Tim Meadows Is Doing Double-Duty Comedy this Weekend

Comedian and actor Tim Meadows is about to have one of the busiest weekends ever. Not only is his latest film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, a mockumentary starring Andy Samberg, Maya Rudolph and Sarah Silverman, in theaters Friday, but he’s also MC’ing the NBCUniversal Second City Break Out Comedy Festival in Chicago. The goal of the festival, which was created in 2015: To showcase diverse voices in comedy. Each night will feature some of the country’s best young, diverse talent in sketch, improvisation and stand-up, but, if you ask Meadows, a Second City and nine-year SNL alum, beloved for his Leon the Ladies Man character, he’ll tell you that the festival is the best way to spend the weekend because he gets to check out up-and-coming performers and do a little stand-up, too.

What excites you the most about this weekend’s festival?

I’ve been doing stand-up for about five or six years and it’s always fun to go around the country and see guys who open for me. I think it will be fun this weekend because I haven’t seen a lot of the performers before except for Chris Redd—he’s in Popstar, too.

What’s it like to host these sorts of things?

It feels less stressful because I’m the MC. I’ll perform and then I’ll introduce the rest of the show. It’s less stressful than doing my own hour-long stand-up show.

The video you did in which you impersonated Ben Carson on the campaign trail in Iowa was so well done. Would you like to do more of this?

I would definitely like to do that again. Not Ben Carson but going in and dealing with people who are being themselves. It was really interesting and it used a lot of my training from Second City. I was really improvising with the people in the diner we visited.

So what was it like to be on the Popstar set?

It was probably one of the most fun shoots I’ve been on. I joked around with those guys. I said this is the oldest person I’ve ever played. I’ve never played the old guy in the movie. It was a big change. It was fun.

In the film, you play Harry, who has a failed music career and discovered the three guys. What was it like to play him?

Harry’s an old-school musician. He would have been popular in the ‘90s. I sort of discovered what I was doing after the first few days of shooting. The character was already written, but I had to figure out who he was and get used to his history. Over the 25- to 30-day shoot, I played him like a loser, a lucky guy who sort of was able to ride a wave.

What can audience expect from the film? I can’t wait to see it.

Actually I can’t wait to see it either. I missed the premiere in New York. I’m going to see it Friday morning for two reasons. One, I want to see it, and two, I want to make sure the material is OK to take my kids. They’re 13 and 15.

I read that you spend most of the movie dressed in an old-school fedora and vintage jacket.

Everything I wore was old. They dressed me in all vintage clothing, like bowling shirts and loose fitting clothes—a lot of brown and beige except for a tuxedo jacket I wore at the end.

 How do you pick your projects?

It’s a hard question to answer. It sort of depends on who is involved in it. Like doing Son of Zorn, an animated Fox show coming this fall, was an easy choice. It’s executive produced by Chris Miller, who wrote and directed The Lego Movie. That was an easy choice to say I’d love to be part of that. I pick whatever I feel like doing at the time. Sometimes I’ve done jobs because I was off for a month and had the free time to do it.

What are some misperceptions about the actor’s life?

As an actor, you have to work as much as you can to get better at doing it. Sometimes I get criticized for doing certain films or whatever but people don’t understand: In order to get better, you have to keep doing it. That’s what I do.