On It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, whenever Glenn Howerton's Dennis gets anywhere near the sun, fans know there's a 90/10 chance he's going to pop his shirt off. (Even if he's indoors, there's still a 60/40 chance that shirt is getting popped off.) Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Howerton's new NBC comedy A.P. Bio also features his character Jack sans shirt -- well, sans everything, really -- as he contemplates things (and drinks) in his shower. When CinemaBlend spoke with Howerton about Season 1, I asked him what it was like going from showing Dennis' skin to showing Jack's skin.
Hahaha! How to be nude for a wider audience is what you're asking. You know, the temptation is always there to get in extraordinarily good shape whenever you have to. And look, I'm a human being, and I have an ego, and I want to look my best on camera. But the truth is, this guy would not be in good shape. He's eating TV dinners and he's getting hammered every single night before bed. So he has to look like a little bit of a slob, so you know, I stuck the gut out a little bit and just kinda let it all hang. I'm cool with it, man. [laughs] You know, I don't think it's very funny to be in good shape. I think it's funnier to be in bad shape. Not that I'm in terrible shape or anything. At least I try for health purposes not to be in terrible shape.
He makes a good point there. Dennis is the kind of (potentially serial killer) egoist who generally wants people to pay attention to his muscled body, since his intelligence is more firmly rooted in how to go about conning people out of things. Jack, on the other hand, is a Harvard scholar who is rarely more than a few seconds away from reminding people about how smart he is, though he's clearly not smart enough to know that keeping a healthy lifestyle also keeps the brain healthy. (I feel like Jack would want to slap someone for saying such things.) But I can't deny the intellectual achievements that come with the notion to bring a beer into the shower.
It'd be one thing if we were only meant to see the side-length of Glenn Howerton's wet, naked body during one episode. But A.P. Bio isn't shy about putting Jack back in that same situation, with different results. Here's what else Howerton told me.
I thought it was funny, and it kinda becomes a running gag. You'll see me in the shower a lot. For the ladies! [laughs] You're gonna see me in the shower quite a bit, doing things that people just don't normally do in the shower.
People don't normally spend time in the shower thinking about how to get their advanced placement students to help take down a rival professor, or about how to get those students to help sexual relationships along. But that's how Jack rolls, people. Hopefully he'll do some no-shame singing soon, too. And hopefully none of it will involve Patton Oswalt's Principal Ralph Durbin, who has taken quite a shine to Jack since the latter was hired on.
Speaking of Patton Oswalt, I also had the pleasure of speaking with the beloved comedian about A.P. Bio, but when I asked if there was anything he got to do on the NBC show that he hadn't in any other projects, Oswalt got a little tight-lipped in not wanting to spoil anything.
I'm not gonna say. I'm gonna leave some of that stuff a surprise. . . . I wanted it to be very, very extreme weird stuff that they let me do, and I'll just leave it at that. But it'll be worth checking out. Especially, some of the props that are upcoming are very cool.
So, I mean, we technically could see Principal Durbin awkwardly bursting in on one of Jack's shower sessions, since that would count as weird and extreme. And there could easily be some crazy props involved there, too.
For more from Glenn Howerton's birthday suit and Patton Oswalt's "authority figure with no authority," watch A.P. Bio on NBC every Thursday night at 8:30 p.m. ET. Check out what Howerton told me about why he likes playing jerks, and then to see what else is coming to the small screen soon, head to our midseason premiere schedule.
