Ben Feldman Talks About 'Superstore'

There's a certain segment of the TV-viewing population who will look at Ben Feldman and immediately be transported to a moment two-and-a-half years ago, when Feldman's Mad Men character, Michael Ginsberg, presented Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) with a box containing his severed nipple. Some actors may find that sort of "iconic" association annoying—don't we have anything better to talk about, after all these years?—but thankfully, Feldman is not that kind of guy. In fact, if time allowed, I probably could've coaxed him into discussing Mad Men with me for the duration of our interview—"It's my favorite show ever and I'm always happy to talk about it," he assured me when I brought it up—but we had more important things to discuss, including Feldman's role on Superstore, a Thursday night NBC comedy in which he plays a big-box store employee. It's a role Feldman believes is starting to turn into a caricature of him: "I imagine all of the writers sitting in a room, making fun of me and that somehow turns into a 30-something-page script," he reveals, laughing. Below, the 36-year-old actor opens up about transitioning from an AMC drama to an NBC comedy, being the funniest—and unfunniest—person in a room and the "monster" co-worker who turned Twitter into Feldman's own personal hellscape:

Harper's BAZAAR: Are there any similarities between you and your character, Jonah, on Superstore?

Ben Feldman: Yeah, all of them! [Laughs] It started out as this character that was [series creator] Justin Spritzer's creation. He was this bumbling elitist in a fish-out-of-water thing. But the more the writers find similarities and parallels between my personality and this character, it's just turning into a roast of me.

HB: That has to be the strangest experience for an actor—to be playing a version of yourself.

BF: It is because when you realize the writers start writing to who you are, you're basically reading reviews of yourself. And then it becomes this cyclical nightmare where I feel like I need to play into it, then I find myself acting like the character in real life. Every single day [I'm] reconfirming my dual identity as Ben and Jonah.

With co-stars Colton Dunn and America Ferrera on Superstore

HB: Is this the first time a writer has ever written a character to you?

BF: To this extent, I think. I haven't been on a show that's picked up the kind of momentum Superstore has picked up. I've played characters that are like me before, but NBC just keeps giving these writers more episodes to write, and the longer that happens, the thinner the line is between Jonah and I. It's a bizarre experience.

HB: The cast seems like a really good time. Do you play pranks on each other?

BF: Not really pranks. It's nonstop laughter. Every single person in that room is hilarious, from the principal cast to the guest stars. There's not really pranks that much because I think we'd inevitably start strangling each other if we felt like there was some kind of antagonistic behavior happening. If anything, it's teasing, and never is that more obvious than if we do those panels where the entire cast answers questions and there's an audience. That, again, is just me getting crucified by everybody. In fact we did something in Austin once and I wore a ridiculous shirt—maybe this is a prank? Yeah, actually, I take back my answer. Yes, there are pranks and really it's just Colton [Dunn] versus me. He started a hashtag in Austin that was #BensDumbShirt. People started writing us questions and tweeting at us, and whether it had anything to do with me or not, they would end it with that hashtag.

And then every week when the show airs, Colton reaches out to Twitter and tells them I'll be answering questions; I think last week they were all baseball-related because I don't care that much about baseball. There was one week where my wife and I were buying a new house and there was all this construction drama I was dealing with and I didn't have time to answer tweet questions. So Colton told all the fans that for every question I answer, a child in a third-world country would get water, or something like that. He's a monster. Fortunately, he is insanely funny, so it's forgiven. If Colton didn't have a sense of humor, I probably would've killed him by now.

HB: I read that you don't think that you're a very funny person. Is that true?

BF: I think I'm the funniest guy in a room full of unfunny people. Unfortunately, my career is increasingly leading me into rooms where everybody is funny. It's not that I'm not a funny person, I'm just the least funny person in a room full of funny people, which is basically every single day of work for me.

HB: What's the worst job you have ever had, or the weirdest thing you've had to do for a job?

