Five Questions with Undateable Star Chris D’Elia

Chris D’Elia Photo by Chris Haston / NBC

Don’t tell Danny Amendola this, but comedian Chris D’Elia can’t stand the people who go to Coachella.

The star of the NBC sitcom Undateable, who performs at the Wilbur this week, recently went on a hilarious video tirade against the festival and its attendees, who often wear “awful outfits.”

“I just don’t like anything that’s a group mentality like that—unless it’s for me,” D’Elia jokes.

Check out what else the comedian had to say about Coachella, his thoughts on the L.A. vs. Boston pizza debate, plus what it was like to hang with the Backstreet Boys and Meghan Trainor on Undateable.

You recently made a hilarious video rant about Coachella. How do you really feel about the festival?

I just don’t like anything that’s a group mentality like that—unless it’s for me. It’s a very selfish thing. I don’t want to go see anyone else. I just don’t like to go where the thing is. I’ve always been like that. I never liked school because I didn’t want to go because everyone went. I always wanted to do my own thing, and that became stand-up comedy to me. There’s too many people that I don’t want to see there and there’s just awful outfits.

When you’re Undateable castmate Brent Morin was last in town, he told me that Boston has way better pizza than Los Angeles. Is that true?

L.A. doesn’t have as good of a pizza as on the east coast, yeah. I don’t know about Boston pizza, but I do know about New York pizza. I don’t know, for some reason, L.A. really excels in Mexican food, and sushis great. Probably the sushis better out here. They do have some good sushi places on the east coast. But Mexican food is just not the ticket over there in the New England area.

Speaking of Undateable, you guys performed live all of last season. How was that experience? Was stand-up a good preparation for that?

Nothing is more terrifying than being on stage yourself and having to rely on nobody but yourself. So these shows that are live from Undateable are like, I mean, you can always blame someone else if something goes wrong and no one would know. The actors on the show, just the actors and not the comedians, were a lot more nervous than the comedians because performing live is performing live, whether it’s for 30 people or 4 million people. It’s still the same kind of a thing. If you’re not used to doing that, it’s terrifying.

Last season’s episodes also featured musical performances with the Backstreet Boys, Meghan Trainor, and a bunch of other stars. That must’ve been fun.

I like the nostalgic aspect of it because I grew up, obviously knowing about the Backstreet Boys and all that. Those guys have kind of become my friends now they’ve done the show. I talked to A.J. [McLean] about coming on the show and he was like, “We’d totally be down.” So we made that happen. And Meghan Trainor was awesome! We had some people who, you know Weezer… some of these guests, people wanted to see these musical acts more than they wanted to see Undateable, which is fine, as long as we get the eyeballs.

I heard on Joe Rogan’s podcast that you used to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Would you go back to it and if so, which comedian would you want to face in a match?

In the name of being in shape and all that, I would maybe go back. When I do something I obsess about it so much, so that became stand-up comedy. Now that I have a little bit more leeway with my career, I could probably get back into it. I’ve talked to Joe about getting back into it, just picking his brain about it. I think I would want to fight Brent, 100 percent, just to make it quick. Or maybe even Rick Glassman my other co-star. Maybe not Ron Funches because Ron has some muscle and some secret anger behind him.

Chris D’Elia performs at the Wilbur Theatre on Thursday and Friday, May 12-13.

This interview has been edited and condensed.