Jack McBrayer says he doesn’t get recognized in public places very often, which seems surprising for a cast member of an Emmy-winning network comedy show.
He has an explanation for his ability to remain incognito; he leaves his jacket at work. His most recognizable feature may be the navy blazer adorned with an ID badge and name tag that he wears when he portrays Kenneth Parcell, naive and bizarre page of NBC’s “30 Rock.”
Still, a lot of people recognize McBrayer in Macon, with or without his jacket. That’s because he lived here through his freshman year at Central High School.
He still visits friends and relatives here frequently. His trip here this weekend was a little more hectic than most, however, because he had been booked as a celebrity guest at the Macon Film Festival.
When McBrayer sat for a series of media interviews Saturday afternoon in the SoChi Gallery downtown, he made it evident that his most distinctive attribute has nothing to do with clothing.
It’s his smile — a broad, guileless smile that makes him seem like the most cheerful person in the world. Those familiar with the world know that cheerfulness is often an inappropriate response to the situation at hand. McBrayer’s mastery of the cheerful smile is what makes him unusually funny. He says it’s the source of his success.
“I’ve been pretty lucky in terms of the projects that I’ve been given and the material I’ve been given to work with, as well as the people that I’m working with,” McBrayer said. “With all that being said, even when I was temping and waiting tables and just had regular old day jobs, I would find ways to enjoy myself and have fun with the people I was around. That has never been too, too difficult for me.”
McBrayer, 36, took a break from his “30 Rock” work in New York to return to his birthplace so he could do a Q&A session following a Saturday night screening of the 2008 comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” at the Cox Capitol Theatre. The fact that it was a raunchy Judd Apatow project made him a little nervous.
“I guess more than anything, I want people to know that it is rated R. There is some nudity in it and so I’m a little out of character, but you can see how I would have fun with that project and that role. ... Let’s just say I’m a young man on his honeymoon, and we’re figuring things out.”
McBrayer left Macon in 1988, when his family moved to Conyers. He attended the University of Evansville in Indiana and then moved to Chicago.
Up to that time performance had been a hobby, but he got serious about comedy when he joined the Second City improv comedy theater. He took his next step up the ladder of fame when he met Conan O’Brien.
“When I moved to New York in 2002, a lot of people who I knew from my days in Chicago at Second City improvisational comedy theater had gone on to work as writers for Conan,” McBrayer said. “So when I moved to New York, all those guys who were already there were like, ‘Hey, McBrayer’s in town. Let’s throw him a bone.’ So they would get me gigs on Conan just doing like little comedy sketches, and from there they would just continue to use me. And thank goodness, because that paid my bills in New York, which is very expensive.”
McBrayer had a particular interest in the recent dust-up over O’Brien’s departure as host of NBC’s “Tonight Show.”
“I of course was a horrified spectator to the whole thing,” McBrayer said. “I do have so much loyalty to Conan just because of the break that he gave me very early in my career. Nothing against any of the other parties involved, but ... I owe Conan O’Brien such a great deal.”
McBrayer’s breakthrough movie role was Glenn the pit crew member in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” He also parlayed his nerdy appeal to gain the enviable role of Mariah Carey’s love interest in her “Touch My Body” video.
He says that lately he’s been building on his “kid demographic,” appearing on “The Electric Company” and taking a role in the upcoming sequel to “Cats & Dogs.” He has also provided his voice to animated TV show “Phineas and Ferb” as well as the upcoming animated feature “Despicable Me.”
A voice like McBrayer’s, with its Southern accent and tendency to call interviewers “sir,” is an uncommon commodity in New York and Los Angeles, the cities where the actor divides his time.
“I tell you, Southern accents still take people by surprise, even in 2010,” McBrayer said. “You think they’d be used to it by now. Yeah, I haven’t lost it yet, and some people, it does throw ’em for a loop. But every now and then it gets you out of some stuff, too.”
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