Pudi finds comfort in his 'Community'
Chris Farley Award winner identifies with character
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"Abed speaks really quickly and definitely lacks an editing process," the "Community" star says of his onscreen character, a half-Palestinian/half-Caucasian misfit at Greendale Community College with a rambling motormouth and an encyclopedic knowledge of 1980s pop culture. "I'm somewhat like this character. The '80s are my favorite genre. There's so much juicy stuff in it -- John Hughes, Roxette, 'ET,' 'Wall Street.' There's no better karaoke decade than the '80s."
The child of Indian (dad) and Polish (mom) immigrants, Chicago-born Pudi got his comic start performing bits at family parties and observing the darkly droll goings-on at church.
"I was an altar boy," says Pudi, "and I liked the whole theatrical thing. One time I saw a priest getting drunk, and they had to drag him off the altar after a morning mass and then this backup priest came in. I was like 'This is great!'"
After high school, the budding thesp became the first recipient of the Chris Farley Scholarship Award and enrolled at Milwaukee's Marquette U. A run with Second City, bookings for television commercials and recurring roles on "Greek," "Gilmore Girls" and "ER" followed.
"I always knew I would come to Los Angeles," Pudi recalls. "I booked 'Community' on my birthday."
The NBC sitcom, which got off to a strong Nielsen start in its temporary 9:30 Thursday timeslot, features a motley cast of campus denizens, including Joel McHale ("The Soup"), as a lawyer who lacks an American undergrad degree, and comedy vet Chevy Chase, as a school-of-life entrepreneurial kind of guy now doing the traditional collegiate thing.
"It's amazing to be working on a show where I'm such a big fan of these comics," Pudi gushes of his co-stars. "Chevy and I have a really kind of fun relationship. Sometimes I feel like I'm his caddy, like in 'Caddyshack.'
"I'm always trying to make him laugh. Usually he won't, but once in a while, he'll just kind of look at me like I'm this bizarre individual, and I'll think to myself, 'Wow, Chevy Chase just called me bizarre. I've made it.'"
