Ever since he burst onto the scene in 2019 with his hit sketch show, Tim Robinson has become the reigning king of offbeat comedy, a one-man meme machine whose face took over all our feeds. (Also: yelling—so much yelling.) But behind the surreal, over-the-top characters that he plays, the real Tim Robinson is a low-key dad with two kids—a guy best understood when you strip away all but the essential, unvarnished facts:
1 - Tim Robinson was born and raised in the suburbs of Detroit. His mom worked for Chrysler, and his dad worked in construction.
2 - He loves the Lions and the Pistons. Tim’s favorite athlete of all time is Pistons legend Rasheed Wallace.
3 - Tim is big into skateboarding and still tries to get out there regularly. His favorite skater growing up was Daewon Song. “He’s a ripper,” Tim says. Oh, and Tim’s favorite skate trick? The frontside flip. “It feels really good to land,” he says. “The older I get, the harder it is. So when I can get one, I feel great.”
4 - Tim is deeply claustrophobic, but it wasn’t always this way. His fear of confined spaces used to be manageable, easier to mitigate around his friends and loved ones, but the phobia has only gotten more pronounced as he’s gotten older. Now, at 42, he has “a hard time sitting in the back seat of a car that doesn’t have four doors” and is resistant to anything involving a harness or “like, over-the-shoulder stuff.” The mere suggestion of immobility fills Tim with terror. One of the most frightening moments of his life occurred shortly after he first moved to Los Angeles and he went on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios. Tim was buckled into a makeshift pew, and the sides obstructed his peripheral vision; he could fix his gaze only forward. Midway through, the ride stopped, and as Tim sat there suspended, frozen in his own body, his brain went into a tailspin.
“And your mind is just like, You can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move, you can’t move,” Tim remembers. “And then you’re like, Well, if I tried to…what would happen?”
5 - His favorite movie is Strangers on a Train, by Alfred Hitchcock.
6 - Tim made it big in 2012 when he landed a dream job on Saturday Night Live. During his two years there, he loved to sift through the computer server, which was filled with obscure sketches and old dress rehearsals that couldn’t be found online. He doesn’t have a favorite cast member, but he’s a big fan of Kristen Wiig, Will Forte, Tim Meadows, and Bill Hader.
7 - Tim’s a big crier. Cries all the time, really—in front of his kids, on television, in front of strangers. A pathetic little crybaby wah-wah-wah. “I showed my daughter a clip of Jimmy Stewart on Johnny Carson reciting a poem he wrote about his dog,” he says, “and I cried.”
8 - He adores dogs, by the way. He has two: Lucky and Coney. But don’t ask him to pick a favorite. “What if I die and see one [in heaven], and I said that in this interview I like one better?”
9 - Tim does not believe in ghosts, but he would like to.
10 - Tim does believe that aliens are real, and that intelligent life exists beyond our wretched, decaying planet. “It just makes sense,” he says. “When I first moved to Los Angeles, there was a SpaceX launch I didn’t know about that had me being like, Wow, the alien invasion is happening now. I definitely had no chill in front of my kids. I was definitely not a comforting dad in the situation. They were like, ‘What is that?’ I was like, ‘Fucking aliens.’ ‘Should we be scared?’ ‘Yeah.’ ”
11 - Tim is a vegetarian.
12 - When he pulls a seat up to the bar, his go-to drink is a dirty martini. “It’s vodka, but it’s real dirty,” Tim says of his order. “I want it to be almost like a soup. I want it to be gazpacho.” There was one time he was back in Detroit and he ordered a dirty martini, and his nephew said, “Hey, you’re drinking a Shrek drink.” And Tim was like: “ ‘What are you talking about?’ But then I guess his only point of reference of seeing a martini was on Shrek. I was like, ‘This is a popular drink. It’s not, like, just on Shrek.’ He’s like, ‘This guy’s drinking a Shrek drink!’ I mean, it’s JAMES BOND! NOT SHREK.”
Cam Wolf is a senior style writer at GQ.
A version of this story originally appeared in the 2023 Men of the Year issue of GQ with the title “Cringe Daddy”
PRODUCTION CREDITS:
Photographs by Sandy Kim
Styled by Brandon Tan
Grooming by Darine Sengseevong at The Wall Group
Tailoring by Yelena Travkina
Produced by Annee Elliot Productions, Los Angeles