based on the 2014 movie of the same name. The show is now well into its fourth season, and it keeps on getting better. When we last had Matt on Bullseye, he talked with us about the best part of playing a vampire, where he got the inspiration for his Toast of London character, how writing songs from the perspective of a serial killer really boosted his career and more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorn is a production of MaximumFun.org and is distributed by NPR.
0:20.5	It's Bullseye, I'm Jesse Thorn.
0:22.3	There are comic actors who are chameleons.
0:25.4	They have range for days, play a million different characters, each one fairly recognizable from
0:31.4	the next.
0:32.4	You're Mike Myers, my Rudolph, Bill Hader, that kind of thing.
0:36.4	Matt Barry is not one of those comic actors.
0:40.2	He does one thing, pretty much, but boy is he the best in the world at it.
0:46.8	What does he do?
0:47.8	You might call it something like Hottie, elegant buffoon.
0:52.2	The kind of person who starred in an award-winning West End production of Richard III in 1988,
0:57.5	then maybe blustered his way onto a police drama only to forget his lines and say mean things
1:03.5	to somebody from craft services.
1:05.9	That's what Matt Barry does.
1:08.2	Maybe my favorite thing he's ever starred in is Toast of London.
1:11.6	Matt plays an aging, burish, bumbling actor who makes a living doing voiceover.
1:17.2	Just to be clear, so these will be heard on every submarine in the Royal Navy.
1:21.4	Yep, they're just automating and digitising everything.
1:23.5	You know, they come under presses of buttons and the recording of your voice will be heard
1:26.6	immediately.
1:27.6	Yeah, I'm not interested in all that.
1:28.6	Can we just crack on?
	...

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