The University of Wisconsin campus is buzzing now that Badger alumnus and comedian Anders Holm was selected to speak at graduation. The Badger Herald spoke with Holm about his memories of the Terrace and beating the Wisconsin cold with Jack Daniels, moving into television and why he thinks he is the right speaker for this year’s commencement.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
The Badger Herald: What was your reaction to being selected to speak at commencement?
Anders Holm: Well, utter shock and excitement, and disappointment that they probably had been turned down by a hundred people before they got to me. But, I am honored.
BH: What is your biggest message for graduating seniors?
AH: I am not trying to jump the gun here. You got to show up for graduation. If I tell them now, they are just going to skip town and start partying without me.
BH: So many students in freshman through junior classes all over social media are saying they are jealous they are not graduating this year because you are the commencement speaker. How would you respond to that?
AH: I would say, guys, that’s life. Next year, you are probably going to get a supermodel, so let’s keep the glass half full.
BH: Our senior class president said the senior class officers were looking for a commencement speaker who is exciting, relevant and someone who could provide wisdom for the graduating seniors. Do you think you fit the bill?
AH: I will say I am tall, I speak English and I went to Wisconsin. So, you will be able to see me from the back row, you will be able to understand what I am saying and I went to the school that you are graduating from. So, I do not know if I have got wisdom, I do not know if I am relevant and I do not know how excited everyone is to see me, but I have got those three other attributes.
BH: How did you get into screenwriting and how did you make connections to get into the business?
AH: I saw the movie Rushmore and I was like, I want to do that. So, in my spare time, when I was a freshman and sophomore, I would write bad movies. I think by the time I graduated, I had written three bad movies. But you have to write something bad before you can write anything good. I was not in the School of [Journalism & Mass] Communication, but I took a bunch of communications classes. I was never qualified to take an actual screenwriting class because I was a stupid person that did not make the grades.
When I came out to Los Angeles, I wanted to write movies. I started going on websites, but this was before LinkedIn and everything because I am old as hell, but you could just go on Craigslist and look for internships. I got an internship off the Internet with a company called Josephson Entertainment, which made movies, so I was really exited. But when I joined, they started making television and there was a guy named Hart Hanson working on a pilot who was in and out of the office all the time and I was there and we happened to be talking about swimming – because he was a swimmer and I was a swimmer – and he was like what do you want to do, why are you out here? I said I wanted to be a writer, and he said, well, you know television is the writers’ medium.
When you are writing movies, you just write a script, give it away and have no control. With television, you write it, it is yours and you produce it. So I was like, oh, I did not know that. Then he hired me to work on his show Bones at Fox for the first season as an assistant, and I kind of just shut up and listened to everything that went on there. I started writing television scripts. I wrote sketches for Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Office and a few of the writers read it and that is how I got my first agent. I guess that was the first thing, the first big move. So, I was lucky.
BH: What do you think from your time at UW prepared you for your work with Workaholics?
AH: Is this a trick question? Is the FBI on this phone? Are you trying to get me to have to go to jail? Well, I wasn’t one of the crazy people that would get wasted and go to the Terrace and steal chairs and risk my life. I think it is the death penalty if you steal one of those chairs from the Terrace, but I could be wrong. But, I had a good time and I had a good group of guys on the swim team and then also friends of mine from high school and people that I just met at school and, you know, when the weekend comes, you have been studying so hard all week, you just got to let loose. It is so cold in Wisconsin and you have got to warm it up somehow and, you know, Jack Daniels is not the worst way to stay warm. By the time you are 21, of course.
BH: Is there anything else you want to tell me about your time here at UW, maybe something about your social life or a favorite place or memory that you have?
AH: The Terrace is one of the best places on planet Earth, if the sun is out. I mean, you know that. But, as far as memories, I do remember on the swim team, in the beginning of the season, we would do a lot of running to get our weight down and we would do runs out to Picnic Point at six in the morning and as we would run, the sun would come up and you see your crew dudes out there, like, rowing on the lake, and it was kind of picturesque. So I would say that is the most awesome memory I have of Madison.
BH: What do you draw inspiration from?
AH: I draw inspiration from myself in my life, my experiences, my friends, their experiences and I mix it with things I would want to see. Things that would make me laugh or make me watch a television show or a movie. I think I always write something because nobody else has done it yet, but I have always wanted to see it, so why don’t I write it?
BH: I also want to ask for your thoughts on “the war on Mifflin” with city officials cracking down on the event this year.
AH: Well, I say everyone should take a bar stool and do a sit-in. That will get their attention. I don’t know? You guys got Halloween, right? Do Mifflin on Halloween. But yeah, I think everyone should think for himself or herself on that day. If you want to party and you want to rebel, you go right ahead, and if you want to party somewhere else, then do it somewhere else and if you want to study, then good for you. One day you can just take down the competition.
BH: Out of curiosity, what is your favorite Workaholics joke or scene?
AH: Not only are you asking me to pick which one of my children I love the most, you are asking me to pick my favorite attribute of my favorite child. But, I like the crescendo of action that happens in the episode called “Befriend a Predator,” where we are at our house playing video games with Topher and he asks to use our laptop.
While he is on the laptop, we get a call from Jillian. Jillian says that she is online with a child predator that we had supposedly caught earlier and what is crazy is that she can see us in the background of his camera because he is at our house. We turn around and we catch him red-handed back on the computer, doing weird stuff with kids and we are like, all right, buddy, that is it. Then there is a cool chase where he tosses our vaporizer in the air, bolts out the door, I hop on a tricycle for the neighborhood watch, Blake’s on foot chasing him and then Adam grabs a potato gun and comes up behind us, fires the potato gun, hits Blake in the back and he falls down in front of me. I plan on jumping him with the tricycle; I cannot. I hit him. I flip over, I land on the concrete and the child predator gets away.
I think that might be my favorite climax of any Workaholics episode off the top of my head.
BH: Do you have future career plans you can share with me or can you tell me about what you are working on now?
AH: I just finished acting in five episodes of The Mindy Project, which are airing right now. I just did a small guest starring part on Modern Family, which aired last week and I am writing a movie for Warner Brothers about thirty-somethings. The Workaholics boys and me are also writing an action-comedy movie, and we have some pretty cool producers on board that we cannot name just yet. But, if you have seen any stoner movies in the past couple years, you know them well.
