“Get it on paper, tell your friends, get people together, film it, edit it, and put it out there. Then you see the rewards.” That really sums up actor, comedian and writer Rob Michael Hugel. Sometimes collaboration leads to many great things. Look at Human Giant, or Upright Citizens Brigade in general. You can collaborate on something, then move on, having learned many things, realizing you have a voice of your own, an idea that you want to “get on paper, film it, edit it, and put it out there”. Hugel makes this look easy with his new web series I Hate Being Single. At first look you will think Curb, Seinfeld, and the witty, dry humor that makes up the best sitcoms of today. After you read this interview, you will understand why, as those exact names are some of Hugel’s biggest influences. Read on for a great interview with a guy you recognize from many commercials, and a guy you will soon recognize as the creator and star of I Hate Being Single.

Serial Optimist: Hey Rob! I’m going ask three very generic questions so we can get some background on you, so I expect some really interesting answers (to make me look good). Where are you from and when did you end up in NYC? (Two in one question!) What things do you feel led to you becoming a comedian/actor? What new Fall TV series do you think has the most promise?

Rob Michael Hugel: 

Where am I from.

I was born in Towson, MD, and lived there until age five. My parents moved us to Annandale, Virginia and I grew up there until college. I went to college in Orlando, Florida for some reason. Basically I wanted to go to LA but it was too far and expensive and my TV production teacher recommended UCF (University of Central Florida). I got accepted with a music minor scholarship, which made the tuition cheaper so I went there. I think I really went there because I liked the palm trees. After I graduated from college in 2005, I traveled for a year working for a band and saved money to move to NYC. I moved to Williamsburg in October of 2006. 

What led me to be a comedian actor… I will try and keep this short. 

At a young age I liked making my family and friends laugh. I got in trouble for goofing off in class. I guess it’s typical class clown stuff. I was a huge fan of Full House and I seriously looked up to Joey Gladstone. It sounds like a joke now but I loved that character and I thought back then I wanted to be a comedian when I grew up. In general I was a major TV junkie, sitcoms especially. My parents actually watched In Living Color with my brother and I, which is strange now that I think about it because it was pretty racy and my parents didn’t watch much TV in general. I looked up to Jim Carrey, eventually I discovered Seinfeld, all the SNL casts, and stuff like that. So in my head I always thought it was what I wanted to do.

I started making videos with buddies after school in middle school. I’d edit them with two VCRs hooked up, it was our own mini sketch comedy show that we made for ourselves basically. (Pre you tube of course.)

When I was in high school I participated in the competition show for the school where members of each class do skits and compete for the title of Mr. Woodson. In other schools it was more of a typical pageant but at our school you could get a lot of leverage for being funny. There was a mix of popular jocks and weird people who were recognized as funny. I performed in it two years and I did a lot of impressions of people: Pee Wee, Edward Scissorhards, Adam Sandler, Carson Daly, Tom Green.

I got second place in both shows and it was the first time performing in front of the entire school. Making people laugh was a rush. I never joined drama in high school because I was already in band and I didn’t have the time for both. Also my close friends were in bands and I thought the theatre crowd was even weirder than the band crowd.

When I went to college I was a TV production major because I always liked making videos with my friends and had good experience with it. The first day of college I met some friends that would end up being a rock band together. We took it super seriously and devoted all our time to that. My buddy Mike in the band was super funny and we would do characters and bits together. Mike told me sometime we should take an intensive class at UCB in NY. I had no idea what he was talking about but he said Amy from SNL owned it so I thought that was cool. Eventually the band broke up and I graduated school. I thought about where I wanted to be in life and it definitely wasn’t Florida. I moved to NYC and took classes at UCB and started focusing on being an actor and comedian. In improv I learned much more about how to deal with things realistically and react naturally even under silly or extreme circumstances. It forced me to become adjusted to performing at anytime without much preparation or worry. It was very freeing to find out that not only can I just get up and perform, but I can get up and create a story that’s worth seeing spontaneously. Since I’ve been here I’ve had some other acting courses and learned a lot from experience on set with a lot of independent projects, films, and web series. Over the past two years I’ve started doing more stand up too.

Fall TV Series I think has the most promise.

Hmmm this is tough! I really don’t feel super strongly about any of them but I am very curious about The New Girl. It’s gotten a lot of flack but I feel like it has more potential than some of the other quirky girl driven shows.  I like that it’s single camera and has a modern look to it. Person of Interest sounds like a cool idea and Michael Emerson is captivating but for some reason I rarely end up watching network dramas. Besides LOST of course.

____

____

SO: I adore the Broad City web series that you collaborated on quite a bit. Did that help influence you to do your own web series, and what was the experience like for you?

