Minute-to-minute, so much happens on The Eric Andre Show that the constant barrage of stimuli tends to blur together. During a recent Jon Hamm interview from the show’s sixth season, André gets nude, a member of the show’s band huffs from an aerosol can, another band member repeatedly calls Hamm’s name and insists they’re old friends, André berates Hamm about starring alongside Kevin Spacey in Baby Driver, and a woman sticks her head and feet out from either side of André’s desk before he proceeds to chainsaw the desk in half. Caught up in the bedlam of it all, you might forget to ask what would otherwise seem like a logical set of questions: Who is this woman? How did she end up on this show? Did she know what she was getting herself into?
Bit parts like this are a common feature of The Eric Andre Show. Each episode integrates a dozen or so relatively unknown actors, all of whom work in concert with André to engineer the show’s chaotic environment. They fall from the ceiling, walk onto the set in various states of undress, crawl out of the floor like zombies, and perform sight gags like “Gay Blade.†Over the course of six seasons, several of these people have emerged as fan favorites. They’re reliable sources of comedy who’ve recurred as members of the show’s ever-updating band, “celebrities†who look nothing like the people they purport to be, and oddball characters who’ve become part of the series’ lore. To demystify what it’s like to participate in such a bizarre universe, we spoke with five of these beloved side characters to learn about their experiences.
Russell Brand (Semere-Ab Etmet Yohannes)
Episode count: 9
I saw the part on Actors Access and submitted myself. Before I auditioned, I saw a show of Russell Brand acting like a king or a baron or something, but the lady who was auditioning me told me I don’t have to fake Russell Brand, so I just played it however I felt. They liked it, and then they called me back to do the shoot. I’ve been in SAG for 24 years, but that’s one of my favorite shows I’ve worked on. When the directors saw I was an improviser, they told me to just throw the writing away and do my thing.
One time, they sent me to the red carpet of an award show. I think The Eric Andre Show played a trick. They got their press pass as Turner Broadcast, which is the parent company of CNN and all these other channels. But CNN was there too, so I was interfering with the guy who was next to me, and he kept asking me, “Is this your first time?†But it was fun, because I was asking people some ridiculous things. I pulled a dead pigeon out of my pocket. I said to one of them that I was a little nervous and got the hiccups. And one of the country-folk singers, when I asked her to sing with me, she just walked away. About three of them got tricked, because once they saw “Turner Broadcast†on the floor, they fell for it. They thought, The guy looks weird, but it’s authentic. But eventually they found out we were faking, Eric asked me to go walk on the red carpet alone, and that’s when security came, and we had to run out of there.
My favorite part is the tours we did. There was one show we did in Brooklyn where we had to go through a lot of hiding places to get to the stage, because they didn’t want the audience to see me before the show started. We did another one in New York where my brother-in-law came with his daughter, Kelela — she’s a singer, maybe you know her.
The first live show we did was at the Satellite here in Silver Lake, and it was advertised as “The Eric Andre Show featuring special guest Russell Brand.†I said to my sons, “They’re going to have the real Russell Brand and create a confrontation on the stage.†But my sons said, “No, they’re talking about you!†I was called the same day to do the show, but they had “Russell Brand†on the sign outside, so I said, “It can’t be me!†Then when we went, it was actually me! I couldn’t believe it. But I have heard the real Russell Brand is also a fan of the show.
Hannibal’s Brother (Aflamu Johnson)
Episode count: 3Â
Eric normally does crazy casting, but they wanted Hannibal’s brother to be buff, and they couldn’t find anyone with the chops to do it. My writing partner Ian Eastin and I have a mutual friend named Griff who works on The Eric Andre Show, and he was the one who got me on there. Griff was like, “Aflamu is doing comedy with All Def Digital, and he looks like an old football player. Bring him in!†I recorded a tape, and Eric was like, “Get that n- - - - the fuck in here.†Then when I got there, Eric was like, “Oh, you can actually improv!†But when people meet Eric, they have to be ready. Eric didn’t bathe or wash his suit that whole season, so he literally smelled like poop. When the guests would come on and shake his hand, you could see it on their face that they were thinking, Whoa, what’s going on?, because he literally smelled like cooked shit.
Are you ever fully ready for the craziness? No. You’ll be like, “So, what the fuck are we doing?†and the producer will look at you and be like, “We have no idea. Just be ready.†There are no redos — whatever you go out and do, that’s it. I might be out there improvising for five to eight minutes, and Eric would have those guests in the hot seat for up to an hour, doing crazy shit. There’s rats coming off the floor, people hanging in the ceiling — shit, I’m back there with no fucking shirt on. That’s why he gets real people in there with him: Because sometimes you have an actor, or even a person that’s improv-y, and they try to be funny. Real people don’t try — their real reactions are funny.
My wife had a friend come over, and her kid freaked out and went, “Holy shit, you’re Hannibal’s brother!†Then I looked myself up, and there’s a whole page dedicated to Hannibal’s brother. People have stopped me on the street to tell me I’m Hannibal’s brother.
Adult Swim did a festival, and Eric brought me out as one of the fan favorites. I just started screaming and acting crazy and saying “n- - - -†a lot. The crowd was going crazy. Then he brings out the older white guy who plays George Clooney, and he was in a wheelbarrow full of baked beans, fully naked. I remember looking at that and thinking, I wouldn’t do that. But that guy was like, Fuck, it, I’ll do that! And he did it in front of tens of thousands of people.
