A few days ago, we brought you part one of our interview with Joe Moses, actor, Team Starkid member, and all-around awesome dude. We talked about his massive upcoming show on March 5th, at the El Rey Theatre in Hollywood. In Part Two, we go in depth with Joe about many topics, including the craft of acting, the Potter canon, his dream world tour, and the negative side to sudden Youtube success. We also discuss his involvement in Team Starkid’s last show, Starship, and how his famous Potion Master’s Corner interviews nearly never happened. He also answers some questions from our Hypable Twitter followers, and we get some scoop about a potential JMOMS in Chicago to co-incide with the opening weekend of Starkid’s new show, Holy Musical B@man. We hope you enjoy this very interesting and illuminating chat with Joe, and stay tuned at the end for info on his LA show!
Natalie Fisher: Your song, Guys Like Potter, is the only time in the shows, at all, that I cried. I cried in that because I have a big Snape/Lily thing, so it was very – it was done very respectfully and it showed that they [the writers] were paying attention to a lot of aspects of the books. Were you a big fan of Potter before the shows? I know some of you guys weren’t, and it was just something that sort of happened and now you got thrown into the Harry Potter fandom…
(Joe Moses performing Guys Like Potter as Snape in Team Starkid’s “A Very Potter Sequel”.)
Joe Moses: No, I was not like that. I was a fan. I like to read. I’m a reader. So I had read – I remember my mom gave me – I think by the time I started reading them, the third one was about to come out. So I was a little behind on it. But I was still eleven years old, or something like that, when I got the first book, and then every year when it would come out, since I’d read them and liked them so much, I would get them that night, I would get them on the release day and I would literally sit down and read the whole book in one night. I would just stay up all night and read the whole book – even Goblet of Fire, even the last one, I just read the whole thing in one day, I didn’t put it down once I started. So I loved the books in that regard, just because I love a good story and I love mysteries, and she does such a wonderful job of keeping you guessing. Every Potter book is a little mystery book as well. So I was a fan of that. I was not as in-depth of a fan as the writers were, because they were meticulous. Matt, Nick and Brian were meticulous about that, they were very interested.
NF: Did you think Snape was evil or good? Did you suspect? As Snape, what did you expect from that?
Joe: At first, I think like everyone, the very first book, I was like “oh, he’s evil, like, clearly he’s evil.” And then you find out he’s not, and you go “oh, okay, he’s just a jerk I guess.” And so for a long time, I really didn’t think of him… throughout, the only thing that really threw me was when he made the Unbreakable Vow. That’s when I was like “I don’t know where this is going.” But even in Book Six when he kills Dumbledore, I interpreted it what turned out to be correctly.
NF: Me too. That was a bit off-track, sorry. I wanted to ask a couple of things about Starship as well. Darren has been pretty free and easy about saying that Starship will realistically actually go to Broadway or Off-Broadway. Is that something that you know anything about, if that will ever happen?
Joe: I don’t know any more details, probably, than you would know, because, to be honest, WE don’t know. He’s right in saying it’s a real possibility, because I know that we have talked with different people who could make that happen, but there’s a certain amount of things that would need to change about it. You would not recognise the show if it went up there, it would have to be changed. But I think it would be a good change, I think it would be productive re-writes and more music and stuff like that. So I definitely think it’s a possibility, it’s just a matter of when that becomes a priority. Starkid just announced the “Holy Musical B@man”, which is awesome, so obviously the core of Starkid is focused on that right now. Darren, of course, is focused on Glee right now. So when the stars align, and everyone is on the same page, I think it’s a very real possibility but until that time we’re just not sure.
NF: Fair enough. Another big Starship question that a lot of people have asked: we know that Darren conceptualised a lot of that show before he got Glee – was he meant to have a role in it? What was his original role going to be in the cast?
