David Cross interview: Making America Great Again!
You may know him as Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development or for his work with Better Call Saul's Bob Odenkirk, but how well do you know David Cross as a standup comedian? As he brings his new show Making America Great Again! to the UK, he tells us it's not all about Trump. Honest.
As we come to the end of our transatlantic chat with US comedian David Cross, he is quick to add in a qualifier for those who may wish to see his latest show: “I do want to impress upon people that despite the nature of this conversation, which I was very happy to have, the evening is certainly more than just talking about politics.”
For the man primarily known as Arrested Development’s blundering, closeted actor Tobias Fünke, it’s important that the audience go to his shows with no preconceptions. A tough ask, when for the past ten years the zeitgeist has viewed him as the self-applicated ‘Blue Man’ from Mitch Hurwitz’s dizzyingly brilliant dissection of the true American family, and more recently for his outing as the disaster-attracting Todd Margaret (in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret).
But this is David Cross the standup, and if you’re unfamiliar with his acerbic charm then it might jar with your idea of the man in denim cut-offs suffering from the ‘never nude’ affliction.
Cross’s standup is almost impossible to categorise, and his work may be shocking to some who are used to seeing him in the sanitised world of network television.
His insightful view of a world already gone to hell is a refreshing blast of vitriolic verisimilitude that allows the audience to let their guard down – sometimes with the help of short sketches and even an inspired song or two, such as the faux Italian number he belts out at the beginning of his seminal standup special The Pride Is Back from 1999. A better opening gambit at a comedy show you will struggle to find.
In his ‘comeback’ of sorts, in 2010’s Bigger and Blackerer, he employed a child actor to pretend he was Cross and then walk off stage disgusted by someone filming his show, as well as a sign-language interpreter taking liberties with his own jokes. These short skits seamlessly rolled into the overall show and harked back to Cross’s work on 90s TV series Mr. Show with regular collaborator Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul).
It was a sketch show in which the sketches never seemed to end, just careen wildly into the next.
The making of Making America Great Again!
The new standup show came about due to unfortunate circumstances, when Cross had to take time off from his busy schedule because of shoulder surgery, which put him out of action for a good few months with rigorous physiotherapy.
While most of us might take this as an opportunity to catch up on box sets and overeat, Cross used the ‘spare’ time to craft the most extensive tour he’s undertaken yet. After playing more than 80 dates in the States, he comes to Europe this month for a handful of performances before heading to Canada for another short run, leading up to the prestigious Just for Laughs festival in Montreal.
“I knew I was going to be in one place and unable to work on other things,” he says, “so I thought, I’ll put [together] all this material I have lying around, I’ll put together a tour and I’ll do that. So that’s what I did.”
Just as Cross is quick to point out that the new show isn't all politics, he’s also keen to let us know that there are none of the aforementioned skits and sketches this time: “It’s pretty much just me, no cute little tricks or anything like that.”
Still, calling the tour Making America Great Again! – a clear swipe at (presumptive) presidential nominee Donald J Trump (that feels horrendous to write, by the way) and his ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign slogan – might be a little misleading for an audience expecting a counterpoint to the annoying orange of American politics. The title was born of a kind of serendipity, as Cross explains: “The booking agent said he needed a title and everything I’d think of was just too pretentious or silly. So I kept blowing it off and then he called me and said, look, I need something by the end of the day.”
Against the clock, Cross was inspired by the man who has barely been off the television since he first announced the then-ludicrous notion that he would run for the highest office in the Western world. “I think CNN was on in the house and they had Trump and I was like, oh, I’ll just call it ‘Making America Great Again!’”
It’s undeniably an arresting title, though; did he fear ‘the Donald’ lawyering up for copyright infringement? “There were a number of people who were like, oh shit, I don’t want to get sued because you know he’s really litigious, and the first thing I said was, he’s just taking Reagan’s [slogan].”
David Cross on Donald Trump
The ascent of Trump as a possible frontrunner for president (a recent poll had him leading Hillary Clinton 46% to 44% – the remaining 10% one assumes just went ahead and killed themselves after hearing the question) was an initially ridiculous idea that is fast becoming a reality, watched with white knuckles around the world. “It’s as fascinating and scary and serious to us as it is to y’all, that’s for sure,” Cross says.
