Twelve Questions: Cori Gonzalez-Macuer

Cori Gonzalez-Macuer admits he's not funny in Spanish and says he becomes anxious if he spends too much time watching comedy. Photo / Brett Phibbs

He was a loudmouth vampire in What We Do in the Shadows, but comedian Cori Gonzalez-Macuer prefers dry understatement. He talks about tattoos, whisky, overseas failure and success.

1. What do you find funniest?
Uncomfortable situations in life. I love watching other people be in awkward situations, just seeing people out of their element.

2. Do you have comedic heroes?
I never really watched comedy when I was growing up. The Goon Show? Oh no, no. I liked Seinfeld, that was the closest I got to watching stand up. Now my friends are the people I look up to. People like Rhys Darby and The Conchords. There are some comedians who know everything about comedy but I can't really watch more than 15 minutes of it, I just get anxious for some reason.

3. You came here from Chile when you were 6. What are your first memories of that?
Arriving in Wellington and literally having to hold on to the door handle of the car because I was being blown away by the wind. I didn't know a word of English, but then cut to three months later and I could just speak it. School was definitely more playful here than it was in Chile - they give you a lot of work there, even as a little kid. But as a family we struggled for ages. In Chile we'd all lived in my grandparents' garage but we never cared because we always had people around - aunts, uncles. In New Zealand it was just us on our own. My mum, dad, brother and I lived in a tiny, one-bedroom flat in Wellington for a few years. My parents cleaned toilets until I was in college. Now my mum does marketing. Dad passed away a couple of years ago but he was an economist for the New Zealand Meat Board.

4. Are you funny in Spanish?
Not really. I did stand-up in Spanish once, and I just completely died. I just couldn't get a laugh. Did I find their comedians funny? No, not at all. Chilean humour, when I went back, seemed to me to be like jokes that would have been funny here in the '70s. Puns and one-liners. Poos and wees. There's a lot of racist and sexist stuff and things like talking about gay people are still taboo. Having said that I did kind of mime sex on stage over there. That was the worst show of my life, hands down.

5. Your reserved demeanour seems typically New Zealand. Was that something you adopted when you moved here?
I think even in South America I'm quite reserved. Most Chilean people are quite out there and loud. I've tried to be loud but I've just always been this way. I'm pretty social - I definitely like to go out but once I'm there I like to observe and I'll try my best not to be the centre of attention.

6. What makes your partner Anna compatible with you?
We connected over the type of people we both don't like. What kind? I don't know, I don't want to sound like a dick but we don't like loud people or people who just talk for the sake of talking. There's a lot of that in comedy. All the good comedians probably wouldn't be where they are if they'd been loud and annoying, but when I was in LA, there were definitely some hangers-on backstage and stereotypes trying too hard to sound cool. But I'm probably doing that myself right now.

7. What kind of teenager were you?
Pretty quiet. I just liked to play soccer. I don't know if I was uncool - I probably was, but even into my early 20s, I never drank. I started drinking when I started doing comedy, when I was 23. Before that my friends were all like sports jocks going out and being idiots and it didn't interest me. I probably was in the wrong world a little bit, I enjoyed playing soccer but I never enjoyed going out and playing fear factor and stuff. I did get a lot of material from all that, later.

8. When did you get your first tattoo?
About six years ago, when I was 27. Quite late in life, yeah. My brother's a tattooist so he just kind of used me as practice.

9. How did you get into comedy?
It was never what I planned to do. All I did in high school was play soccer; I played representative soccer here and then I went to play in Chile, got injured and came back. So my dream kind of fell apart. I went to uni and had like five different majors and then finally did theatre and film and met people who were doing stand-up. My first experience was pretty good, I entered a Comedy Quest and I won it, so then I thought every night was going to be amazing. Then I just kind of learned that it's not.

10. Did your career take off after you won the Billy T Award in 2006?
After that I went to England for a couple of months. English audiences are tough. I did a lot of pub shows and a lot of shows where people hadn't paid to see comedy and you'd literally be standing up and talking over their dinner. After a couple of months I was just like, nah. I came back to New Zealand and for a few years I felt totally over it. I thought I was better than what people were giving me credit for. Then I stopped caring and would do like half-arsed shows or just go out the night before a gig. I was just angry and taking it out on the people who were actually getting me jobs. But looking back on it, I was just starting out and probably a bit arrogant. I took maybe three years off, filmed What We Do in the Shadows, finished my degree, travelled a bit and then I thought I'd give it another go.

11. You recently did a one-hour show at Union Hall in Brooklyn, New York. Did everyone in the audience look like a lumberjack?
Kind of, yeah. There were a lot of checked shirts, a lot of beards, a lot of fedoras. That was the most nervous I've ever been before a show. Back in the day I would drink a hip flask of whisky before a show like that, just to calm the nerves. I don't do that now - I might have one beer. And the show was great. The head caster from CBS in New York came and arranged a meeting with one of the main guys from CBS in LA. Every meeting I've had over there has been to set up the next meeting. But it was cool to meet the guy and he suggested I come back in June and just try and set up more meetings.

12. You're about to become a father. What does that feel like?
Pretty nerve-racking but awesome. Our baby is due in July but I want it to be now.

•Cori Gonzalez-Macuer's show White Background Confused Face is part of the 2015 NZ International Comedy Festival.