Forget six degrees of Kevin Bacon - Liverpudlian actor and comedian Peter Serafinowicz is a through line of the last 25 years of popular culture, and a right and proper cult comedy hero.
From his breakthrough in BBC cult comedy hits Look Around You and his own Peter Serafinowicz Show, to big-screen appearances in Guardians of the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead, Star Wars (he's the voice of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace), John Wick: Chapter 2 and Melissa McCarthy comedy Spy, Serafinowicz is also a prolific voiceover artist (for The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers and South Park, amongst many others) and is very possibly the only performer imaginable who could lend his talents to both Rick & Morty and Midsummer Murders.
Most recently, he made a rather memorable appearance in Guy Richie's Netflix show The Gentleman and currently appears in the new Amazon show Dead Hot.
Now Serafinowicz has revived his much-loved character Brian Butterfield for his first ever live tour, the Call Of Now, with failed businessman Brian coming to Dublin for a Vicar Street date to remember on the 4th June.
Chatting to Peter ahead of his Irish live debut, one question rings clear: where to begin?
On that scene ('I want you to BE a chicken!') in Netflix's The Gentleman...
Honestly, since it came out, it's like... I've always been low-key famous, and I live in London. There's so many people here, and they tend to leave you alone, but I know when I'm kind of being recognized or whatever. I always have a little roulette wheel in my head: "What are they going to say that they recognize me from?" It could be a video that me and Robert Popper did called Markets of Britain where someone will come up to me and say, "Excuse me, can I just say pencils, giant pencils?"
It could be Shaun of the Dead, right? Maybe Spy has been on the TV. Or it could be 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. I'm really proud of my appearance on that. But then I did The Gentlemen, and honestly, it is like by far the most immediate response I've had to anything I've ever been in.
On the unlikely return of failed businessman turned motivational speaker Brian Butterfield...
You know what is cool? When we did the tour last year, the big thing we got back from the audience was that they didn't expect the show to be so... polished. And for the character of Brian to be so developed. There's a laugh every 10 seconds. It's quite accomplished. If something is two-dimensional you get bored. I'm getting too pretentious now, but he has evolved into a person where we know what his goals are, and it's been really fun to develop that further. With the people that volunteer to come on stage - there's a lot of audience participation in the show - 97, 98 percent of the time they're totally playing along with the world we've created, treating Brian as a real person and giving him the respect he demands (laughs).
On doing his first ever live tour...
I was nervous about that because I hadn't done much live work at all, I'd done a little stint as a stand-up, but as me, and I didn't know what my persona was... I really was uncomfortable with it. But what I realized with Brian is that when I became the character, I've got, first of all, this physical shell, right? I'm sort of inside piloting him. But then realizing the authority that that character has when you're commanding an audience, it's so interesting. But the first few times, I was so nervous and worried about f**king up and losing their respect. The prosthetic makeup is amazing, and it's completely realistic, but initially the fat suit was like performing in a duvet under very hot lights... But I became pretty good at it. And it's really energetic as well - there's lots of running around and stuff.
On his legendary Sassy Trump videos, where Serafinowicz re-voiced Donald Trump...
With Trump, one of the things that he destroyed was Twitter because it just became all about him. But you know what? He was entertaining on there. This was a thing that I felt about Trump is that his opponents could not admit that he was likable, and I f**king hate him, but I also kind of like him.
When I did those videos, I never changed a word, it was always verbatim. I liked that idea. Matt (Stone) and Trey (Parker) from South Park, they brought the rights to it, we started to make a movie of Sassy Trump in the desert in California in March 2020. I can't remember how much we shot. It was then when the world went into lockdown. So it's still out there somewhere.
On his Scouser's admiration for departing Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp...
Oh, man. God. That guy, I don't know. I think there's something with him where some people have got this thing where they can just beam their emotions straight out to you. That's Klopp. He'll be missed.
Brian Butterfield's Call Of Now is at Vicar Street, Dublin on June 4th - find out more here.
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