Jay Baruchel On ‘Man Seeking Woman’ Season Two And Finding Serenity In The Absurd

“I’ll be honest, my character has sex with a car so I don’t know if ‘proud’ is the word,” laughs Jay Baruchel. It’s true. He does. Right in the fuel tank. But don’t let the Man Seeking Woman star fool you (or the atypical car sex scare you away): the Canadian actor and Judd Apatow and Co. alumnus is practically singing with pride for his bizarre little series, now in its second season on FXX.

The surrealist romantic comedy, starring Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, This Is the End) and Eric André (The Eric André Show, Two Broke Girls), is already welcoming more viewership this second at bat after receiving somewhat polarizing reviews its debut season. Why the sudden change of heart? For starters, Man Seeking Woman is about as anti-establishment as it gets. And with storylines that push boundaries way, way past the point of comfortability, you can be certain you’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Perhaps, while scaring off the faint of heart with fantastical scenes that would make for nightmarish dream sequences anywhere else on TV, it’s invited audience members who are, well, sick and tired of the status quo.

Created by author turned showrunner Simon Rich, the series follows Josh Greenberg (Baruchel) in the immediate aftermath of his breakup with longtime girlfriend, Maggie. A hopeless romantic in the most literal sense of the term, Josh is desperate to find love once again — even if it means confronting Maggie, who is now dating Adolf Hitler (he was hiding out all these years). Fast forward to Season Two and Josh has his hopes up with Kelly, who’s wonderful, save for the fact she’d rather hang out with her friends at a haunted cabin in the woods where an ax-wielding lumberjack picks them off one by one. You see, Rich and his writers take what you might expect from your run-of-the-mill rom-com and satirize the done to death tropes in ways you never thought possible. I chatted with Baruchel about the comedic allure of masochism, working with a mind like Rich, and the upcoming sequel to his hockey cult phenomenon, Goon.

 

Decider: Congratulations on Season Two. What’s been different this time around?

Jay Baruchel: That’s a good question. I guess since we were sort of building on something, you know? The first time around we were kind of making something out of nothing. So [this time] we had layers to draw upon and a sort of history and backstory. I think that, combined with that fact that this season goes a bit deeper — for lack of a better word. It’s still sort of the crazy, insane shit that it was last year, but it’s a bit more complicated. There’s a bit more of a gray area this time, so I think it’s going to trick people — it’s going to surprise people. I think people are going to feel stuff they wouldn’t expect, even if they loved last year.

Now that Simon Rich has created his own sub-genre of the romantic comedy, do you two ever feel the urge to make things even more absurd for Josh?

Oh, I mean, always! We’re always trying to find awkward and often degrading situations we can put Josh through. I’m always amazed that Simon and the rest of the writers are able to constantly reinvent the show in a way, you know? We do kind of a little movie every episode and yeah, I guess I don’t know what that says about me — I’m some sort of masochist? I get real excited every time I get to read a script… what sort of humiliation are they going to put me through?

So have things gotten to be more challenging as they grow more absurd, deeper, and complicated?

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s more challenging, fun, and interesting. I always think the more you can try to multitask in any given scene, the better. And yeah, it definitely keeps you on your toes. There’s never a single boring day on the job of Man Seeking Woman.

I read that you are able to improv quite a bit on set, but is it tough to improv in certain situations that are more reliant on special effects or stunts?

I suppose, sometimes. Because just given the fact that those kind of situations take a bit more time. So you’re slightly more restricted to sort of try stuff. Maybe if you knew you had a bunch of takes that’s fine, but if you only have one or two; you only say something if you have something good otherwise you just keep it to yourself and do your thing. So yeah, I would say that’s definitely an element to it but also, as corny as it may sound, the goal of any scene — regardless of their stunts or special effects or if it’s just two people sitting on a couch — any improv is only really, really worth doing if it’s going to enrich the experience for the viewers, make it more entertaining, or push the story of the scene forward, you know? That’s not to say it’s not fun just to mess around sometimes too, you know? But yeah, the short answer to your question is, yes [laughs].

When I’m watching — especially this season — I feel that, while Josh’s world is purposely over-the-top, the situations he encounters are very much rooted in reality. I was curious as of how it’s been addressing those done to death rom-com stereotypes with a more bizarre take?

It makes it super fun. It’s just like, the best part of this gig, for sure… That we all get to do something that no one else is doing and, you know, it’s hard to not be constantly engaged and psyched and proud of what you’re doing. So yeah, it’s always a good time and one of the coolest things is taking these tropes that everyone is sort of used to and flipping them on their ass and doing something really crazy with them.

I loved the season premiere, though I feel Episode Two, “Feather,” AKA the one with “The Kyle” is one of the series’ best. Is there a standout moment in this season that you’re especially proud of?

It’s funny, I don’t know if “proud” is always the word with this show. Because, I’ll be honest, my character has sex with a car so I don’t know if proud is the word [laughs]. I’ll say that there is a whole bunch of awesome stuff that makes me laugh pretty hard. And the other fun thing is that I actually haven’t seen most of them. I’ve probably seen as many episodes as you have so I’m super psyched to get to seem them! That’s another fun part of the gig: to watch them like everyone else does.

 

Before you met Simon Rich and signed on to the show, had you ever heard of his short stories collection, The Last Girlfriend On Earth?

No, I hadn’t, but I’ll say when I was given it to read, I read it in a day and I don’t think I’ve ever done that before. When I read the script I just sort of inhaled it, I was just like, Holy shit, this is pretty awesome. So anything else I could read of his I was pretty excited about. He’s a genius, man. He’s actually one of the few people who deserve to be called a genius.

Kind of switching gears: I’ve always been a fan of your work with the Judd Apatow alumni group, but it’s  fun to see how you’ve carved out your own comedic path that feels very unique to your specific kind of comedy. Are you allowed to talk a little bit about the upcoming Goon sequel — Goon: Last of the Enforcers — that’s coming out?

Oh definitely, yeah! Thanks for asking. Yeah, it’s going to be crazy [laughs]. It’s really, really crazy. We’re not done; there’s still a bunch of work to be done on it, but yeah I was pretty excited to get to direct it. We tried to go as truthfully and as hard as we could because a lot of people dig the first one so there is a bit of weight of expectation that we didn’t have the first time. Sort of like Man Seeking Woman, to be honest. But I’m just really excited for everyone to get to see it because I think we served the characters and the story and hopefully the fans of the first one… hopefully we served them all pretty well.

As an actor who gets to flex that directorial muscle, would you recommend all actors hop behind the camera for a little while?

I know that, personally, it’s all I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid — since I was eight or nine years old before I even started acting. My acting was always a means of getting on set and getting to learn how to make movies. So I’ll say that: hell yeah. It definitely makes me sort of understand and re-learn acting from a whole other perspective, one hundred percent. And hopefully, if I can’t come away from it better then there’s probably something wrong with me.

[Stream Season Two of Man Seeking Woman on FXNOW and catch up on Hulu]

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Photos: FXX