Notes on Zach Galifianakis

A fat man with a beard and an unpronounceable (Greek) surname. That makes him automatically funny, right? Zach Galifianakis is everywhere at the moment, in as many media outlets as possible: at the movies he’s in The Hangover Part II; on TV he’s been hosting Saturday Night Live and co-starring in HBO’s Bored to Death (was I? Almost); online he’s doing his awkward, embarrassing (and presumably, hopefully, staged) Between Two Ferns, three-minute interviews with celebrities such as Natalie Portman, Bruce Willis and Ben Stiller. If it wasn’t for Zach Braff (no, I haven’t heard of him either), Galifianakis would be the most popular Zach on the web.

In October last year he smoked a joint on live American TV. But it turned out it wasn’t real. He apparently gets embarrassed doing sex scenes in films but shows little embarrassment while, for instance, trying to force Michael Cera to massage his inner thigh on Between Two Ferns.

His film and TV credits neatly sum him up; since 1999 he’s played (amongst other roles): Pizza Boy, Pathetic Guy, Bus Stop Man, Weird Wally, Homeless Man, Himself, Dave the Bear, (another) Homeless Guy, Heavyset Man, Hermit, Himself and Humpty Dumpty.

Do say: I love his blend of antisocial behaviour and childish innocence
Don’t say: He looks like a younger John Goodman