“My character on Man Seeking Woman is taken from all of the biggest douchebags I grew up with in Florida — I channel them and put them into Mike,” jokes standup actor, comedian and talk show host Eric André, who portrays Josh’s (Jay Baruchel) cool, confident and cocky best friend on the hilarious FXX comedy. “He’s nothing like me. Mike is certainly not a guy I would out with in normal life. I would run for the hills if I met a dude like him.”
Based on Simon Rich’s best-selling book of short stories, The Last Girlfriend On Earth, Man Seeking Woman is hysterically engaging and wonderfully bizarre glimpse at the unforgiving world of modern dating seen through the eyes of Josh Greenberg. The anxious, green and insecure twenty-something Josh (Baruchel) continues his search for meaning female companionship despite living in a surreal universe filled with trolls, demons from Hell, sex aliens, possessed love trinkets and a Japanese penis monster.
Assisting Josh on his quest for true love is his best friend Mike Bunk (André). Mike is everything that Josh is not. He is a cool, confident, charismatic bro with an expense account and an insatiable lust for women. Mike serves as the devil on Josh’s shoulder, pushing him towards sex, drugs and…more sex.
Although the characters are polar opposites — and the unlikeliest of friends — Eric André says Mike sees a spark of hope in Josh that others around him refuse to recognize. “I think there’s an inner playboy in Josh that Mike is trying to channel,” the star of The Eric André Show, The Internship and 2 Broke Girls admits with a laugh. “They have a Mr. Miyagi-Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid) kind of relationship sometimes there that I think he’s trying to change. He sees potential. He thinks Josh is like the young grasshopper, and his flower is waiting to blossom like a Georgia O’Keeffe painting.”
André confesses he and Baruchel had a blast filming Man Seeking Woman (which has just been picked for a second season) on location in Toronto. “Jay’s the best,” Eric declares. “He’s a maniac. He’s a smart, smart cookie. He’s coming up with really funny stuff. He’s a real funny guy. The good thing is he’s a writer as well as an actor so I can always go to him for funny lines. I really love being on this show.”
A couple of minutes with Eric André…
In the real world, since you’re single, how do you usually meet the women that you go out with? “I just cruise around community colleges in my GL, in my Toyota Corolla, lurking. I’m a lurker. I’m a creep.”
And, the real answer is…? (Laughs) “I’m no good. I can’t stop from bleeding internally. I sleep standing up, like a horse. Danke schoen.”
Earlier in the season, Mike staged an intervention for Josh when he started getting too serious about the girl Kayla. Why do you think it’s important for Mike that Josh is single? “Why is it important that Josh is single? Because I think Mike always needs a wing man. I think it’s for selfish needs. Also, I think Mike is a little jealous. That’s his bro. He doesn’t want anybody to take his bro away from him.”
Since your character is basically the moral center of the show — in that everybody should do the opposite of what he says — do you think we’ll ever get a piece of good advice from Mike? “I think so, with time. In the last episode, we saw some softer sides of Mike. Towards the end of the season, the subtle nuances of Mike’s character will come out where he’s a bit of a walking contradiction. He has a softer side or he’s in touch with his feminine side more than we think, eventually.”
How would you separate Mike from other best friend sitcom character you’ve played? Do you approach it differently, in some way, or is it just pure id, you know, that theoretical part of the human psyche? (Laughs) “Probably a little more of the latter. I think it’s pure id, but it has some of that classic, ‘I can get my best friend into shitty circumstances.’ I don’t know? I think it’s just pure id, and I’m just pulling from all the kids I hated in high school.”
Do you see any contrast between Mike to Mark, the character you played on Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23? Or, do you think they are cut from the same cloth? “I’d say that…shit, I’m driving like an asshole. I think Mark is sackless. He’s like a sackless beta male. And, Mike is a cocky chauvinist sociopath. So, there’s a pretty big contrast.” (laughs)
Do you think Mike will ever get a serious girlfriend, or does he even want to? “Maybe, with time. Mike’s a complex individual. His brain is like a Rubik’s Cube with some of the pieces missing, so you never know if you got it correctly.”
As we creep towards the end of the season, can you talk a little bit about where Mike is headed? “My character goes into a parallel universe. What else? My character also…I’m trying to figure out what I can say. My character pisses off Josh and his new girlfriend and goes into a shelter for bros, a bro shelter, instead of a dog shelter. I can’t remember what else is coming up. Oh, the ninth episode — oh, I don’t know what I can or can’t say. There’s always pressure to not spoil stuff. I don’t want to bum anybody at FXX out.”
Man Seeking Woman is a hilariously twisted comedy about the search for romance. When people ask you what kind of TV show it is, do you ever have any trouble explaining what it is really about? “Absolutely. All the time. It’s not easy. I’d say it’s cartoon come to life. I say it’s a John Cusack rom-com mixed with a Salvador Dali painting. No, how about the Meg Ryan movie You’ve Got Mail on peyote. Basically, it’s a psychedelic rom-com.” (laughs)
Man Seeking Woman airs Wednesday nights at 10:30p.m.EST /PST and 9:30p.m.CST only on FXX.
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