You may recognize Christian Finnegan as Chad, the white guy in the “Chappelle’s Show” skit, Mad Real World or as a panelist on VH1’s “Best Week Ever.” With his own 30-minute special on Comedy Central and a new hour-long special to tape in October, Christian Finnegan has cultivated a reputation as brutally honest and side-splittingly hilarious. Finnegan, who will be performing tonight at the Majestic Theatre, offered some personal insight during an interview with The Badger Herald.
The Badger Herald: You perform a lot at college venues. What do you think about the young adults of America?
Christian Finnegan: I get scared sometimes (chuckles). I find that from a performer’s point of view, the best shows and the worst shows I do are at colleges. Sometimes they’re the most enthusiastic raucous crowd, and you really get excited. And then sometimes you feel like we really may be on our last legs as a culture and that the country may sink into the sea in the next 20 years (chuckles). … I worry about becoming that old man like, you know, “You kids today.” When I was younger I always thought that older people were threatened by college students, and now that I’m older I realize that we’re not threatened by them, we just think they’re stupid.
BH: What was it like being on “Chappelle’s Show”?
CF: It definitely has made just a major impact on people recognizing me — not necessarily my name, but my face. I’ll be walking down the street, you know, and I get “Hey, you’re the white guy.” It really is kind of the role I was born to play. That really is only me with the volume turned up about one notch. I am very white, and I am kind of a dork. I remember when I got to audition for it, I was friendly with Neal Brennan, who was Dave Chappelle’s writing partner, and Neal said “Hey, we want you to audition for this thing that we’re doing for the show; we think you might be right for it.” So when I got the script I was psyched, but I was also kind of offended because I was like,”Oh, OK, I’m the one that came to mind when you had the synthetic white guy who gets totally humiliated.” But, you know, I suppose there are worse things.
BH: I’ve heard about your “Dancing Threshold Theory.” Can you tell me about that?
CF: Sure, it’s actually not something I’ll be doing at the show tomorrow night, but generally speaking, I think that every person has an imaginary line inside them, what I would call their dance threshold. Some people have a low one, some people have a high one, but when you’re listening to music and you’re getting into it, your enjoyment level sort of rises up like a thermometer. … And when it crosses your dance threshold, your body takes over and you can’t stop dancing. Generally speaking, gay men and sorority girls have the lowest dance thresholds of all people, and me being a straight, white man from New England, I have a very high dance threshold. Mine is probably just shy of Stephen Hawkings’ [threshold]. I’m way up at the top of that threshold.
BH: I know you don’t have much time left, but can you just outline a day in the life of Christian Finnegan?
CF: Well, it starts off with about three hours of sensual massage administered by a small Latvian boy — I imported him to the country. And after that, of course, it’s some of my Scientology training; I have to get clear. I sit with Kirstie Alley and Tom Cruise, and we just kind of work out our theories. And after that, I just like to walk down the street and just punch homeless people in the face. I find that it just puts me in a better mood. And then, of course, a little sorbet.
BH: Sounds like a great day!
CF: I’m talking out my ass here. I will say … I’m shooting my DVD, my first one out of Comedy Central next month, so I’m really excited to be doing these shows because I’m starting to do a dry run of materials. The show tonight and some of the shows I’m doing later in the week I’m really excited about because you’ll be getting a sneak of what the actual special is going to be. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing depends on you, I suppose.
Finnegan will be performing at the Majestic Theatre tonight at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15-$25 in advance.