Rob: Thank you! Yes I did a lot of work on Broad City in their first 12 or so episodes. It was a great experience to dive into directing and editing web series episodes regularly. I learned a lot from Abbi and Ilana about persistence. They work hard and they don’t slow down. At one point I was trying to collaborate more with them as a writer and get some of my ideas in the show. It jived for a while but after some time we talked and they weren’t really interested as much in my ideas but still wanted my help as a director and editor. I didn’t want to force it anymore and I wanted to find a way to get my own work made too, because my dream has always been writing and performing myself and not doing as much behind the camera. I would have worked on both but it was too much to handle the responsibility doing both shows. At that time I started taking notes and creating my show based off the ideas I’d been sitting on for a while. I love the Broad City work ethic. They put ideas into action fast and create a product very fast. I have worked on things much slower but the important lesson is that they get it done, and don’t give up. Before working with the girls I might not have seen my ideas come to life. It’s a bad pattern of just thinking of things and leaving them in your head. Get it on paper, tell your friends, get people together, film it, edit it, and put it out there. Then you see the rewards.

SO: What does a typical Rob Michael Hugel UCB show/performance look like?

Rob: Hmm I have been doing different things at the theatre for a while but I’ve had a few months recently doing a sketch on the sketch team Onassis. I am an actor on the team and we have really amazing writers. They put me in scenes that tend to be very odd and emotional. The other night in a sketch written by Benjamin Apple, I was a character who aggressively burst out the phrase, “DID I STUTTER?” and then broke into a monologue about how he used to be bullied and was picked on and how he hates bullies and wants to punch them in the face. It regressed into a tantrum of me shouting at an invisible bully “YOU SAY I STUTTER?? I PUNCH YOU!” I don’t know if that’s typical but it felt right to me. They give the actors a lot of creative control over the performance. If I could do something like that every week then life is good.

SO: Your new web series, I Hate Being Single, got accepted into the New York Television Festival for an original pilot, congrats! Tell us about I Hate Being Single, where the concept came from, and did stem from a time where you really hated being single?

Rob: Thank you! I HATE BEING SINGLE is a concept I’d been daydreaming about for a while. When I started working on a series I knew it would probably be autobiographical. I’ve been always into the comedian/observational humor of Woody Allen films, Seinfeld, Curb, and now even Louie. When I stopped working with Broad City I did have a kind of sad, breakup type of feeling. It reminded me of being single a little bit because we really liked working together and the end felt like a mutual breakup. I was thinking about a time in my life that had a lot of tension. It reminded me of this year when I had recently been dumped by a girl and I barely lived in NY for a few months. This particular time was hard because my best friends were still in Florida. I had no super close friends in NY and felt really transient. I would go to clubs and try to have fun there but knew it wasn’t really my scene. You end up hanging out with people whom you have so little in common with. It’s like your freshman year of college when you make friends who you never talk to again after the first two months of school. In general I’ve always been the kind of guy who is looking for a relationship. Even though the character of Rob in the show has more problems than just being single. In my mind it’s all summed up by that phrase because everything would be a little bit more tolerable if he was in a good relationship.

SO: Now that it has been accepted for an original pilot, what happens next?

Rob: We have filmed five episodes and I have scripts for two more. I want to get the last two filmed before releasing the series on a weekly schedule online. I’m excited for the festival and hope to meet some people to work with in the future to make the show last a long time and have a good place to be shown online. And if it got picked up for television that’d be cool I guess….jk it’d be sick!

____

____

SO: Who are some of your main influences in comedy?

Rob: From my young age to older: Peter Sellers, Gene Wilder, Pee Wee Herman, The Muppets, Bill Murray, Christopher Lloyd, Jim Carrey, Woody Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, John C. Reily, Stephen Merchant, Jason Schwartzman, Paul Feig, Judd Apatow, Louis CK.

SO: Describe your perfect New York City day.

Rob: My perfect New York City day would start off with me thinking I have to work that day. Maybe even on my way to a job. But on the way I find out I don’t have to go. I call my girlfriend; we go get some food in the Lower East Side and walk around, maybe shop a little. I’d pick up an Ipad while I’m at it. Why not? We end up at the park and walk around seeing a lot of funny and odd people, sit on the grass. Then we go to a movie and it’s really good! Nobody talks through the movie either. Some other friends meet up with us and we go out to dinner at a great restaurant that I can’t afford but why not? Then we head to UCB and perform. Get out, take the East River Ferry back to Brooklyn, get some ice cream and walk through the park. Go to a friend’s roof to hang out and have a few beers. Go home and watch True Blood!

SO: I better get a phone call before that day happens, sounds dreamy! Thanks Rob!

____

SO Note: Check out Rob’s website robmichaelhugel.com, and be sure to follow him on Twitter @RobMichaelHugel for goodness all around!