BF: I've been pretty lucky, I like my jobs. I mean… acting, does it get weirder? I would argue a sex scene is probably the weirdest thing anybody would have to do for a job, especially a non-porn sex scene, because you're not actually having sex, you're just wearing a ridiculous jock strap and pretending. My first job ever was at Baskin-Robbins when I was 14, which is probably the closest I'll ever come to having a corporate job like the one I play on TV—although I do work for Universal, so I suppose that's corporate. But I got fired from that job pretty quickly because I was a 14-year-old working at an an ice cream store, so I just gave everything away to my friends.

HB: You've done a Lifetime series, an AMC prestige drama, a few indie films and now an NBC comedy. How do you choose your projects? What draws you in when you're reading a script?

BF: I'm lucky that I'm in a place now in my career where I'm even able to answer your question with anything other than, "Whoever's paying me." There was a time where I chose my jobs based on what jobs were available to me, so I would choose 100 percent of them. But the scripts! I really didn't want to be in a comedy this year, I had been on one on NBC the year before [A to Z], and—nothing against that show, I loved it and I had some really great friends come out of it, we had an incredible time—but I didn't feel like I was the network comedy guy. I felt like there were plenty of people who could do it better than me and I might as well try to be on a drama. And then my agent called and she was like, "I know you told us not to send you any comedies, but you're gonna read this and you're gonna want to be in it, so I apologize." And she was right. It was 100 percent the script. Spitzer knows how to tell a really good, really funny story and I think he's doing really, really smart stuff, and I think he packages it in a way that you don't realize right off the bat that it's smart, or that you're learning or experiencing anything. He kind of tricks you into watching it with the goofy jokes, but it's a really smart show. That's what it was. It's always the script.

HB: Is it strange to balance the humor with serious topics? Last week's episode was about voting fraud, for example.

BF: What's funny is they don't feel issue-y until Friday morning when we read the think pieces. On the day we're shooting it, they're just funny jokes. We did guns and we did trans rights and we did birth control. You don't notice when you're shooting it because it doesn't feel like they're crowbarring any kind of ideological notions into their scripts. They're not telling people, "You have to think like this" or, "We need to tell this story because it's important." They're just like, "What are people talking about in America and how can we talk about it in a funny way?"

HB: Every time I interview other actors, this "golden age of TV" inevitably comes up—and Mad Men is always one of the first shows mentioned. How do you look back at that time in your life and your experience on the show a year and half after its last episode aired?

BF: With great pride. I was fortunate enough to be on my favorite show when I joined that cast. That was a show my wife and I started watching in real time the very first day it aired. To then step into that world was surreal and a major trip. I would say Mad Men, The Sopranos, a lot of HBO Sunday-night stuff, that's sort of what ushered in this era that's snowballed into 85,000 different networks and channels. But to be a part of that revolution was really cool because when I came into this industry, I came in at a time when TV was like, "Ah, well, I can't get any movies, so I might as well do a TV show." And now I'm a lot happier in people's living rooms weekly than I think I would be if I was really, really relying on a movie career to keep me fulfilled and excited.

As Michael Ginsberg on Mad Men

HB: You sort of did it in reverse. You started with one of the first prestige dramas, then went back to the classic 30-minute comedy.

BF: Yeah, isn't that strange? It feels really weird. In a way it's like broadcast network sitcoms feel like the most antiquated thing I could do, comparatively, and that might've even been part of why I said I didn't want to be on a network sitcom. But to NBC's credit—and I swear, if you had asked me five years ago if I was ever going to begin a sentence with, "To NBCs credit" I would have laughed—they recognize what's going on and they're sort of leading the network television fight against being that antiquated, mundane, watered-down version of television. I think they're taking risks, they're doing really interesting things, they stay off our writers' backs all the time. And the more risks we take on the show, the happier they are. I feel like, in a way, I'm a part of this second revolution, where the other networks have learned from streaming and cable and they're like, "All right, this is what people want to see."