Joe: In those early preliminary stages, it was originally a joke between Joe Walker and Darren. That was the whole script. And of course, then, the Lang Brothers became involved with it and got in on the joke, and Brian [Holden, Starkid’s co-writer], and they were like “yeah, okay, we could do this, we could really make this happen!” And I’m not sure exactly who Darren was going to be, if he was going to be in it, because characters changed, from the final product. There used to be all kinds of different characters in there, and characters had different names. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be in it until after it was already announced and ready to go, until I think it was after the New Year – we started rehearsing two weeks later – that I knew I was going to be playing Krayonder. So I’m not sure which role Darren would have played, if he did play a role.
NF: Fair enough. A lot of people thought maybe Roach, because Brant [Cox, a guest at the upcoming JMOMS event] was brought in later on, or maybe Tootsie because Dylan [Saunders] had two major roles in the same show – though I can’t imagine either of those roles not being played by Dylan.
Joe: Yeah, it’s wonderful, that was such a good show for Dylan, he was like a tour de force, it was awesome.
NF: If you could take the JMOMS or a Starkid show on a world tour, where would you most want to go, both for yourself and for what you’ve heard of the fan base?
Joe: Oh man, I would like to go so many places. If I had my dream, I would travel all over the world. I would like nothing more than to just be like, jet-set, for an entire month, to go around and see everybody. That would make my year. Obviously I’d like to go to the UK a lot, because I know we have a ton of fans in the UK that don’t get to come over and see us, and it just makes sense with the Potter connection that there’s a ton of people in the UK who’d be interested. Also Australia is another place I’d love to go, because I’ve seen some of our Australian fans come here, yourself included, to come and see events, and it seems like all our Australian fans are so dedicated and it’s such an investment for you guys to get our here but you do it and I think that’s amazing, it’s so cool that you’re willing to take that risk and go out for something that you love to do. So I would love to come back and see you guys, that would be fantastic, it’s just a matter of making sure – it’s just a financial matter honestly, to make sure that when we got out there – first of all that we could GET out there and second of all that when we did that we’d make our money back! Just break even. If I could do the whole thing and break even, I would. I’d love to just have that experience, just to go with you guys. I’d also really love to go to South America. I know that we have a lot of fans in Brazil and Argentina. My ideal tour would be to take the whole US, and then go over to the UK, and then – I don’t know how this works geographically – but I think the UK to Australia. That’s a flight that’s possible, right?
NF: Yeah, that’s via Asia, you could stop off in Asia. The Philippines, there’s a lot of Starkid fans there; I see them online a lot.
Joe: Yeah, and then I’d come back through South America, and then go home. That would be – If I could do a world tour, I would do a world tour. I’d love to do it; it’s just not possible right now, unfortunately.
NF: Are there any downfalls to your fan base coming from sudden YouTube success as opposed to, as a comedian, ground roots, open mic stuff? Or do you think that you’ve got an advantage?
Joe: It’s an advantage in a lot of ways, because I have this luxury of knowing that people will want to see what I do, which is incredible, it’s a blessing. Comedians go years and years and years without ever having that. So that, I think, is just a straight-up blessing, it’s just like right off, boom. That’s awesome. The danger of it, and I think it’s something we all consciously fight very hard against, is the ‘flash in the pan’ thing. You do your one trick that people like, and then you go and you’re done and that’s it. And so this show, for me, the Joe Moses Showses, and I think Starship for Starkid, and B@man, these things, are sort of our ways of working backwards, where’s it’s like – we did this thing with an audience, and now we’re going to take that time and, no matter what the cost, we’re going to develop our craft and our material, and we’re going to get better at performing, we’re going to get better as we do it, so that it’s a product that everyone can enjoy. I’ve had to do a lot of working backwards, I know, because my first little run – I used to go and do open mics and not tell anybody I was going to do them, I still do that every now and then in New York, just to practice. And I know that if I let everybody know, and made it an event, that people would probably come. Hopefully! It’s always a nerve-wracking thing for a performer, to see – even when you’re us, or you’re Starkid, you’re still a little bit like “oh, are people going to come and see us? I’m not sure.” It’s never promised, it’s never guaranteed. But we’re grateful for it. And so I like to go back and do a lot of the homework without telling anybody. I’ll do open mics, or when I was first starting the shows, I did a couple of them without telling anybody, just for people locally, just the people that were around me, really small audiences, just ten or fifteen people there, just to make sure, just to workshop.
