Craig Robinson on comedy, life after The Office and getting the party started
Will Craig Robinson, the US actor and comic, finally make it to Australia?
A music tour scheduled for him and his band the Nasty Delicious in June was abruptly postponed weeks before the shows. So, with the rescheduled dates this month, is he definitely coming this time?
"I've been OK'd to go," he says, laughing. "You know what? It was as simple as getting the paperwork in order. We just started getting stuff in order too late."
A bit of an oversight, one would think, but he can be excused – it's been a busy year.
He is probably best known as the delightfully deadpan warehouse foreman Darryl Philbin in the US version of The Office, and has had a string of parts in movies including Hot Tub Time Machine, Pineapple Express and This Is the End.
But this year has seen him branching out with dramatic roles, as a prison warden in hacker TV program Mr Robot, and in the acclaimed film Morris From America. For the latter, a coming-of-age tale about a 13-year-old boy uprooted to Germany who dreams of becoming a rapper, Robinson won the Sundance Film Festival special jury prize for his role as the boy's father.
He has been blown away by the response to the film, which he says is down to people connecting with the struggles of being a teen "and not ready for life", and finds dramatic roles a satisfying change to comedy.
"I enjoy the intensity of finding different ways to play [a character] and not always looking for the joke," he says. "I can breathe out a little bit more and relax a little bit more, go a little slower."
Robinson's career has always veered between comedy and music. His mother was a music teacher, a career path he followed after college, working at an elementary school in his native Chicago.
But at college he also began to develop his other great love.
"Comedy chose me," he says. Working as a night manager of a dorm between 10pm and 6am, his desk became an impromptu stage where he honed his comedy skills as people passed by. He started studying comedy and the work of influences such as David Letterman, Eddie Murphy, Steven Wright and Steve Martin.
"It was something that was just like, I have to see what this is like because I love making people laugh, but I didn't know what it took to get on stage," he says. "I always thought comedians were somehow not human, like superhuman. Then I saw some guys perform at a homecoming talent show and I was like, wait a minute, real people do this?"
He started putting routines together in the mid-1990s, then scored a slot at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal in 1998. Since then he's been a regular on stages and TV screens, and various movie roles, many linked to his musical skills
In This Is the End, the 2013 sci-fi disaster movie starting Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and James Franco, he serenades Rihanna at a piano with a poetic song titled Take Yo Panties Off.
"Come on Rihanna," he sings. "Take your panties off for me."
She sings back, "Come on Craig, can you f--- off for me."
What was it like performing with Rihanna?
"It was what you saw," he says. "I just sang to her and she said 'F--- you, Craig.' It was awesome."
The song might be among the selection to make it to his Australian shows, which feature him on keyboards with his seven-piece funk band..
"You're going to hear some tunes you're familiar with and we'll make up some tunes on the spot. We'll get some laughs. We'll share some stories. We'll dance and party," he says. "I'm not bringing this band just so you can hear a band, we're looking to come over there and make you laugh, make you dance and go home happy, or go home with us. One or the other."
Craig Robinson and the Nasty Delicious are at the Gov, Adelaide, December 11, Metro Theatre, Sydney, December 14, Max Watts, Brisbane, December 16, The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, December 17, and the Rosemount Hotel, Perth, December 19.
Sarah Thomas is an entertainment writer for Fairfax Media. Sarah has been working for Fairfax since 2006, writing about movies, music and general entertainment.
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