The show imagines what a space agency under the Trump administration might look like. He takes on a similar persona in Netflix’s Space Force, out today, alongside Steve Carell and John Malkovich. People that think they’re fucking nailing it, but they’re not.” He says it’s the comedy of these kinds of characters that appeal to him: “I love playing people that are falsely confident. “When people meet me, they’ll say stuff like: ‘ That’s so weird, man! You’re not an asshole!’” Schwartz says. He “excels at playing those kinds of slippery and insincere people: He’s portrayed a lot of suits, scumbags and fruitless strivers,” the Independent writes of Schwartz’s oeuvre. The character that put Schwartz on the map was Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Rec (who, incidentally, works as salesman at Lady Foot Locker when he isn’t grifting). He thought it was him at first, but saw on Twitter that someone far away smelled it too. The world is crumbling … I’m eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups frozen three times a day.” It’s one of the few glimpses I get of how he’s coping in quarantine when I ask outright, he deflects, expertly, saying that there’s a weird smell every night. When I praise it as a meal choice, he spirals, briefly: “I’m trying so hard to eat well. He ordered eggs, and while he ended up with cereal mixed with half-and-half, he was just thrilled he could say he’d eaten breakfast in first class. He says he was flabbergasted when he was offered breakfast. He had no lines and says he was “fucking terrified,” but they were flying him to Tampa, first class, which no one in his family had ever flown. His first acting gig was in 2005, and it wasn’t glamorous: a commercial for Publix, the infamous Floridian supermarket chain. He’ll be starring in it alongside Sam (“Sammy”) Rockwell and seems genuinely startled by his own success. Now it’s more than a decade later, and he’s writing his sixth studio film while in lockdown in Los Angeles. He wrote his first movie about its rivalry with Foot Locker (it wasn’t made). His first comedy job was faxing jokes in to SNL and Letterman (he used the money to pay off the fax machine he bought to do the job.) Before that, he worked at a sneaker store called Athlete’s Foot. That was back when he still figured being an actor or writer seemed “as crazy as being an astronaut.” He grew up in the Bronx and says he was “terrified of Manhattan” but moved to Koreatown in his 20s. Especially next to ‘cutest guy’ or whatever.” I ask Schwartz if he’s always been funny and he shrugs the question off (he seems vaguely embarrassed by praise) though admits he was voted class clown in high school and recalls his superlative picture looked “ so dumb, so dumb. His hair is big and black, and I guess the correct word for it is luscious. When I video-call Schwartz, he’s wearing a dark blue polo and eating Cheerios while we talk. He’s a force of charisma throughout the show and occasionally does a Jersey accent, which really works for me. Middleditch & Schwartz, the special in question, features Schwartz and his longtime improv partner, Thomas Middleditch, doing what they do best: crafting insane, fictional stories out of anecdotes from audience members. It’s funny and clever and possibly genius, especially Schwartz, who is so absurdly convincing in all of his modalities, be it a jilted bride or alien-child. But after seeing his preternatural ability to spin deranged, fantastic narratives out of thin air and perform them with astonishing confidence, I now knew him, unexpectedly, as my new crush. He’s best known as Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, the sort of cocky, failed entrepreneur from Parks and Recreation, though I mostly knew him as the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog. And yet, watching Ben Schwartz’s improv special was what convinced me the 38-year-old comedian is really hot. The words “improv special” have never really inspired desire in me.
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