HB: Back to Mad Men for a second: do people still talk to you about the nipple?

BF: Yes, I get the nipple reference constantly. People have this vibe of, "Oh, this is really gonna be impressive, I'm sure no one ever brings this up." But the strangest and kind of a really cool thing is, people are always bringing up my ear and mentioning that time that my character cut his ear off. And while at first that sounds kind of ridiculous, because that's not what happened, I think people are mistaking my character for Van Gogh, which is a really cool thing. If you're starting to lose your faith in the general intelligence of the American populous, there's nothing like them mistaking pop culture for Van Gogh as a sign that people still read their history books and care about art.

HB: Also, it's kind of cool that you're the centerpiece of one of the most iconic TV moments on one of the most iconic TV shows.

BF: We were beginning the first half of the final season and Matt Weiner called me into his office, which is always terrifying, because Matt Weiner was the principal of that school. I don't need to tell you—it's been documented plenty—that no one really ever knew anything and everyone was kept in the dark, including the actors. So I went into his office and he basically sat me down and told me—and this was an episode that was two weeks away—everything that was gonna happen in that episode and how it all ties together and the various arcs that were gonna happen. Then he explained that exit to me, which was super cool because I was finally having that talk with the guy who created the most iconic show ever about the process and about the story, which you never get to do—and on top of that, he was basically telling me I was gonna be another lawnmower moment, which was the coolest thing ever. I think for a second he seemed at least slightly concerned that I might be bummed out and if that was the case, he couldn't have been further from [the truth], because I was so excited… and then couldn't tell anybody, including the cast! I remember that table read, everybody regarded me as "the guy that might be sad he's leaving" but I had known for two weeks what was gonna happen and just couldn't wait to finally have a chance to talk to the other people about it.

HB: Part of me wishes there wasn't a table read so you could've presented Elisabeth Moss with the box containing your nipple and get her genuine reaction.

BF: [Laughs] I feel like Lizzie would have been a little pissed off if that had happened. And horrified. Plus, she would've noticed because leading up to actually shooting that scene, Matt and the props people were engaged in a super-intense discussion of exactly how that bandage should look and how much blood should be there. His control over every detail of that moment was really impressive. No one didn't know what was about to happen because there had been hours of blood discussion.

Giphy

HB: I can't imagine what it's like to work alongside a person like him. Does anyone ever ask him why? Why a lawn mower? Why a nipple?

BF: No, you don't question that. Maybe if you're Jon [Hamm] you do, but I certainly did not. Also, I came in late enough that there's no reason to question anything because there was proof that everything he thought up was pretty much incredible. You don't even really argue, because what's your argument? That something you wrote might not work on this show?

HB: I'm not talking about arguing with him, I'm talking about discovering the origins of his genius. Does he see something that sets off a chain reaction in his head, which leads to a lawnmower cutting off someone's foot, or a computer driving Ginsberg to cut off his own nipple?

BF: I have no idea. I think he's an alien. I really do. When he's gone, they should cut his head up and look at that thing, because I imagine it's different than the rest of ours.

HB: You got your start in theater. Are you planning to go back?

BF: All the time. It's an ongoing discussion with my agent, because scheduling is a really big thing there. We wrap this season [of Superstore] in March and then there has to be something that happens right at the very beginning [of the break] so that there's just enough time to do something before we come back. And then there's the matter of what can and can't I do. My theater agent brought up something that would have been so cool recently, but it involved me doing things that just seemed a little outside of my comfort zone. I don't know that I want to go back to New York and embarrass myself right out of the gate.

HB: You were born in Maryland but you're based in LA. Do you consider yourself to be more an East Coast or West Coast person?