The fate of America has always been viewed with keen interest by the British public, with the old adage that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Surely when America Trumps, the rest of the world will get dysentery: “It’ll probably be much worse than that.”
[Illustration: Camille Smithwick]
“The one thing that’s permeated this whole thing is that, since the beginning when he declared his candidacy, we were all, oh he’ll never get anything,’’ Cross says, dismissive in his measured Georgian drawl. “Even a month ago people were like, he’ll never be president, and now they’re not so sure. Mainly because Hillary is such a weak, nationally reviled character.”
Indeed, it’s not just Trump who comes in for a tongue-lashing from Cross’s notoriously brutal wit.
“Just look at [Clinton’s] record. Read what she said, her position on things and then how’s she’s changed, when she’s changed, the way she’s changed," he continues. “You don’t get a sense that it’s from the heart or from the gut. It’s more from the brain.”
Cross does, however, admit that in this scenario the former secretary of state is the lesser of two evils. “As much as I really dislike Clinton, and this is way before she was a candidate – I have expressed my dislike of her and why I don’t trust her – [...] she is leaps and bounds ahead as a presidential candidate than Trump.”
“I don't think Trump gives a shit about America”
A difference between Trump’s and Cross’s use of ‘Make America Great Again’ is that Cross seems to genuinely care about his country, whereas Trump, he feels, has nothing but his own best interest at heart. “First of all, I don’t think it’s about America at all,” he says [of the slogan]. “Of all the massive lies he’s sold and the shit that he’s shovelled that people are buying, the greatest one is that he’s pro-America. I don’t think he gives a shit as long as he’s doing OK, as long as his business and his brand are doing OK.”
This leads to a pretty stark realisation for Cross: “I mean, even somebody like George [W] Bush, you could say that he wanted the best for America. We may disagree vehemently on what that thing was but you got the sense that in his heart, in his gut, he wanted the best for America and he thought that was the best way to go about it. I don’t believe [Trump] gives a shit about America at all. I truly don’t.”
Did Cross ever think he’d lament for the days of George W Bush? “That is a bit of a shocker… I don’t think I’ll ever feel sorry for him. But I just mean, to go that far backwards from Bush... you thought he was the nadir, the lowest point.”
Now that Trump pretty much has the nomination, the GOP have been quick to rally behind their new (anti)hero. “Now they’re all just falling in line with a guy they said just weeks ago was basically the devil incarnate and that he’s just an awful dumb piece of shit,” Cross says. “He’s an anti-intellectual thug and he’s literally worse than Bush intellectually and now we’re watching them all fall over themselves to kiss his ring, and it just shows you how craven and venal and awful and soulless these people are. And that’s really been the saddest part of all this.”
Making America Great Again!: more than politics
There is one man who gives Cross a little bit of hope, and he comes in the form of a 74-year-old Jewish social democrat from Brooklyn. “Oh I’m a big Bernie Sanders supporter – if nothing else it’s been really good that he’s pulled Hillary to the left,” Cross says. “It’s frustrating because I think a lot of his programmes or his ideas would resonate with those people voting for Trump but they’re..." – he strains to find the least offensive term – “...not that bright, and they just hear the dismissive stuff and think, ‘Communist!’”
Cross is familiar with the work of Sanders' counterpart on this side of the Atlantic, young upstart Jeremy Corbyn: “I’ve got a subscription to Private Eye, so I’m well aware of him. And I’m just sort of a political person by nature and curious and interested and fascinated.”
At the end of our conversation there is the repeated disclaimer that “this is not a political show” – it’s just difficult, you suspect, when you’re as impassioned and intuitive as David Cross not to get carried away by the matters of the day. Today, those matters might be dominated by a certain perma-tanned comic-book villain – but if there’s one voice you should listen to on what it takes to make America great again, it’s that of the comedian, not the joke.
David Cross: Making America Great Again!: Dublin Vicar Street, 14 June; Manchester Academy, 18 June; London O2 Forum, 19 June; London Union Chapel, 21 June; Birmingham O2 Institute, 22 June; and Leeds O2 Academy, 23 June
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