Nathan Fielder (Nathan For You)
In 2005, Canadian Nathan Fielder graduated from the University of Victoria with a Bachelor of Commerce and “really good grades,” as he attests in the opening for his Comedy Central hit Nathan for You. His consultancy to struggling businessmen and women on the program, though, could become repetitive since the set-up is almost always the same. Each week, Fielder meets with a business owner who is not making ends meet and gives them an inventive yet preposterous tactic to make business boom.
What makes the Comedy Central show such a hit every week is how the series (and much of its ingenious, cringeworthy comedy) becomes more about Fielder than the business. We watch to see just how far he will go in the service of a joke. (Although Nathan for You premiered in 2013, considering the hoopla around the “Dumb Starbucks” episode that built overwhelming buzz for the series, 2014 was the year he broke through to the mainstream.)
Fielder’s charmingly awkward (or awkwardly charming) persona is an extension of the comic, yet he is so committed to some of his insane consulting ideas that part of the fun is watching him ask for things with a straight face and genial demeanor. His skittish awkwardness, meanwhile, makes watching certain moments very uncomfortable. Still, if Fielder were to go big and brash to serve his onscreen personality a la Sacha Baron Cohen, it would be too much for the other people asking for his help to believe. Meanwhile, since Nathan for You does not have a script, Fielder is also a brilliantly talented improviser. If acting is reacting, Nathan Fielder is one of the best comedy actors around.