BF: Completely East Coast. I don't totally identify with this side of the country, although I'm happier here. My wife and I just moved and we have a great house and a yard and it's beautiful out here and all of our friends are here. It's great, but I never thought I was gonna live in LA. I thought I was gonna live in New York forever, and maybe at this point in my career I'd be doing site-specific theater in Poughkeepsie somewhere, doing Guys and Dolls dinner theater or something like that. So the fact that I'm out here doing things in front of a camera continues to be bizarre to me every single day. And I think people can tell too, I meet people and a lot of times, instead of saying, "Are you from the East Coast?" people just go, "you're from the East Coast, right?", having no reason to have known that. I don't know what that is. Maybe it's just that I'm Jewish. And I throw a big party out here with a bunch of Maryland people. We throw a huge crab party that's also a charity event every summer.

HB: You're involved with so many charities I actually lost count.

BF: My dad told me at the very beginning of my career, basically, "If you're gonna have a megaphone, you're gonna need to use it to do some kind of good." He has always been aggravated by any kind of celebrities that don't have any charities or love or passion or something they're trying to help. We do a ridiculous thing out here; I get up in the morning and I put on makeup and then I say somebody else's words in someone else's clothes, and then I go home and watch TV, have a glass of whisky and go to bed. And I'm overcompensated for that. So it's insane to not use that pedestal to try and at least help someone or something that's in need.

HB: What TV are you watching?

BF: We're watching Westworld—loving that, it's finally starting to make sense to us. I think Atlanta is probably the best new art in general. My wife and I are obsessed with that and can't stop talking about it to people. Those are the most recent ones. I never got on the Stranger Things train, everybody else did, but for me, I'm the wrong audience because I don't like sci-fi/fantasy. It's the same reason I don't like horror, which is ridiculous because I've been in three horror movies, but when I see those things, I see camera tricks and fake blood and actors screaming and I don't know understand why other actors don't see that. I know plenty of actors smarter than me with better taste than me who love horror movies and love sci-fi and it just doesn't make sense to me.

HB: Do you watch Game of Thrones?

BF No, that fits into that fantasy category. I can't get into it. My wife loves it. I just don't care. Listen, cool shit and boobs? Yeah, great, I'll watch that all the time. Weirdly, I've seen a sizzle reel of all the greatest hits from Game of Thrones because for some reason, coincidentally, I'll glance up and it'll be the Red Wedding and then I'll go back to reading. Then I'll glance up weeks later and it's that "Shame" moment. I've caught all of these iconic Game of Thrones moments, but just accidentally. I get the references when everyone else on set is talking about it. I just can't get into it.

HB: At least with your exit from Mad Men, your character didn't die. When someone on Game of Thrones gives their exit interview, it's because their character died.

BF: People kept asking me if I was gonna come back! By the way, I asked myself that all the time because I had no idea if Peggy was gonna be walking down the street one day and Ginsberg would be there. But he was done. What's funny is the very next day after [my final] episode aired were the NBC upfronts for the show A to Z. The morning of, I met one of the publicists in New York and we were prepping for the day and I was like, "I'm just gonna give you a heads up: I know you don't watch Mad Men, so just know, a lot of people are going to ask about A to Z, but a lot more are going to ask me about my nipple, and you need to be aware of that." And she was like, "That's impossible." Sure enough, I walked down the carpet and the woman from New York magazine, her hands were shaking, and she was like, "Can we just talk about the nipple for a second?" And I looked at my publicist. It was a really strange thing to wake up the next morning and talk about a rom-com.

HB: I really don't know how you divide your brain into all of these different places to embody these characters.

BF: Yeah, that one I don't know. To put bookends on this interview, that character [Ginsberg] is probably the farthest away from me that I've ever played, and I don't know how I did that or if I'll get to do it again. I'm just happy that it at least happened once.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Julie Kosin is the senior culture editor of ELLE.com, where she oversees all things movies, TV, books, music, and art, from trawling Netflix for a worthy binge to endorsing your next book club pick. She's the former director of audience strategy and entertainment at HarpersBAZAAR.com. When not glued to her laptop, she can be found taking pictures of her dog or haunting used bookstores.

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