St. Denis Medical's Mekki Leeper Says He Asks Daily: "What Can I Knock Over?"
The sweet newbie from Montana has become the pratfall master of St. Denis Medical's halls.
NBC comedy series St. Denis Medical has one of the best ensemble comedy casts on television right now, featuring comedy legends Wendi McLendon-Covey and David Alan Grier, Emmy-winner Allison Tolman, Josh Lawson, Kahyun Kim, Kaliko Kauahi and stand-up comedian Mekki Leeper.
It's often said that if you can get a fellow comedian to laugh at your work, then you're doing it right. For Leeper, who plays the eternally naive and bumbling newbie Nurse Matt at St. Denis Regional Medical, he's already earning the admiration from his colleagues for the way he plans his character's pratfalls.
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At a recent FYC mixer for the cast of St. Denis Medical, NBC Insider asked Leeper about what he enjoys about planning Matt's pratfalls in any given scene?
"It's such a privilege to get to do that on the show," Leeper said with enthusiasm. "I just feel so lucky to get to do it, and it's really fun. Before a take, I just kind of look around and I'm like, 'What can I knock over? What can I drop? How could I fall right now?'"
Leeper reveals the origins of his physical comedy skills
Leeper admitted that he never intended to become so skilled in creating Matt's frequent fumbles, but his character's awkwardness ended up becoming a natural quirk of the job.
"In the pilot, I fall off of a rolling stand and it was the first thing that he shot," he revealed. "After a few takes, they were like, 'Hey, production wants me to let you know we don't have the insurance for you to fall down, so you have to stop doing that.'"
As for personal inspirations, Leeper said that he remembers as a little kid being impressed with the antics of the Three Stooges, and then as an adult he admired the physical work of Chris Pratt as Andy on Parks and Recreation.
Leeper also revealed one of his favorite injury-based jokes from a different beloved NBC sitcom.
"And one of my favorite moments from The Office is a physical comedy bit that you only hear. It's 'The Injury' episode where Michael grills his foot," Leeper detailed. "He's in the bathroom and you hear him fall, and he gets pinned between the toilet and the wall. Just the audio of that really kills me."
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He added, "I think the fun of physical comedy is that it's funny, wherever you are, in any language. I do stand up and there are a couple of clubs in this country where before the show starts, they play a reel of bloopers with people falling down, injuring themselves and getting hit, or whatever, just to get the audience in a mood. Unfortunately, bloopers are funnier than any stand up I've ever written."
Leeper concluded: "I think that a dude falling down or getting hit in the nuts or something like that, is funnier than most jokes that have ever been written."
The Matt fall that made his boss laugh
With the first season of the series already complete, we asked if there was a Matt moment that made any of his colleagues laugh, and it became a moment of personal pride?
"In the episode where Serena yells to Matt as an example of what you can't say to a suitor — like, 'Hey, man, want to — in 12 minutes?' — he's so flustered that he falls over a medical cart," Leeper chuckled. "It sort of ends up falling onto him. After the second or third take of that, I started pulling the cart onto myself and having it sort of crush me. The first time that I did that, our showrunner, Eric [Ledgin], rushed up to me as I was climbing out from under it, and said that he wanted to try to put it in the trailer of the show. And I was like, 'All right! We're doing something right!'"
Catch new episodes of St. Denis Medical when they premiere on Tuesday on NBC at 8/7c. Episodes are available to stream on Peacock the next day.
