After touring his “Pissing Out Cancer” standup comedy special, YouTube star Hank Green made one significant change to the set the night before filming the televised version for indie streamer Dropout, and that decision was in part thanks to Keanu Reeves.
“Because there was a pretty big gap between the last time I toured it and when I was going to be filming the special, I came to LA early and did eight shows over six days before I shot the special just to brush up,” Green told Variety. “And the night before the special, I rewrote the ending. And we filmed it twice so we could cut between them if I made any mistakes. But I only did the ending that made it in the special one time.”
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At the risk of ruining a joke by explaining it, Green breaks down the small but significant change like this: “I knew I needed the last line to be a good thing. So the special ends, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about the Baltimore Orioles, and either they’re going to get me or I’m going to get them.’ And that was the end of the show. But I added a line which is, ‘Either way, what comes next is going to be beautiful,’ which is based on a Keanu Reeves quote.”
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The quote isn’t from “The Matrix” or “John Wick,” but from an interview Reeves did on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in May 2019.
“When he was asked, ‘What do you think happens after we die?,’ he said, ‘I know that the ones who love us will miss us,'” Green said. “So to turn away from, ‘What is my experience of sickness and death?,’ to ‘What is the human experience?’ And I’m just one piece of human experience, and the things that come after me will also be beautiful. So in the last line of my show, I wanted to say, this whole show has been about me, but actually, the whole show is about humans and the experience of being human: a weird jumble of cells that’s experiencing the universe. That line is the line that I wrote and added to the end of the show, and it changed it a lot for me.”
Green’s “Pissing Out Cancer” special is based on his experience being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in May 2023 and what the iconic science nerd learned about the disease throughout his treatment. Now in remission, Green decided to learn and practice standup comedy while going through cancer treatment, doing weekly performances at a theater in Missoula, Montana with a standup coach until nailing it enough he felt comfortable taking it on tour.
Then Dropout (formerly CollegeHumor) CEO Sam Reich got a look at a rough cut from Green and they struck a deal to film a polished version for the streamer, which has an existing relationship with Green through his guest star role on Dungeons & Dragons-playing show on “Dimension 20.” And after this, Green would like to do more.
“I watch pretty much everything they make. I think I would be too intimidated to be on ‘Very Important People,’ but extremely comfortable being on ‘Breaking News.’ I think I could kill it on ‘Breaking News.’ I’ve not filmed anything with them since this, but I would love to. I live in Montana, so it’s kind of a pain to get to LA and do stuff.”
In fact, Green was approached by Reich to be involved in the recent season finale of Dropout’s “Game Changer,” a two-part episode called “Ratfish” that’s based on the reality series “The Circle,” but wasn’t able to make it work. “Sam was very persuasive, and he almost got me there, but I did not show up,” Green said, adding that he would consider it again in the future: “There are times when I watch ‘Game Changer’ and I’m like, ‘I could do that.’ And there are times when I watch and I’m like, ‘I could definitely not do that.’ But Sam is extremely encouraging.”