Acting Good star and creator Paul Rabliauskas on his hit made-in-Canada comedy
While other series creators speak of character evolution, Acting Good star and creator Paul Rabliauskas feels there is no need to mess with a good thing. “There really isn’t much that’s changed,” he says of how the show has evolved over the course of three seasons. “It’s funny because you watch a lot of shows and you see the gradual build of the characters — but I feel like every character has basically been themselves since episode one of season one. And I think that’s a testament to how strong these characters are.
It’s probably one of my favourite things about the show.” TV Week spoke to the standup comedian about his transition to television and the challenges of maintaining the funny.
Was there a learning curve for you, transitioning from standup to making and starring in your own TV show?
Oh man, yeah. Compare season one, where everybody was sort of learning, and now you see them come in in season three with this new confidence. I remember Michael Greyeyes directed the first-ever episode of season one, and he was like, “Here’s your mark and here’s your eyeline.” I’m like “OK!” And I had no idea what he was talking about [laughs]. I ruined the first shot. He was like, “OK, we’ve got some learning to do.” And now I come in and I know what to do. I know how to prep even more. I know how to give myself more time. And that goes for the writing room, too, because we’re familiar with the world, we’re familiar with the characters.
At this stage of the show, what is your role in the writing process? How do you interact with the showrunners?
I always say I’m the worst in the writing room, because I’m the one that always fights everything. I’ll even pitch an idea and 10 seconds later, I’ll be like, “Scrap it! I don’t think it’s funny anymore.” Because the world was based on my own reserve, Poplar River, I feel like I can be the most difficult. But it is a fun process, and you do have to have trust with the showrunners. Tim Fontaine and Eric Toth are the showrunners and are in the writing room, which is very important, so I can go worry about the acting stuff and the producing stuff. We all have a very immature, silly sense of humour. We all know how to get in the pocket of the silliness of the show. We’re good on our own, but when the three of us are in the same room, I definitely feel like there’s “Acting Good Magic” that happens.
Playing a version of yourself was probably the best possible way to get started on an acting career. But how do you get into the mindset of yourself? Because it’s kind of you, but not really you.
You have to have sort of an interesting cadence about you. If I go there and I’m talking with no emotion like, “Hey, I’m Paul, this story’s about me,” nobody’s going to want to watch that. And I think I learned that, doing standup for 15 years. You just exaggerate the little things a little bit more. I was able to take that into the acting. And it’s been fun. Playing myself, it’s definitely a lot of me, but I think the acting part for me comes in the exaggeration, amplifying it just enough for the audience at home.
I’ve heard a surprising number of standups say that their first time onstage went really well, and their second time up was a disaster.
You’re scaring me, because that’s the exact experience I had getting into standup. I remember Rumors — we have this beautiful club in Winnipeg which is world-renowned — and the first time, I was so nervous I threw up before I went out onstage, and I killed. I was like, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” I brought my family [to my next show] and I bombed. It was the worst feeling. I moved to the reserve and didn’t come back for about a year after that. Bombing in comedy is tough, but it adds character, and it prepares you for something like this where you get to a bigger scale.
l’ve heard that corporate gigs can also be a unique challenge.
In the last five years, I’ve probably done 300 hotel shows. A lot of Indigenous companies, they have meetings, and they just have a budget for entertainment. There’s usually 90 people lining up for their food and you just hear my voice echoing, “Hey, I’m overweight!” “It’s crazy being Native, right?” while you’re trying to eat your food and enjoy a day with your work friends. [Laughs] It’s a hard life, but it pays the bills.
When you were making the jump to Acting Good, did you take your standup persona and translate it into a new medium?
It was scary. I had no idea, even leading up. We had written the pilot and we had it for a very long time, and then we started writing [the rest] and I was like, “My character really isn’t anything.” When you start writing, you’re like, “What is the thing that separates my character?” And for me, it was being able to be a mama’s boy. That’s who I am in real life, so it was easy for me to write. It literally became the identity of my character. I was like, “OK, I’m going to do what I do onstage. I’m going to be the mama’s boy.” And it was easy for me to do, because I had literally done it for 15 years onstage. It was kind of rolling the dice, and it was scary because I didn’t know if it was going to work — and it did. Thank God it did.
When you’re making something that is so autobiographical, do you end up gaining a few insights about yourself?
That’s the thing about [standup] comedy, I kind of know who I am. I think it’s more my mom. I shine a magnifying glass [on us] and my mom’s kind of weirded out about our relationship. Now she sees the show and she’s like, “I’m not like that. I don’t baby you like that.” I’m like, “Obviously you do, Ma.” But for me, I’ve been like this since I was a kid. People have been telling me I’m a cartoon character all my life, so it was just a natural transition.
What do you most remember about the show’s early days?
It was so weird, even when the show got greenlit, when we officially said we’re doing 10 episodes, I was like, “Am I still the lead?” When we got into our first pre-production, I put on the wall as a joke, “Paul needs acting lessons.” Michael Greyeyes came in, and he didn’t know it was a joke. He was like, “What’s this all about?” It was scary, but now that I’m three years into it, it’s fun that I can look back and be like, it was fun to learn and have people around me who were able to help.
What’s the thing about season three that excited you the most?
I think always the main theme is my character trying to grow up a little bit. Last season, he got the girl back, finally. And now he has to maintain that relationship — and part of that relationship is growing up, which is something, obviously, the character struggles with. Three seasons in, I think the writing is at its peak, I think our comedy is as funny as it’s been, and it’s so fun to have that confidence. We’re hitting the comedy on all fronts, and we’re letting the characters, the fan-favourites, shine this year. We feel like we have this Acting Good formula, there’s a big audience for it, and we’re just in the pocket now.
Acting Good, streaming on Crave