Boman Martinez-Reid on keeping up with 'The Bodashians', parodying reality TV, and pop star dreams

Boman Martinez-Reid all the time wished his personal TV sequence. So the Canadian actor and creator made one himself, and one other one, and one other one, on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok, then signed a TV deal and was solid in an A24 present. Every undertaking will go away you in little doubt of 1 factor: You will be exhausting pressed to search out somebody who understands actuality TV in addition to Martinez-Reid.

With a mixed 3 million followers on social media underneath the Britney Spears-inspired deal with @bomanizer, Martinez-Reid has gone constantly viral on-line for his hilarious, exact parodies of actuality TV — particularly 2020’s “cough heard round the world” video. However you may need found Martinez-Reid’s work by way of his outstandingly correct, Kardashian-inspired TikTok sequence The Bodashians, made along with his finest buddy Eden Graham, which has even individuals who do not watch The Kardashians locked in.

Now guest-starring in A24’s Overcompensating and the star of his personal Crave TV present, fairly actually titled Made For TV, Martinez-Reid embodies the new power players in entertainment, creators and actors blurring digital and traditional media and giving a number of codecs a attempt. In Made For TV, he even performs an exaggerated model of himself, attempting numerous actuality tv genres from courting to aggressive drag, making an attempt to good all of them.

Credit score: Boman Martinez-Reid

Mashable sat down with Martinez-Reid to unpack how he finds comedy in appreciating format, his pop star desires, how the leisure business is lastly taking the web severely, and precisely how he retains up with The Bodashians, his TikTok sequence that now exists inside its personal universe.

This interview has been edited for readability and size.

There’s a lot to speak about, together with your newest undertaking, however I’ll begin the place you most likely know I will begin. Many individuals will know you out of your TikTok sequence, The Bodashians. It is how I got here throughout your work, and actually, I did not watch The Kardashians till I noticed your movies.

I get that so much, I get that so much.

Now you have received Ncuti Gatwa singing your praises for it on Fallon, doing impressions of your impressions. When did this all start, the vocal fry of all of it?

I’ve been doing this now for years. Once I was in highschool, I wished my very own TV present; that was my dream. I used to be obsessive about The Actual Housewives on the time, and my brother someday was like, ‘Properly, if you would like your individual TV present, why do not you simply make it?’ And I used to be like, oh my god, that’s so genius. I did not consider it like that. So I created a YouTube sequence referred to as Reid It and Weep — Reid like my final identify, so I used to be already a genius in advertising and marketing at a really younger age. I used to be simply making this TV present that was based mostly on The Actual Housewives, it was me and my associates, and we’d cook dinner up these dramatic storylines. They had been 15-minute-long episodes that will span a season, and we made it for 4 seasons. Completely no person noticed it, however that is OK. It planted the seed for what was later to come back.

In 2019, I began making TikToks… I used to be like, OK, I am making these movies, what will set me other than all people else? And I remembered, ‘Oh my gosh, Reid It and Weep.’ I’ve this expertise for parodying actuality TV. How do I take that idea and condense it right into a minute and make it shareable for everyone? In 2020, I began making the “but it’s reality TV” series. It wasn’t fairly The Bodashians but, however it was these movies the place I might take these mundane problems and switch them into these dramatic reality TV scenes so all people may relate to it, after which additionally all people understood the joke.

So I began doing that. It received actually dramatic, and I began going very viral with it. Two years into it, my buddy Eden, who’s in lots of my movies…

One of the best! We love Eden!

We love Eden. She was like, ‘Why do not we do a Kardashian voice?’ This was proper when The Kardashians Hulu present had simply come out. And I used to be like, ‘Why? I do not watch The Kardashians. I do not care about The Kardashians.’ However she was like, ‘It might be humorous if we simply attempt it.’ I used to be like, OK, as a result of it is enjoyable to attempt new issues, after all! So we began doing that and we have by no means stopped. At this level, I feel we have simply posted episode 61, which is loopy.

“Sure, I parody ‘The Kardashians,’ however ‘The Bodashians’ now’s its personal universe. It has its personal guidelines. It is not sensible, however it makes a lot sense on the identical time.”