NF: Would you consider yourself primarily a comedian, or would you be up for acting in plays or television or things like that? Or is the comedy path the one that you want to focus on?
Joe: I would say that I’m an actor first. I think that what I’ve been working on now is more comedic, but it’s comedy acting. There’s very little stand-up in what I do, there’s very little “punchline, joke”, it’s more like sketch acting or character acting in funny situations. So sort of “acting for comedy” is what I’m working on now, but originally, and still, I trained – I have a degree in acting. And my training was not comedic at all. We had some, obviously, comedy plays, and we had one clown class, but if you asked my friends from college about what I’m doing now, compared to the plays I did in college, it’s a world away. I was doing some dark stuff, dark, mean, aggressive dramas, and really sort of complex and nasty characters sometimes. I love playing all kinds of characters, so I’ve definitely played some surprisingly dark characters before, and would be open to do it again, because it’s a lot of fun and part of the versatility that is something that I really, really enjoy.
NF: What are some of the favourite roles that you’ve done that we wouldn’t know about, from plays in school? Were these usually plays that were original, other students wrote them, or – I know that Devin [Lytle, a guest at the upcoming JMOMS event] was in a production of the Crucible – were these known plays?
Joe: Yeah, we did a lot of that. One of my favourites was: – I was in a Caryl Churchill play called “A Number”, and I played three different characters who are genetic copies of each other. So the first one is sort of close to my normal self, where he grew up with just him and his dad, and he’s a twenty-something, just a normal, slightly nervous English kid – we did British accents, me and my professor were the only two people in the play. Then his genetic – the original – it turns out this kid’s a clone and the original is this rough, Cockney, tough British street thug, basically. And then the third version is this very well put-together, educated, mathematics professor. And it’s all me switching between those three different roles, and that was a lot of fun. That was one of my favourite roles I’ve ever played, because of that very reason, I get to be three completely different people in the course of an hour, and they just happen to look and sound alike. So that was a lot of fun.
NF: Who are your biggest influences then, comedically, or musically, or in the theatre, whatever you draw from or have appreciated?
Joe: There’s a couple of different things. There are actors who I look at and I go “I would like to have a career like that”, or they started in a similar way to how I did, and I think that’s really awesome. One actor that I really look up to is Hugh Laurie.
NF: I was about to say! When you were saying that you were doing comedy acting, and that you consider yourself an actor, I was thinking “you can be the next Hugh Laurie!” I was about to interrupt you and say that!
Joe: He is one of my favourites, for that very reason. Because his career arc – hopefully mine will be somewhat similar, I would die for that – he started off in theatre, with classical theatre training, then he and Stephen Fry did “A Bit of Fry and Laurie”, which is one of my favourite shows, and that’s a lot like what I’m doing right now actually.
NF: Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking the whole time, because I don’t watch SNL, I don’t know SNL very well, but I am a very big fan of British comedy, and what you’re talking about – I’m a very big fan of both of those people, of Stephen and Hugh and I’ve read Stephen’s books about how they got together, so that’s that I’ve been thinking the whole time, “this sounds like Fry and Laurie sketches.”
Joe: Right. And the whole time, he was working – A Bit Of Fry and Laurie was four seasons, and then after that he was working in film and television, British television, American television, film, blah blah blah, as much as he could, and then finally, later in his career, House came along and now, that’s how everyone knows him. But look! He’s got this whole backlog of genius work from before, leading up to House, so I think that’s really great.
NF: That’s a pretty good inspiration; I will definitely pay that one! I have some fan questions as well, just to finish up with, I just tweeted and we have some questions.
@R_ProudLibyan asks “if you could go to any imaginary world, what would it be and why?”
Joe: Okay, let me think about that one. It’s so hard for me to say because it’s whatever I just read or watched, I’ll be like “oh, I want to go to THAT world.” One that I really would like to go to is a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. I would like to be there, just because I so badly want to be either a Jedi or a Mandalore. I am a Star Wars fanboy, I am a straight up Star Wars fanboy. I mean, of course, Harry Potter, the world of witchcraft and wizardry is so cool too. There’s so many wonderful, imaginative worlds, I would love to be a part of that.
