Courtesy of Artists First
It’s been a couple of years since actor, comedian, and Rochester, Minnesota native Johnny Pemberton has performed in his home state. On Sunday, he returns to Minnesota with a stand-up set at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis.
Since his first-ever performance as a headliner at Mystic Lake Casino in Shakopee, Pemberton has earned a recurring role on hit Amazon show “Fallout” as Thaddeus, an initiate in a mysterious, cultish military organization known as the Brotherhood of Steel who turns into a ghoul (a sort of zombie mutant, for the uninitiated) after taking a mysterious medicine for a foot injury. He also recently starred in the horror/thriller/dark comedy “Mermaid,” where he plays Doug, an anti-social drug addict who takes in an injured mermaid off the Florida coast.
Pemberton’s background in stand-up comedy might lead you to believe that his acting skills are primarily founded on his speaking ability, thus playing a quieter, more brooding character in Doug might not be the most straightforward pick, but “Mermaid” writer and director Tyler Cornack—who also wrote and directed horror comedies “Butt Boy” and “Tiny Cinema”—saw something more.
“When (Cornack) pitched that movie to me, I was kind of surprised. I was like, ‘you think I’m this guy?” Pemberton says. “Classic case of someone else believing in you more than yourself.”
If you really look at Pemberton’s background, it isn’t much of a stretch. Before he got into stand-up, his introduction to comedy was in improv and sketch work. Sketch and improv comedy are, generally speaking, more physical than stand-up, and Pemberton’s physical capabilities were put on display in “Mermaid.”
“It’s nice when you don’t have to talk because you can physicalize something as opposed to having to use your words, which, I don’t know, I think words are pretty overrated,” he says.
At one point in the movie, Doug’s drug dealer Ron, played by Robert Patrick, and his son Gator, played by Tyler Rice, go to Doug’s house to collect some money he owes them. Gator, thrown off by Doug’s use of the term “occupational hazard,” says to his dad, “What’s going on here, daddy? I thought you said he was dim.” To which Ron replies, “No, no. I didn’t say that. I said he was odd, but that don’t make him dim.” Which is true. Doug is the type of guy to take percs while talking to his pet fish. Doug is the type of guy to lie in bed with a mermaid who looks a far more like fish than human and recount the loss of his virginity. Doug is the type of guy who might call into a conspiratorial AM radio show to talk about the mermaid he found.
Which brings us to a fascination of Pemberton’s life: Coast to Coast AM, a multi-decade running conspiracy theorist radio show. The show, originally hosted by Art Bell, who turned the reigns over to George Noory in 2003, focuses on discussion of conspiratorial subjects like UFO and Bigfoot sightings. Though he doesn’t listen to the show much now, Pemberton says he and his wife used to fall asleep listening to Coast to Coast, and they even danced to “The Chase” by Giorgio Moroder, a song from the 1978 film “Midnight Express” that is used as the show’s theme song, at their wedding.
Pemberton’s fascination with the show isn’t due to a belief in aliens, multi-dimensional monsters, or elaborate government conspiracies. One of the most compelling aspects of the show, to Pemberton’s mind, is the call-ins. One or two nights a week, the show takes calls from its listeners, who tend to want to talk about the impending apocalypse, UFO sightings, Bigfoot evidence, or, perhaps, an injured, human-eating mermaid they found floating off the Florida coast.
“It’s just interesting to see unique characters that are living their lives not in public, necessarily,” he says. “They’re just people who are passionate about something and they’re sharing it, and you get to see a cool character and listen to a cool character talk.”
These types of characters, “long-haul truckers and weirdos out there in the desert who are calling into these shows because it’s the only … social interaction they really have is talking to someone on a conspiracy radio show,” as Pemberton puts it, inform a lot of his work.
For a guy whose recent performances include a movie about the bond between a man and a mermaid with a taste for human flesh and a TV show about surviving in the aftermath of nuclear annihilation, the influence is noticeable.
But Pemberton’s influences aren’t limited to the ramblings of callers on AM radio shows. His home state certainly has a compelling case to make as a strong influence on his career. Take, for instance, Pemberton’s one man show, “Minnesota Reggae Colostomy Bag,” which recounts his experience being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, the subsequent removal of his large intestine, and how he fell in love with reggae music. He’s been collecting records for decades now (despite his youthful look, the man is 45), and he says Reggae is the most engaging and compelling music he has ever heard. He just finished taping “Minnesota Reggae Colostomy Bag” for a video release, which he says will come out sometime soon.
Although Minnesota is in the name of the show and a large part of the material, Pemberton says he has never performed it in Minnesota, and his show on Sunday will not include material from “Minnesota Reggae Colostomy Bag.” He says that performing it in Minnesota would feel a bit too much like preaching to the choir.
Pemberton is in another Minnesota-centric project, a movie about the 2018 U.S. Olympic Curling Team, coming out sometime next year. He couldn’t go into too much detail about the project, which was shot in Winnipeg and largely set in Minnesota, but he could say that he plays “a family man who’s not very good at curling.”
What would a conversation with a Minnesotan who made it big be without some Vikings talk? Pemberton, whose show on Sunday starts four hours after the Vikings kick off their season against the Green Bay Packers, started watching football relatively recently in his life, and of course roots for his home-state team. Like any good Vikings fan, he is cautiously optimistic, saying, “(There’s) no point in living in the pessimism that’s already there all the time.”
For those looking to get a last-minute ticket to his show after catching the Vikings game, Pemberton says good luck, as the show is already sold out. For those who’ve already secured a ticket, he offers this advice: “Don’t drink too much watching the Vikings. Save some for me.”
