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LOS ANGELES, March 9 (UPI) -- Chris Redd said his character on Bust Down, premiering Thursday on Peacock, crosses the line in his misadventures. Redd, Langston Kerman, Jak Knight and Sam Jay play four friends who work in a casino and get into trouble on their days off.
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"My character should be in jail," Redd, 36, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "He's a ridiculous man."
Redd, Kerman, Knight and Jay co-created the show. Their characters bear their real first names.
"We wrote these characters as a way of antagonizing each other, honestly," Kerman, 29, said. "It's us trolling each other in terms of our worst qualities and then amplifying them."
In various episodes, Chris visits a sperm bank to encourage women to select his donations or sleeps with homeless women. In one episode, Langston encourages Jak to report a superior sexually assaulting him.
In another, Langston speaks up against a White party guest for making racist jokes. Kerman said Bust Down's self-righteous version of Langston tries even his own patience.
"I hate Langston with all of my heart," Kerman said. "And I think that's probably true for all of our characters except maybe Jak."
After the sexual assault episode, Jak gets into a fight with church altar boys. Knight, 26, said Jak's extremes on Bust Down represent his real-life emotions.
"I'm definitely manic," Knight said.
The three boys debate Sam's responsibility to the child of her girlfriend. Jay, 40, said the episodes exaggerate real experiences they've had.
"We just wanted to write from a real place," Jay said.
Kerman said he and Knight experienced less dramatic abuse from a boss.
"Everything, I think, is born of some sort of experience we had - except having sex with homeless people," Kerman said.
The four comedians met on the standup circuit. Jay and Kerman performed in Boston over 10 years ago.
Kerman met Knight at the 2015 Just for Laughs festival. Redd said he met Jay when they both hung out at Knight's house.
Knight appeared on Jay's HBO Max show, Pause With Sam Jay. As the four became friends, they decided to create a show together.
Viewers will witness some of the real life-banter between Redd, Jay, Kerman and Knight. Jay said a discussion about which celebrity's poop they would be willing to eat occurred in real life.
"We know our opinions on the poop because we discussed it," Jay said. "I just brought in my same stance that I had when we were talking about it off-camera."
The four agreed to make their characters work in a Gary, Ind., casino because of their experiences doing standup in casinos. Knight called a casino the "saddest place in America."
Kerman said the casino served a practical purpose for the episodes they wanted to do. At most other jobs, their characters would be fired for underperformance.
"There's no accountability at a casino," Kerman said. "Nobody's checking in to see if you're behaving the way you're supposed to."
While making Bust Down, Redd was also in the Saturday Night Live cast and Season 1 of Kenan. He is also on a standup comedy tour and said he is "barely" holding it all together.
"I'm a workaholic," Redd said. "I've been working like this my whole career. I was just broke doing it. Now I get to do it with projects that I like and I love."
All episodes of Bust Down stream Thursday on Peacock.
