Being Brian Posehn

Being a bespectacled gentleman, I have at times been compared to some fairly unflattering public personalities. I won’t go through the list, but you can rest assured that, having worn glasses since the age of 8, I have more than once been referred to as ‘Urkle’.

Now, I’ve learnt the lesson of talking too much about workmates on this blog, so I want to preface this little ditty by saying that I’m quite friendly with the person who made this comment and that, if she were to read this post, I’d hope she'd know it was all written in playful jest.

That disclaimer made, allow me to tell you of what would have to be one of the worst people I’ve ever been compared to.

Brian Posehn. I was compared to Brian Posehn. I was told I reminded someone of Brian. Poshen.

That name might not mean much to you. In fact, I practically guarantee it won’t. But if you’ve ever seen an episode Just Shoot Me or The Sarah Silverman Programme, you’ve seen Brian’s work.

Brian played uber-nerd Kevin on Just Shoot Me. This was the guy who was so weird and socially-retarded that even David Spade’s character felt like he could lord it over him. David effing Spade!.

Brian Posehn plays also Sarah Silverman’s neighbour in The Sarah Silverman Programme. The joke is he’s a big fat videogame-playing geek who also happens to be in a gay relationship with his roommate. Their catchphrase is a deadpanned “I’m so gay for you, dude.”

This is Brian Posehn.

This is Brian Posehn.


This. Is Brian Posehn.




This is the guy I was told I reminded someone of. It wasn’t said maliciously, it wasn’t said with the intention to hurt. In fact, the person saying it didn’t see why I was so shocked and embarrassed to hear such a thing. But honestly, that’s like being told you’re John Candy, or Rosanne Bar, or George Costanza. That’s just not good cricket.

So of course I became immediately paranoid about it. I sucked in my stomach all day and tried not to say anything in a dry baritone fraught with voice-breaking anxiety. I tried not to be a Frankenstein-style grotesque of comedic proportions. I tried to regrow any missing hairs on the top of my head.

I can only hope I succeeded.

Though out of all the things I’ve been called in my life, I still think “Brian Posehn” only rates as the second worst. Everyone has a toolbox full of prepared anecdotes for when they’re at a dinner party or similar social function and they need a frothy piece of personal history to fill in the space where only blank stares and awkward shuffling would otherwise go.

I often relate to people – more often than I probably should – the time I went with Luke to a short film festival in Brisbane. The entries were being projected onto a screen in the middle of a South Bank thoroughfare. People were crowded in the square, the majority of us sitting on the cold concrete.

We’re watching the short films, and every now and then this middle-aged woman would turn around and stare at us. Usually that would be a bit odd but when you’re hanging out with Luke you tend to expect it.

Anyway, we get to the portion of the evening where the judges are working out what the best film is, and the audience is using this as a bit of an intermission.

The middle-aged woman takes this opportunity to turn around and introduce herself. She says she’s a film-and-TV agent, and proceeds to gush over Luke, saying she could tell (upon his confirmation) that he was an actor, and that she could get him all kinds of work as a leading man, a model, etc, etc.

Perhaps feeling as if she was leaving me out of this conversation, the agent lady turns to me and says;

“Oh, not that I don’t think I couldn’t get you work as well. I could very easily see you as the best friend character, or the nice guy who turns out to be the rapist in the end.”

…

“The nice guy who turns out to be the rapist in the end.”

Thank you very much and goodnight, ladies and gentlemen!

Of course, it was thanks to that I started noticing just how many characters there were in films and on TV who were nice guys who turned out to be rapists in the end. I get the feeling that maybe I should have taken this agent up on her offer.

“Yes! Please! Cast me as the sweet, poor-sighted best friend of the girl who turns out to have been murdering her puppies and all her school chums in an elaborate ploy to sexually violate her by the end of the three-act structure!”

Surely, if I had, not only would I be rolling in vast mountains of cash, but people would be telling Brian Posehn that I remind them of him, and not the other way around!