It has been a really, very attention-grabbing expertise attempting to continuously reinvent the very same video, however I am having loads of enjoyable. Nonetheless two, possibly three years later, now into The Bodashians, nonetheless having loads of enjoyable, nonetheless exploring what it’s. Just lately, I posted a video, I used to be getting a wax determine, and I used to be simply so pleased with that video and the way it felt like its personal factor. It is like, sure, I parody The Kardashians, however The Bodashians now’s its personal universe. It has its personal guidelines. It is not sensible, however it makes a lot sense on the identical time. And very like you stated, individuals do not watch The Kardashians, however they watch The Bodashians, and that’s what issues to me.

You have perfected this artwork of parodying codecs that folks do not really know is a format but, like your getting ready for the Met Gala video, your Architectural Digest videos, they’re spot on however they’re such area of interest codecs. How do you acknowledge these parts? Is that this again to your love of actuality TV and format?

Sure, I feel it is a format factor for positive. The format is the place I discover the comedy. A whole lot of my comedy comes out within the edit. I nonetheless edit all of my very own movies, and I really feel like there is a motive for that, as a result of I really feel like that is the comedy. Me and my sister or my mother, or Eden, we are going to sit right down to movie a Bodashian video, and I am going to clarify to them what the video is, and they do not get it. They by no means get it. And oftentimes I am simply telling them what to say, as a result of I am the one particular person that may perceive tips on how to manipulate the phrase “there’s something to be said” 80 instances and make it make sense in a manner that folks will watch and be like, how do they nonetheless perceive the narrative of this video? So for me, it is vitally a lot a format factor.

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I additionally actually love celeb tradition. I feel it is so ridiculous. It is so enjoyable to make enjoyable of the way in which that celebrities act in these movies. It is simply not actual. Like, Architectural Digest is absolutely only a residence tour. It is like if you go to your buddy’s home they usually provide you with a tour of their residence. However no person acts like these celebrities act. What I like to level out is that we’re all accepting these ideas as a reality. Like, we settle for the way in which that these actuality TV reveals are edited with simply blatant staring for 3 minutes in between traces as a reality. We do not take into consideration these items, and I like to show the mirror round and present individuals that is what you are really watching.

Sure, that clean pausing is in loads of your work. It is even again in one in all my favourite of your sequence, which is JayNeigh and Seighdruah and The Girls Room.

Sure, JayNeigh and Seighdruah!

Completely, what? There’s comedy in silence. There’s one JayNeigh and Seighdruah Girls Room video the place we simply stare at one another, and we attempt to cry. I feel I say, ‘Ought to we cry proper now?’ We attempt it, and it is one in all my favourite moments that we have ever shared. Then she begins crying, and I begin making enjoyable of her. It is simply so ridiculous.

And it is a type of comedy that you just delivered to your individual TV sequence, Made For TV, the place you dabble in each type of actuality TV format. While you had been making this present, which genres did you be taught essentially the most about that you just did not already know?

Good query. Properly, we did sports activities, and I’m not an athletic particular person in any respect. Every style, every episode, I simply wish to be the star of the style, and we had been attempting to determine if we do a sports activities episode, who’s the star of sports activities? Once I watch a sports activities recreation, all I can hear is the announcer, the caller, or the commentator. So that is what I used to be attempting to get to: how do I do that completely? Seems that it’s actually exhausting. And I used to be calling a kids’s recreation, which is a simple recreation to name, however you need to discuss nonstop for, like, two hours. Who can try this? I do not know.

The information episode that we did was additionally very difficult…as a result of I went to highschool for radio and tv, and information was a giant a part of that. Rising up, I all the time thought that being a information anchor could be my fallback if I could not make it as an actor; it is like I needed to be on digicam someway. My mother and father had been all the time like, ‘Simply be a information anchor,’ as if that was a simple factor to perform. Now trying again, there was no manner I used to be ever gonna get there.

You already know, simply fall into it!

Simply fall into it! However that was tougher than I assumed.

