Actor and comedian T.J. Miller, known for his roles in “Get Him to the Greek” and “She’s Out of My League,” is coming to Chumash Auditorium on Oct. 16 at 9 p.m.
Melissa Nunez
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Actor and comedian T.J. Miller will be performing on Oct. 16 in Chumash Auditorium. Miller has been in films including “Get Him to the Greek,” “Cloverfield,” “She’s Out of My League,” “Our Idiot Brother” and on TV shows including “Conan” and “Chelsea Lately.”
But before his big-screen appearances, the stand-up comedian grew up in a household where the most common subject was psychology: his mother was a psychologist, his older sister was a psychologist and he himself was “fascinated with criminal psychology and industrial organizational psychology.”
Miller said he enjoys watching people’s behavior and analyzing them, which happens to tie into his comedic profession that began in 2003.
“That’s really what comedy is,” he said. “You’re analyzing everything around you.”
Miller began his journey in the comedy world during his college years at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. where he was part of the on-campus improv group called ‘receSs.’
“For some reason when I was there, there just happened to be an incredible group of people who now work in Hollywood,” Miller said. “For whatever reason, it was this epicenter of comedians and college comedy.”
With the improv group, Miller had the opportunity to go to the National College Comedy Festival at Skidmore College.
“We were already sort of one of the two favorite college comedy groups, the other one being Cornell, and that’s when I started doing that and I really, really, really felt like that was what I wanted to do for a living,” he said about his experience in the festival.
After his sophomore year of college, Miller thought he could pursue comedy and likely do it as a vocation.
He traveled to Chicago the summer of his junior year to attempt standup; post-college, he called the Windy City his home.
“It was like a pilgrimage to Chicago for the improv comedy scene, and I started there and eventually I got bookings,” he said.
For students interested in joining the comedy world, Miller suggests doing comedy in college and watching it as much as possible.
“I watched so much live comedy and so much comedy on television and now with YouTube, you can watch hours and hours of comedy,” Miller said. “Then when you feel you’ve really immersed yourself in it, then start doing it. For people who want to be stand-up comics, you just have to do it. Go to an open mic and start doing it.”
As for what audience members can expect at one of his shows, Miller said “interaction.”
“The audience, by the end of the show, will feel like they are a really good friend of mine whom I keep asking to borrow money from,” he said.
Journalism freshman Lupita Rodriguez said Miller is one of the reasons she started watching “Chelsea Lately.”
“He was so funny in ‘She’s Out of My League’ that when I found out he was actually doing stuff on ‘Chelsea Lately,’ that’s kind of when I got into learning about comedians,” she said.
Rodriguez said Miller has a lot of charisma and feels that he’s very real when it comes to his standups.
Miller’s show is from 9 to 11 p.m. and is free with a Cal Poly ID.