NF: @Sydney_Mook asks “if you could guest star on any TV show, what would it be and why?”
Joe: Ooh, right now? One that’s on right now?
NF: I guess you could say one that doesn’t run any more if you’d like to have inserted yourself…
Joe: Well, it’s a tough call too, because I always sort of preface these things by being a little bit like “well, there’s a lot of practicality involved.” It’s hard for me to separate the practicality, because I’m like, “well, who would I play? Reasonably? That show’s already full of great people, they don’t need me on it.” But I would love to – if I could do a spot on Parks and Rec, I love that show, it’s so much fun. It’s such a happy – I like the kind of comedy that they do, where it’s funny and it’s silly, but it’s all character-based, and it’s all in all not too… it’s not rude, and it’s not dirty, it’s not aggressive, it’s very quirky, quirky is a good word for it.
NF: I was going to say I’d like to see you in a guest spot on Community.
Joe: Yeah! Community’s another great example! I would love – that’s perfect. I would love something like Community, too, because I think all of those guys are so funny. Donald Glover is another actor I look to and go “he’s doing it. He’s doing it right.”
NF: Someone else, @ViolinieStarkid, asks “which role did you like better, Snape or Krayonder?”
Joe: That’s so hard, that’s like choosing between your children. I mean, if I had to choose, I would say Snape, particularly for the Sequel, because, like we were talking about, we got to go into so much emotional depth, and some real, true stuff from that character, that was a lot of fun for me.
NF: Speaking of that, I was going to ask as well – with doing the Potion Master’s Corner skits, which I know is sometimes a part of the JMOMS and you also did at Leaky, but online – you were one of the first of the group to really put that out there as your individual self, how did you start doing the Potion Master’s Corner videos, like “yeah, we’re going to do these interviews.” Was that quite soon after the Potter shows came out?
Joe: Oh, you have no idea, this was like, during.
NF: Oh! That actually makes an amazing amount of sense, okay.
Joe: I love doing the character, it was so much fun. Immediately after the thing went viral, before Potion Master’s Corner, there’s a couple of videos with me, in my room on my desk, and basically I looked over and was like “I have the wig. I still have the wig. I could do this. I can write, I’m creative, I know this character.” So I did a little video announcement being like [his Snape voice] “hello, this is very funny.” And people loved it, they were like ‘haha, Snape out of context, hilarious!’ and I looked at it and was like “yeah, I could do something like that.” So when we went back for the Potter Sequel, literally I did all of those, all of season one, all in one day. And it came together – it almost didn’t happen and I’m so happy that it did, because so many people have enjoyed it, but it was almost – I brought a camera and my buddy brought a camera, Ben Friedman who directed that and edited it, he’s so funny, and we were going to use another camera and one of the cameras got locked in a room we didn’t have access to, and the microphone setup was bad, and I had to run across the street and buy a tape, because I forgot tapes, and blah blah blah, and it was literally just last minute while we had some break time, during Potter Sequel, I was like “alright, alright, sit down, let’s do this.” And Joe Walker was the first one had I talked to, because I’d pitched the idea to him before, and he thought it was funny. So Walker was the first one, we sat down and he and I just did the interview, improvised, and I had so much fun doing it. I was kind of nervous at first, but I had so much fun doing it, and then the other cast members had been around, kind of watching it, and they were like “oh okay, I’ll do it.”
(The first Potion Master’s Corner, with Joe Walker)
NF: Was it all improv, just knowing each other well enough to play off each other?
Joe: It was 100% improvisation, if you can believe it.
NF: It was so funny. So funny. That’s one thing I do really love about you guys as well, you particularly, the amount that working with people you know well – watching a group that knows each other well enough to play, like that, without a lot of preparation, is something really amazing.
@HarlsQ said “I’d like to know how you prepared to play Snape in A Very Potter Musical?”
