New series Crashing focuses on chasing comedy dream in New York City

Greg Kennedy

"Dying is easy, comedy is hard." While few agree which entertainer first uttered this ­enduring stage adage, even fewer will doubt its truth after watching Crashing.

The new HBO comedy, in which stand-up Pete Holmes relives his punishing struggle to find stand-up stardom, begins tonight on OSN First HD Home of HBO.

"Crashing is loosely based on my life," says Holmes, who rose to fame hosting a talk-show that ran for two seasons on TBS, appearing on Conan, podcasting (You Made It Weird) and drawing cartoons for The New Yorker.

“It’s about a comedian who gets his heart broken, and then has to fall into the canopy of New York comedy.”

Holmes stars as Pete, who ­after catching his wife, Jessica (­Orange Is the New Black's Lauren Lapkus), cheating on him, decides to move to New York City to chase his comedy dream.

"The only problem is that he's not really that good yet," says ­executive producer Judd ­Apatow, a solid stand-up comic in his own right, who went on to produce and direct hit comedy films ­including The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Trainwreck.

Thrown into the deep end of an inhospitable Big Apple comedy scene that is not for the faint of heart, the formerly sheltered Pete learns some hard lessons about life and comedy as he meets and learns from a who's who of stand-up talent who play themselves, including cynical sage Artie Lange (The Howard Stern Show), outrageous provocateur T J Miller (Silicon Valley) and caring motivator Sarah Silverman (A Million Ways to Die in the West).

While trying to make ends meet – and crashing on friends’ couches (hence the title of the show) – Pete adapts to the messiness of life as he finds goodness in the most unlikely places.

“Something that was really exciting in making this series was showing an aspect of comedy that I don’t think we’ve seen on TV before, which is, to be frank, how crappy it is when you’re just starting out,” says Holmes, 37, who adds that he is playing “a 2007 version of myself” .

“When you say, ‘I want to be a comedian,’ they say, ‘How badly?’ And then comedy throws all of these experiences at you, and that’s part of it,” he adds.

“These guys have forgone a regular life,” he says of his ­fellow-comedian co-stars.

“They’ve foregone, in many cases, a stable relationship. Or steady income. Because they’re really bleeding on the stage and giving it their all. I’m excited to bring that level of desperation to the screen, I think, maybe, for the first time.”

Some of his co-stars still bear the scars from painful ­early days.

“I did a set for two people once,” says Artie Lange. “They called me a loser – and I said, ‘You’re here watching me’.”

Hannibal Buress (Broad City, The Awkward Comedy Show) also had some tough times.

“I definitely slept on couches,” he says. “Slept on the train [too]. We’ve all been through this. Your favourite comics have been through all this [stuff] ... It’s ­inspiring. It’s motivating.”

"I slept in my car. I did that for a couple of months," says ­Henry Zebrowski (Your Pretty Face Is ­Going to Hell, Heroes Reborn).

Jermaine Fowler (Give 'Em Hell Kid, Superior Donuts) adds: "I used to sleep on air mattresses full of bedbugs. I don't know how bedbugs get in air mattresses, but they existed in mine. I didn't care. I was so happy on my own in New York."

Assembling such an authentic cast of comedians who went through similar struggles is something Apatow is proud of.

“The other comedians we got on the show are a dream team,” he says. “We always try to make the script as strong as we can make it, and then after getting a few takes, I like to let the actors play. Every time I’ve ever worked [this way], the actor has beaten the script.”

Holmes, who popped the ­question to his now-fiancée Valerie Chaney in a hot-air ­balloon this month, says he’s glad he overcame the obstacles.

“As I’m doing a show about ... all the things that comedians have to do when they’re coming up, I’m like, ‘I couldn’t do this [stuff] again. It’s just too hard’,” he says.

• Crashing begins on Monday (February 20) at half-past midnight on OSN First HD Home of HBO

artslife@thenational.ae