Deadpan delivery

Apr. 14—details

—Todd Barry

—6:30 and 9 p.m., Friday, April 14

—Tickets: $35-$100; 505-466-5528, jeancocteaucinema.com

You know him by his voice. You know him by his face. And you know him by his rigor mortis-emulating deadpan delivery.

Todd Barry, deviously funny comedian and connoisseur of secondary markets, is aiming to make his mark in Santa Fe for the first time at the Jean Cocteau Cinema on Friday, April 14. If you're vigilant, you may just see him downtown.

"I've never been someone who just sits in their hotel," Barry says of touring from city to city. "I usually walk around, and if something happens when I walk around, I'll talk about it if it's something funny or an observation about the city. But I'm not going to have 20 minutes on Santa Fe."

Barry, a University of Florida graduate, has performed several stand-up specials and played a version of himself on Louis C.K.'s show Louie. He had a meaty role in Darren Aronofsky's critically acclaimed film The Wrestler.

And if you like cartoons? You've heard his voice on Bob's Burgers, Dr. Katz, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies, and Home Movies.

Barry, who has also turned up in guest roles on Chappelle's Show and Flight of the Conchords, says he really likes voice-over acting.

"I want to do more of it," he says. "The scripts are usually interesting, and I shouldn't say this, but it's easy. You show up, and you don't have to look good or smell good."

Barry, who also has a past life as a rock band drummer, made a memorable appearance with Jerry Seinfeld on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in 2012. As they cruised through Manhattan in a 1966 MGB Roadster, the two comics traded laughs and observations about life. The show revealed how the two are a study in contrasts: Seinfeld is effusive and Barry is reticent.

Pull Quote

Seinfeld describes Barry at one point as a "very dry" standup comedian, adding that he'd love to have Barry's life as a steadily touring comic. Later, inside a restaurant, they discuss the comic's off-stage mien.

"It helps that you're a relaxed guy," Seinfeld says. "You don't seem like a guy with a lot of tension."

"Oh, that's not true," Barry retorts. "I'm just mellow."

Seinfeld does the mental math and offers a whip-smart reply: "So you're mellow and tense?"

Today, more than a decade later, Barry recalls that interaction. While his group of friends reads like a Rolodex of famous comedians, he says he really didn't know Seinfeld before that day.

"He called me and got my number somehow and left this funny message," he says. "I think I was a little shy around him, but I'm a little shy to begin with. It probably didn't have the same dynamic as one he did with Jay Leno or someone he's known for a long time."

In recent years, Barry has tried unorthodox methods to share his humor. He wrote a book, Thank You for Coming to Hattiesburg: One Comedian's Tour of Not-Quite-the-Biggest Cities in the World in 2017, in which he reflects on his comedy-tour stops to lesser-known locales.

"Performing in these smaller places can be great because not all entertainers stop there on tour; they don't expect to see you," he says in the book's introductory blurb. "They're appreciative. They say things like, 'Thank you for coming to Hattiesburg' as much as they say 'Nice show.'"

A few years before the book, he tried a comedy special without preparing material. That album, The Crowd Work Tour, features Barry riffing and roasting members of the audience. The comic also kept himself busy with a podcast, although he put it on hiatus after 200 episodes.

As for the future, Barry has a completed standup special ready to go once he has a distributor and has written a screenplay that he hopes to develop. Regarding his writing process, Barry says he's steady and methodical but not obsessive about creating new material.

"I write as fast as I can. I'm trying to write even more," he says. "Lately, I've been trying to kick it up a notch and journal; things like that."

Barry says he's been friends with Sarah Silverman since she was 19, and he's toured with Jim Tews, Ken Reid, and Liz Miele. One of his former opening acts, Janelle James, is a breakout star as a cast member on Abbott Elementary.

"She's surpassed me," he says. "But she's also a very cool person."

Barry never really thought about being a comic until after he graduated college, and it took him about a decade of road work to go from small clubs to having a comedy special. He's seen the boom-and-bust cycle of content, with Netflix receding as the home for standup comedy specials, and he reflects on whether it's harder today to make a name for yourself in standup.

"I don't know if it's harder, but there are different avenues," he says. "When I started, there was no YouTube. There was no internet; if there was internet, it was like four people in the world who had it. Way back when I first started, if you did [The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson], it could change your life if it went well. That was before they had 800 channels. But now you can have something go viral. I don't know how, but sometimes I hear about a comic I've never heard of playing a big place, and it's like, 'Oh that's a big TikTok guy.' OK."