George Clooney (David Haskin)
Episode count: 5
I didn’t know Eric, or his show, or how it works. They just had me on as a George Clooney lookalike, and it was crazy from the first moment I got there. I quickly realized it was a freelance format — all ad-libbing — and that they end up cutting and chopping and editing it to make you look and sound however they want to.
I’m not a comedian, I’m just a B-grade actor, and I’ve been a rock and roller all my life playing music. When I perform, I sweat like a pig. So the first time I’m on the show, Eric says to me, “Now jump up and give us some stand-up.†I didn’t even have a joke! So I jumped to the mic, I’m in a hot turtleneck sweater, and I start sweating like a pig. They loved it. They were like, “George Clooney is sweating like crazy!†I left, and I was like, I bombed! They’re never going to have me back on the show. Two months later, Eric called me: “Dude, you gotta get back on the show. That was our biggest episode ever.†So they’ve had me on a bunch of times.
The first time after that, they did a “coffee challenge.†They bring out this gigantic mug the size of a coffee pot, and they didn’t know I’m a coffee hound, so I chugged the whole thing down. Then the next time they had me on, it was a “wine challenge†where they had a whole wine bottle in a glass. I chugged that down, and someone drove me home. Then the third time after that, it was a “coffee-wine challenge†where they mixed the two. I thought I did pretty good. I got through the episode and I drove myself home. But then the war in my stomach started. I was out on my lawn puking.
The craziest had to be season five. Eric finally said, “Okay, are you ready to do some nudity?†Not only does he shock his guests, but he’ll surprise his performers too, and it’s just part of his show. So season five was the chili. They brought out a naked young lady covered in sushi, and then they brought me out naked and covered in chili. And then, of course, Eric was like, “Now jump up to the mic and give us some stand-up.â€
The most powerful thing I’ve ever experienced was the very first Adult Swim Festival in 2019, where we recreated the whole show live at the Banc of California stadium for about 30,000 people. Rolling out in a wheelbarrow of chili naked and doing stand-up in front of 30,000 20-year-olds: That was special. I told some silly jokes about “keeping a grip on the tip,†and I had 30,000 20-year-olds all chanting “Get a grip!†back to me. The crazy world of Eric André, man. I’m really blessed to be a part of it.
Reese Witherspoon (Kyle Bostic)
Episode count: 7Â
I did the pilot with Eric, and I’m not going to lie, he had to convince me to do that shit. This was back when we were doing comedy together in 2010. They used to pay us in drinks, and we were totally drunk, and he was like, “Yo, I need you to play Reese Witherspoon.†Automatically, I was like, “I’m not getting in no dress. Fuck you!†But he was like, “No, you need to be Reese Witherspoon as you!†A lot of people were in that original pilot: Hannibal, Kevin Barnett, Jermaine Fowler. Eric is the only person who still has that original pilot.
I understood immediately that the show was like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, but you just have to say the craziest shit you could ever say. Everything was completely improvised. I never knew I would say the words “My pussy dangerous.†That was all off the cuff. Keep in mind, we were filming in a torn-out warehouse in Brooklyn. This season, when they called me back to be the co-host, it was totally professional. They flew me upside down, and that didn’t even appear in the season!
Let me put it like this: I’ve seen the man biblically too many fucking times. I told my friend Nore Davis online that if they ever synced up all the times during filming where I said, “This n- - - -†and sucked my teeth, they could make an entire compilation. I remember when he did the John Cena joint, he had a real concussion. He called me later because he was mad he didn’t get to interact with me, and he was like, “Yo, I have a real concussion!â€
Shoutout to Raven-Symoné. She’s a total professional. But the craziest thing was when Eric asked her about Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson at the same time and then brought up her song, “I Can Get Away With Anything.†That might be TV history there.
Keyboardist, Season 2 and 3 (Adora Dei)
Episode count: 19Â
My agent called me and said they had hired an Asian keyboardist for this show, The Eric Andre Show, and she couldn’t show up, so could I show up on set tomorrow? I didn’t audition for it. It was all thanks to a last-minute no-show. I’m not sure if one of the producers or Eric André himself decided that was something they needed — an Asian female keyboardist — but, yeah, they were very specific. I had absolutely no idea what I was walking into. I was like, “What is this?â€
The band is a hodgepodge. I’m actually a classically trained piano player, and the music we were playing on the show was more jazz, so it was a bit out of my comfort zone. I definitely took some private jazz piano lessons just to make sure I had my core. But the rest of the band were amazing, so I think they carried the majority of the weight.
The show was so wacky, so there’s no one specific memory that stands out. But I remember there was a really fun sequence where the guitarist in the band was shot. It was kind of a crazy stunt we did where he had to wear those little automated explosive things on his body that looked like gunshots. We had to choreograph little stunts like that where I was like, What are we doing? Eric was fearless! He did some crazy things where I was like, Wow, this guy is not afraid to hurt himself! I feel like there were a couple of times during those opening sequences that he had to take a rest because something hit him in the wrong way.
I don’t watch this kind of thing normally. But I love comedy, and I’m so grateful to have been part of this, because I think, in my 20 years of acting, this is still my biggest claim to fame. My brother-in-law found a Reddit thread about me and told me about it, and I could not believe it. I could not believe that my little role on that show made such a big impact on some people.
All interviews were conducted prior to the SAG strike.