Nate Dern: The _Heeb_ Interview

Some of you may know Nate Dern as the lovable nerd who made it all the way to the finals on reality show Beauty and the Geek. At Heeb, we know him as the dude who played Dov Charney in that awesome Upright Citizens Brigade sketch (click on the link if you have retrograde amnesia and can’t recall a post we did, like, two days ago). Dern is a razor-sharp actor, comedian, writer and video maker from Brooklyn, out to make his bones in the big city—presumably by expertly embodying Jewish douchebags. He recently talked with Heeb about Charney, his reality TV days and deep-neck Vs.

You recently appeared as Dov Charney in an Upright Citizens Brigade sketch. What did you do to get into character?

I watched videos of Dov online. I watched one called Chasing Dov about 50 times. I spent one night listening to Dov say a sentence, then I’d pause and try saying the sentence like he did, complete with gesticulations and intonations. Dov speaks with this flowing rhythm, where he builds and slows at unexpected times. That was fun to try and imitate. I think that by the end of the night my girlfriend was ready to kick me out of the apartment.

Why was Charney chosen as an object of ridicule? (Was it because of the deep-neck Vs?) Were you involved at all in the conception of the sketch? Or did you just act in it?

My friend Todd Bieber conceived of, wrote, and directed the video. I think that Todd chose Dov and American Apparel because it was something that was widely recognizable, but that hadn’t really been ridiculed in this particular way. We saw a few other parody videos of Dov out there, and most of them portrayed Dov as being mean. We wanted to stay away from that and try to do something new and more genuine. I don’t agree with his views on feminism, but I also don’t think that he is a mean-spirited guy by any means. He loves what he does and seems to be enthusiastic and jazzed about what he is doing most of the time. I think that Will Hines, who plays the male ‘middle America’ model in the video and also produced the video, said it best. After watching an online interview with Dov, Will turned to me and said, ‘I’ve had more self doubts in the last 10 minutes than that man has had in his entire life.’ The man loves what he is doing and really believes in himself, which is admirable. I guess we wanted to stay true to that while trying to focus on the ridiculousness of the ‘everyday sexy’ concept.

Do you own any articles of clothing from American Apparel?

I do actually. In fact, I’m wearing an American Apparel shirt right now, and I think that I was the only actor in the video who didn’t have to be given any additional pieces of clothing because I had a full American Apparel outfit in my current wardrobe. When Todd approached me to be in the video and before I really knew what it was all about, I told him that I had to confess that I actually owned a few American Apparel garments, but he replied by saying that he wasn’t against American Apparel. American Apparel treats their factory employees relatively well, pays them a minimum wage and is fighting for immigrant rights in Los Angeles. Plus, who doesn’t love a nice deep-neck V?

I know I do. How did you get involved with UCB?

When I was a freshman in college in 2003 or so I went to New York with my college improv team to see a show at the UCB theater. We saw The Swarm, a team that now holds legend status amongst the UCB community. At the time I remember being completely blown away and just being like, ‘Woah, I didn’t know that this was something that could be done. I want to be a part of this.’ When it is done well, long-form improv comedy is one of the most beautiful, wonderful things that a human being can take part in, and I think that the UCBT is the best improv theater in the world. I moved to New York specifically with the goal of taking classes and eventually performing at the UCB. I took my first UCB class about a year and a half ago with Bobby Moynihan (of SNL) and Charlie Todd (of Improv Everywhere) and have taken a bunch since then. I’m not on a house improv team, but I recently found out that I was chosen to be an actor on one of the house sketch teams, Thunder Gultch. I’ll be performing with them at upcoming Maude Nights. Keep an eye out. The UCB has shows seven nights a week and they’re all fantastic.

Do you have a day job as well?

No. You guys hiring?

Ha! From reality star to Heeb intern, perhaps? That kind of feeds into my next question, actually. I guess you could say that you got your start on Beauty and the Geek–has that helped with your career?

It is hard to say if it has helped. I don’t think I know yet. When people find out that you’ve been on a reality television show, it certainly evokes a reaction most of the time. I can tell people that I once nearly died from a parasite that I contracted while traveling alone in Morocco and they won’t really bat an eyelash, but mention TV and people get interested and start asking questions. I guess that makes sense. So I suppose it gives me a little something extra, but I don’t think that it has really helped in a big way. I don’t have a legit agent or anything. I tried to get an agent right after the show aired, but not a single agency would return my calls or e-mails. Reality TV shows are so prevalent these days, I don’t think it carries too much weight. Sometimes I’m worried that it actually might hurt my career, stain me as a ‘reality television’ persona and thus not actually talented or intelligent. Ultimately, though, I don’t think it will really matter too much. If I’m good and I work hard, I’ll find success. If I do or don’t make it in comedy, it wasn’t because of Beauty and the Geek.

What have you been up to since you got to New York? Have you done a lot of stand-up? Or has most of your energy gone into producing sketches for the web/TV? What have you been working on lately?

I used to do stand-up a few times a week, but lately my creative energy has mostly been devoted to improv, editing videos for UCBcomedy.com, and working on my weekly vlog, Quarterlife Pounder, where I answer questions submitted by viewers. You should submit a question.

I’ll have to do that. Or our readers should. You hear that, readers? Well, here’s my last question (for this interview at least). You recently got your master’s from Cambridge University, how has this helped with your comedy? Did intensive film studies help you better channel the complicated soul that is Dov Charney?

I’d like to think that there is no area in my life that my intensive film studies don’t help, but I’m not sure if that is actually the case. I think that Dov would make an interesting subject for a film, documentary or fiction. I’d want to see that.

What do you think?