A few of Josh Thomson's favourite things

Comedian and actor Josh Thomson is getting ready to perform his first-ever shows at the NZ International Comedy Festival.

He chats to Jesse Mulligan about his favourite music, books and podcasts.

Josh Thomson performs his new show Horrible Man in Auckland and Wellington over several dates this May. You can find more details and buy tickets here.

Growing up on a farm near Timaru,  Josh wanted to be a serious actor but says people always found him funny.

As a five-year-old, he got on stage at a school assembly and mimicked running in slow motion behind a girl playing Chariots of Fire on the piano: "Just an attention hog, really."

In the past, Josh hasn't considered himself a stand-up comic because what he did on stage was more like acting a monologue.

Now he's now realised "jamming on stage, unscripted" is the way to go, and has been walking around the Te Atatu Peninsula late at night going through the material.

"I've found another strange old man who walks around and talks to himself. We both go quiet and then we pass each other. Except he's got Nirvana blasting in his ears."

Doing comedy is much more fun than working as a director, Josh says.

"[When you're directing] people ask you questions all day and some of you them… you don't care about. It's very rewarding about three months after you've finished. The whole thing is my fault the entire time as the director."

Although directors have all the responsibility, credit for a project's success more often goes to the actors, Josh says, whose job is the "greatest".

"You turn up and somebody says 'go stand over there and say those words'. You don't even have to write the words and everyone is so impressed with you all the time.

"As a comedian, you write the words and you have to stand up there and if it sucks it's your fault. But if it's amazing, you feel great."

Song: James Brown - 'People Get Up And Drive Your Funky Soul' (1973)

Josh's three-year-old son loves this track: "It gives me great joy to put on James Brown and have my son jump around."

 

Song: Baby Huey - 'Hard Times' (1971)

Josh first heard this song in the 2008 film JCVD, starring Belgian action hero Jean-Claude Van Damme: "It's just an absolute banger, a '70s soul song. Every time I need motivation it gives me a boost."

Song: Led Zeppelin: 'The Rain Song' (1973)

"I was at high school and an emotional young man. It just feels like a big warm cup of Milo after a big night on the town. And you're walking around and the sun's hitting you. It's just a lovely, lovely big soft hug from Led Zeppelin."

Books: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (1954)

Josh won a prize for reading in Standard 4, and the principal presented him with the Lord of The Rings trilogy, which he read and loved.

"As a young man who was interested in film. I remember looking around New Zealand, cause I grew up in the South Island, and I was like 'wow, this could be the Misty Mountains, this could be the Northern Waste... Someone should film Lord of the Rings here and that's gonna be me!" LOTR in NZ was Josh's second film idea. His first was for a ninja film set in Tonga. (The 2002 film Tongan Ninja written by Jemaine Clement beat him to that).

Book: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (2006)

"A gritty fantasy book."

Book: Gunslinger by Stephen King (1982) 

The first volume of King's Dark Tower series is like "Lord of The Rings meets Jack Reacher", Josh says.

He believes the opening line – ''The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed" – is one of the best ever. "I remember reading it and going 'wow, what have I missed?"

Film: Star Wars (1977)

Josh "heavily fell in love" with George Lucas's epic space movie and watched it on VHS after school most days.

"Went home, moved the electric fence, fed the chickens and then moved the pigs into the other part of the sty and then I got to watch Star Wars, yep."

Available for rent on Disney+

Film: Network (1976)

"It's an incredible movie ... It's about a new show that's failing, so much so that the host goes into the depths of depression and threatens to end his life on air… it's got some incredible performances and amazing female characters and performances ... It's almost like a play, it's kind of stylised… it's always so relevant. It doesn't matter when I watch it. It's kind of about how the corporations of the world drive the media."

Film: Amadeus (1984)

Josh has to watch the whole thing whenever this biographical tale about the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is on TV: "It's incredible. With all of Mozart's music... I could just watch it all the time."

Available to rent on Apple TV+

 

TV show: The Last of Us (2023)

This post-apocalyptic drama is sort of like a zombie series but it's a fungus taking over people's bodies: "It really stuck with me, I thought it was incredibly well written. It's by the guy that made Chernobyl, which is also incredible. It's really well put together and it's affected me deeply."

Streaming on NEON

 

Podcast: My Favourite Murder

Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark chat about famous murders in this true-crime comedy show:

"They're both very funny and respectful… they talk about modern life and mental health. They acknowledge the effect of constantly living in this obsession with murders and what that does to their own psyche but they can't stop. It was quite fascinating, as well, to hear that."

In his family's previous house, Josh "chewed through" podcasts while doing repairs. When he was working under the house, My Favourite Murder proved a bit too dark: "My torch battery ran out and I had to crawl out ... I just really had to gather myself and pull myself out one inch at a time."

Podcast: How Did This Get Made?

In this show, American comedians Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas examine terrible movies and try to figure out how it got made:

"It's really funny, they tear it apart… it's one of the early successful film podcasts. If you like bad movies like I love bad movies, they will find ones that are bad enough to make them fun."

Josh recommends this episode about the 1987 martial arts film Miami Connection.