VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Patton Oswalt & James Ward Byrkit On Finding Humor In ‘Shatter Belt’

Shatter Belt is a collection of stories that follows the many mysteries of life – including such heady topics as desire, free will, consciousness and intention.

In an exclusive interview with uInterview at South By Southwest festival with uInterview founder Erik Meers, creator James Ward Byrkit and actor Patton Oswalt discussed the message of the show.

“Well they’re all held together by questions of human intention, so that’s really the starting point,” Byrkit said. “What we intend and what our consciousness is trying to manifest in the world and how it becomes physical reality, so they’re all about that and this just happens to be one very different approach to that question, featuring a very human, very emotional character who’s really has one last shot to be relevant in life.”

Oswalt on to reveal how he got into his character Dervey Ryan for the show.

“Oh I mean especially you know this guy, he’s a journalist, he’s a like a writer on pop culture, and it’s like every writer on pop culture where they all want to write Susan Sontags’ Notes on Camp. Some essay that changes the perceptions of everything and gets remembered and is included in every anthology and is studied but he’s just writing listicles for you know websites, so how is he going to do that,” Oswalt said. “And you know I, as a comedian, you know when you commit to being a comedian you have to kind of accept that you are in a very, very ephemeral art form that has no shelf life and I think a lot that’s why so many comedians get bitter as they’re older they forgot the initial deal that they made is that you have pursued an art form that by its nature does not last and dates very very hard and what is hilarious literally five years ago might not be funny now. And that’s a real risk that I mean it’s a risk that every artist take but comedians it’s dialed up so much higher and so much quicker so I was very much able to kind of link Dervey the character that I played to that.”