‘Crashing’ Star Pete Holmes On His Show’s Ability To Find Humor In Reality

Pete Holmes follows a simple mantra when writing his HBO series Crashing: “What would they really say?” The influence of this deceptively enlightening maxim is evident throughout the second season of his compelling HBO show. Created by Holmes and executive produced by Judd Apatow, the semi-autobiographical dramedy about stand-up comedy eschews polished, unnatural dialogue and instead focuses on the cozy sincerity of realism.

“[It’s] something that Garry Shandling taught Judd, and then Judd taught me and the other writers,” Holmes told Decider during a recent conversation about Season 2 of Crashing. “It’s a pretty simple mantra: ‘What would these people actually say?’ A lot of TV I enjoy can feel serialized or stylized, but on our show we’re trying, I don’t know if we always succeed, but we’re trying to follow Garry’s rule.”

Holmes was wise to heed the advice. The show’s entertaining second season garnered critical acclaim on its way to earning a Season 3 renewal by HBO.

But nowhere is the mantra more pronounced than the line-blurring Season 2 offering “Artie,” which Decider recently named one of the best TV episodes of 2018. Penned by Holmes and Apatow, the episode is an unflinchingly honest exploration of comic Artie Lange’s real-life drug addiction. Directed by Gillian Robespierre, “Artie” is far from your typical episode of television. Employing a deft comedic touch to a topic as delicate — and in the case of Crashing, personal — as heroin addiction is a near impossible task, but Crashing isn’t the type of show to ignore the elephant in the room.

“Whenever there’s been something in our past or in our lives that’s been difficult, I think sometimes your instinct is to go around it, and Judd is always the ‘go through it’ guy,” Holmes told us. “So when Artie, who obviously we all love and I was pulling for, was struggling and going through problems with the law, Judd just kind of pulled me aside and was like ‘I think the right thing to do here is to talk about it, to not avoid it.’ Obviously it’s contingent on if Artie would want to do that. So I was hopeful that maybe he would want to, and it was no surprise that when I called him he was completely on board. Neither Judd nor I would’ve written a word of it if he felt uncomfortable with it.”

Utilizing a pitch-perfect blend of humor and nuance, Crashing used the conflicting ideologies of the characters of Pete and Artie to highlight their contrasting point of views on addiction. Behind the scenes, Apatow and Holmes involved Artie in the writing process, reaching out to ask the comedian how he’d react to certain questions and situations. The episode was completely scripted, while also allowing Pete and Artie the opportunity to riff during shooting.

“Hopefully one of the reasons it works is because we’re both just speaking from our hearts,” Holmes said. “I‘m just telling Artie everything that I’ve thought, everything that Judd has thought, and other people have thought. Artie is very empathetically pushing back on the severity of addiction; that it’s not an after-school special. That’s something he communicates very beautifully and very tragically, just how difficult it is.”

The intrigue of the episode crests when the two friends engage in a heated confrontation outside the comedy club. Crashing depicts Holmes’ life ten years ago, when the comedian admits to having a bit of a savior complex. Pete the character believes this is a problem he can solve, while Artie, who grows increasingly frustrated with his friend’s simplistic outlook on the situation, knows otherwise.

“I really thought if you had a good attitude and kind of tried to focus up, watch the Ted Talk or whatever it might be, you could sort of lick it,” Holmes told us. “But Artie is saying it’s basically like oxygen to him; it’s not as easy as you think, which obviously broke my heart. But when we did it in the show, so many people reached out, on Twitter and otherwise, and were, like ‘I struggled with addiction…’ and it really made me proud — of Artie and Judd and of the show— that a lot of people thought that we got it right.”

As Holmes notes, it all comes back to Garry Shandling’s mantra.

“What would these people actually say? We get at that by having Artie improvise with me in the writing process, and again on the day. Judd is all about finding the humor in the reality,” Holmes said. “[Judd will] never sell out the reality of a moment, even if we have something really funny.”

One of the most poignant scenes from the episode is the aftermath of Pete and Artie’s gut-wrenching argument. Both characters cling to their respective religions for solace: Pete to the church and Artie to the familiar comforts of stand-up. Holmes told us that it was Apatow’s idea to show how a comedian going through so much personal turmoil can still get onstage and kill without the audience knowing the extent of their struggle.

“We wanted to show that they could have this fight, but then Artie is completely capable of going onstage and just kind of pulling it over the audience’s eyes too, in the same way that he does with Pete. Because in my opinion, that’s the whole episode, that Artie’s lying to Pete. He’s just telling him what he wants to hear so he’ll leave him alone. Artie kinda thinks, ‘I can out wait this person. Most people who’ve tried to help me go away, and all you have to do is wait them out.’ Because his desire to relapse is greater than their desire to help, and there’s something going on with comedy too. You can be anybody onstage for 20 minutes, but when you get off, there’s still 23 hours left in the day.”

Holmes believed in the quality of “Artie” so intensely that it was the only episode the show submitted for Emmy consideration. Even if it doesn’t earn a nomination, the comic reiterated how happy he was that Artie, as well as the viewing public, enjoyed the episode.

“I know Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about it, and that really meant the world to me. We’re not even nominated, but it’s an honor to be tweeted that we should be nominated.”

Where to stream Crashing