Nonetheless, the one which was the toughest to perform was the drag episode. That is the episode that after we had been creating the present, I used to be like, ‘Oh, I am gonna ace this. That is gonna be the best factor I am going to ever do.’ I knew that I had that confidence inside me for a motive. While you watch the episode, you possibly can inform by the tip, it is like, oh, I had that confidence all alongside. However what you do not see — I imply, I feel you see a few of it within the episode — is the panic that I used to be experiencing as a result of what was actually taking place was I used to be going to do drag for the primary time in entrance of my mother and pa, which was the scariest factor that I did not notice I used to be fearful of. However because it seems, what? When drag queens are like, if you placed on the make-up and also you change into a personality, it is an actual factor. That may be a drug. I do not know what kind of make-up they placed on me, by way of osmosis, it sunk deep into my pores and skin, and I grew to become a fierce drag queen. Drag is difficult. I’ll say that it isn’t a stroll within the park.

You are pivoting into motion pictures; you are visitor starring in A24’s comedy drama sequence Overcompensating created by Benito Skinner. What are you able to inform me about your function on this, and the way did this all come about?

This all happened so quick. I wish to act. I feel I am an actor first, and on this business, it has been an attention-grabbing trip as a creator, attempting to transition over as a result of I really feel like you need to work exhausting to keep up the picture that you just’re not an influencer. No shade to the influencers, that is a really, very exhausting job to do on daily basis, however I’m a creator and actor first. So over these previous couple of years, I have been hustling and auditioning and grinding, so I feel that was a part of it.

The opposite a part of it was Benny [Skinner]. Benny has such a watch for creators, and he needs to platform creators that he appreciates. I am not going to talk for him and say that he appreciates my work, however we have labored collectively previously, and I wish to suppose that when he noticed my tape, it felt like there was some form of like, how will we put Boman on this present that is already completed? All of it occurred very quick. In fact, it isn’t like a humongous function, however I’ll say, displaying up on that day and filming was so enjoyable. The solid and crew made me really feel so at residence. I used to be so, so excited to play the character that I performed in that present, and I am so excited for everyone to see it as a result of I am not enjoying a personality that anyone would anticipate me to play. I had loads of enjoyable with it.

This line is blurring between digital and conventional media. Mashable tradition editor Crystal Bell revealed a characteristic about how creators are becoming the new power players in entertainment. Have you ever come throughout a lot dialog round this new era of Hollywood and the blurring of the traces between YouTube, Twitch, Netflix, A24?

Very similar to your self, I feel it is so attention-grabbing. I feel that, lastly, the leisure business is assembly individuals the place they’re at and respecting what persons are watching. Now seeing all of those actors and musicians selling their music on-line and prioritizing that’s so, so refreshing, as a result of I feel it provides validity to so many alternative mediums.

“Lastly the leisure business is assembly individuals the place they’re at and respecting what persons are watching.”

In fact, there are the massive reveals like Hot Ones which have paved the way in which for that significance within the business. However then there are additionally so many individuals that I do know, those who I am associates with, who’ve podcasts which have gotten Chappell Roan or big, big celebrities to do their podcasts. It is only a testomony to, as I stated earlier than, now we’re lastly prepared to fulfill individuals the place they’re at, and likewise, it is a testomony to the place we’re going. With respect to my profession, it feels attention-grabbing. I’ve had this dream about being on TV and being an actor, and that’s nonetheless my dream, however I stay on this duality of, effectively, I am already doing the factor that folks need me to do.

Whoops!

I do know! So I really feel like I’ve to navigate each, however I feel there is a pleasure in that. It is so thrilling to be on this aspect of it and be creating in an setting the place 9 instances out of 10 you may achieve success with no matter you are doing, as a result of it is the web. And that is the place all people needs to be proper now.

In my profession, I actually need to have the ability to do every little thing. I advised my crew the opposite day, I wish to be a pop star. And I am like, how will we determine it out? How will we get there? Something feels potential at this level due to the place we’re on the web. Final summer season, I had a tune, “I Have a Thing.” Surrounding my tune, I had this pretend documentary, however now it is turning into like, OK, how will we make that an actual factor? As a result of now with YouTube and longer format and longer movies, you’ve a lot room to play by way of character work and the way you create a personality. Like, what does that Bomanizer pop star character appear like? How does it exist on Scorching Ones? How does it exist in its personal documentary or on a podcast? How do we have now enjoyable with that kind of Andy Sandberg character? So I am actually excited by the place we’re going by way of the web and what’s potential as a result of I really feel like the principles are slowly being peeled away.