Jemaine Clement
A booming baritone entirely dedicated to low-status awkwardness.
1 special · 2001
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On stage, Jemaine Clement holds an acoustic guitar like a shield and stares into the middle distance through heavy spectacles. He operates in a severe deadpan. He speaks in a booming, resonant baritone, but uses it entirely to complain about trivial slights or detail his own social failures. Between songs, he mumbles into the microphone, letting the room sit in long stretches of deliberate awkwardness. He will stare out at the audience without blinking, wait a beat too long, and then launch into a clean acoustic riff.
Specials
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Pulp Comedy Presents: Cal Wilson and Friends with Cal Wilson & Bret McKenzie
Early character work and acoustic comedy from the New Zealand stand-up scene.
TV3 (New Zealand)
On stage
As half of Flight of the Conchords, he helped strip the desperation out of comedy music. He and Bret McKenzie played massive arenas by treating them like mostly empty dive bars. Because the music itself is played completely straight, the petty complaints in the lyrics look entirely ridiculous by contrast.
He excels at playing men who possess both unearned arrogance and zero actual power. He will adopt the swagger of an R&B singer, but the lyrics will be about struggling to afford groceries or making a fool of himself at a party. The deadpan never drops. He sings a French pop parody with the weary exhaustion of someone stuck in line at the bank.
Whether he is directing What We Do in the Shadows or acting in studio features, his defining comedic trait remains intact: he treats the absurd as a tedious, everyday problem.
At a glance
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