Joe: It started as a character idea, from Matt and Nick Lang, and Brian, they had an idea for the character and they told me what they had in mind, and then I came up with sort of my own idea, like every acting thing, you take your influences from real life, and things you want to mimic, and you apply them to this imaginary circumstance with the lines you’re given, and then I also made up a ton of lines for those shows, as you can probably tell somewhere, just flat-out made up, we do a lot of that. And then from there it was just back and forth, finding what was funny. Rehearsal – although we rehearse quickly, rehearsal is a great time to try those things out, and part of the beauty of Starkid is that the product we start with is not the product we end with, there’s a lot of growth in between that. And it just comes from some fearless flying, where you’re out there in rehearsal, and you’re with friends, and you know it’s safe, so you try something new. And if it’s funny, it stays, and if it’s not, you try something else. But in terms of physical preparation? Just a lot of stretching and water, and a couple of times massaging my own neck so it didn’t get too sore with my jaw clenched like that.
NF: I didn’t realise until I saw you at LeakyCon how physical it must have been to hold that character, and then meeting you as well, then I was like “wow, that is really full-on, intense character work.” It was very impressive actually.
Joe: Yeah, the funny thing – when I started doing the Sequel again, I had played another one or two characters, I had done two shows between the first Potter and the Sequel, so, you know, it was like that character was sort of out of me, so I had to get back into it. And after the first two days of rehearsal I was like “Man! My neck hurts for some reason! I don’t know what it is…” and then I made the face and I was like, “oh yeah, nope, that’s it.” Strengthen those neck muscles, okay!
NF: I guess to finish up, if you’ve thought of anything else you’d like to say?
Joe: I’m looking forward to seeing Holy Musical B@man, I think it’s going to be great, so I’ll see you all in Chicago right around that time, hopefully you can come down and make it. And just let me know – I’m always interested in moving the Joe Moses Showses to different places, and part of the beauty of it is it’s a pretty small cast and it’s a pretty short show, it’s a low-demand show in terms of technical and costume and stuff, so we’re hoping to be able to take it around to see some new people in the next couple of months.
NF: Any chance there might be a Chicago show the night before, the night that B@man’s not on?
Joe: If there was a JMOMS in Chicago, it would probably be after the first weekend of B@man. And is there a chance of that? Yes. Is it a sure thing? No. But if there happened to be a Joe Moses Showses in Chicago, it would be on Monday March 19th.
NF: Just so everyone knows. Just maybe.
Joe: In case you were wondering if there might be one, that’s when it probably would be. If there was one.
NF: Cool. We shall look forward to that. Thank you so much for talking to us.
Joe: My pleasure.
NF: I know that it’s been very busy, you’ve had your Washington DC shows, and your last New York shows, they went well?
Joe: Yes, they did! I was very happy with that. It’s always a little nerve-wracking to try something new, but you’ve got to step out of your comfort zone to get some kind of growth going. So yeah, we had a lot of fun.
NF: Someone has just asked – one last question which is something is something I’ve wanted to ask as well – @Daniharrypotter asks “where did the panda hat come from and why pandas?”
NF: Well, China, hit up Joe on Twitter.
Joe: Yeah, if you’re from China, drop me a line, say “Ni Hao, Joe!”
NF: On that note, thank you again for taking time to talk with us, and break a leg! We’ll post this as soon as possible, and we’ll post after your LA JMOMS, reporting on what happens, letting everyone know who the secret special guests were, because we’ll probably be stalking it online.
Joe: Nice! Good. Well, thank you Natalie!
Follow Joe –
Twitter: @thejoemoses
Tumblr: http://thejoemoses.tumblr.com/
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/thejoemoses
Joe Moses performs at the El Rey Theatre, on March 5th 2012 and will meet with fans after the performance at Whimsic Alley, right across the street.
The show will feature J.D. Durkin, (@jddurkin), Joey Richter (@joeyrichter), Brian Rosenthal (@brian_rosenthal), Devin Lytle (@devdevnumnums), Brant Cox (@brantcox) and Tessa Netting (@tessanetting) as well as some super special, super secret, super celebrity LA-based guests who won’t be announced until they show up onstage.