Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (27 page)

Corey: I think I have enough material here to …

David: Get yourself fired?

Corey: I know you guys are busy, so I’ll let you go.

David: If you have any other actual questions, drop me an e-mail.

Corey: David, Michael and Michael, thank you.

All: Bye, Corey.

David Wain wasn’t the showiest (or Showalter-est) member of The State, the sketch comedy troupe that was, at first, mostly reviled on MTV, and then—as it tends to happen—later recognized for its irreverence and brilliance.

Wain has since become one of the prolific filmmakers in the group, having directed the cult classic, “Wet Hot American Summer” (one of the funniest movies ever. Seriously.). He also co-wrote, with State alum Ken Marino, “The Ten,” a weird and wonderful set of tales based on the Ten Commandments. (You may have heard of it as the movie in which Winona Ryder gets it on with a ventriloquist’s dummy.)

Wain was less smart-assy in this interview than he was when doing so as part of Stella.

Corey: I saw ‘The Ten’ a couple of weeks ago, and I was curious who got to keep the dummy?

David Wain: The dummy was kept by the guy who made it. He would not let us keep it. He was very particular about it. It was his creation. There were two dummies; one that could get roughed up.

Corey: Like a stunt dummy. As a kid, what was the first thing you remember about the Ten Commandments.

David: I guess I saw them in temple as a kid. I thought, ‘I don’t understand those Roman numerals. Somebody is gonna have to explain them to me.’ I still don’t understand them. I know the V is like five; that’s all I know.

Corey: What did you think when you discovered what the 10 represent?

David: I figured that’s a good idea. Ten’s a good number. Ten rules to follow. Some of them are a little amorphous. Honor your father and mother. How do you know if you’re actually doing that? You get some wiggle room.

Corey: What was the writing process like when you and Ken Marino worked together?

David: It was great. Basically we live on separate coasts, and we got together for a week and forced ourselves to work 12 hours a day, every day, and emerge with a first draft. And we did. It was a fun way to bang something out. I think it gave the script some of its whimsical feel.

Corey: Was it originally done as a goof, or was it always going to be a serious motion picture?

David: I don’t think it is a serious motion picture.

Corey: A legitimate motion picture.

David: Yeah, we kind of did write it thinking, ‘Let’s write something we think is funny’ or not worrying about what an audience or a financier might think of it. That was sort of the thinking behind it. We were often surprised when we were shooting it that anyone had put any money behind it.

Corey: It was hard to catch and write as I was watching the movie. Can you pronounce the fast food chains mentioned in there?

David: McDownalds. Bwerger King. Woundys.

Corey: Woundys?

David: Mmhmm.

Corey: OK. Have you considered yourself a coveter?

David: I’ve coveted. I’ve probably coveted my neighbor’s wife more than thy goods.

Corey: Did you rank what you thought were the more serious commandments?

David: No, we didn’t think about it like that. We didn’t really pay much attention to the proper order. In fact in the rap song at the end we have a line that says, ‘Is that really their actual order?’

Corey: It was nice to see David Yazbek did the final song. How did you end up working with him?

David: I met him at a poker game when we were first starting to work on this. I had been a fan of some of his work. I said, ‘Hey dude, why don’t you do this?’ and he said, ‘OK.’

Corey: Are you a fan of production numbers in film?

David: I’m actually not, especially in comedies. We’ve seen them before. It’s not the freshest way to end a movie. To be honest, with a movie with 10 stories like this, you had to do something that made you very aware that it was over. I feel like that was the best way to do it. We tried to give it that live-show look.

Corey: Have you heard from Diane Weist’s goons yet?

David: Not yet. We’re waiting. We’re waiting for that.

Corey: When people stand your movie next to ‘The Ten Commandments’ 25 years from now, how do you think it will compare?

David: Well, I don’t know. I’ve never seen it. If someone wants to invite me over to watch it, I would probably go. I’m a big fan of Charlton Heston, mostly from the TV show ‘The Colbys.’

Corey: Do you think this is going to be a popular film for prison movie nights?

David: I hope we can really speak to the prison population far more than that ‘Shawshank’ piece of shit.

Corey: This is two movies in a year where The State is basically reunited. Could we see a full-blown reunion?

David: Since we were on TV we were always talking about The State movie. It might happen soon.

Corey: What about ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ the musical?

David: That also is in process. That’s something we’re working on as well.

Corey: Are you being serious?

David: I’m being totally serious.

Corey: Like a stage production?

David: Yes, but it’s definitely in the earliest stages of production, so I couldn’t even give you an estimation of when it would see the light of day.

Corey: What about another Stella project?

David: Stella would reappear as well at one point.

Corey: Back when you guys were first working on the MTV show, if someone said, ‘Fifteen years from now, you’re going to be the serious director of the bunch,’ what would you have said?

David: I definitely wouldn’t have been able to predict that more than half of the 10 of us would have directed feature films by now. What’s crazy is, we’ve all become directors. I don’t think I’m the serious director of the bunch.

Corey: How do you direct someone in a smacking-of-a-kid sequence?

David: Leiv, he really smacked that kid. By the end of the day, what are you gonna say, ‘Don’t do that?’ He’s a little kid, and that’s Leiv Schreiber.

Corey: I guess when you’re making a film, the laws don’t apply. How often do people ask you if you call your home Wain Manor?

David: Not in a long time. We did used to call it that. We had a little plate on our door that said, ‘Stately Wain Manor.’

Tom Lennon is a class act and has always been very generous with his time for me. He even got the entire cast of “Reno 911” to sign a photo for my friend Jason the cop’s 30th birthday. While I will always love Tom for his “Froggy Jamboree” sketch on MTV’s “The State,” he is best known as the mustached Lt. Dangle on “Reno.” I first interviewed Tom when I was still in college and next when “Reno 911” was about to debut on Comedy Central.

Corey: What is your character, Jim Dangle, like?

Thomas Lennon: My character Jim Dangle sees himself exactly like Steve McQueen in ‘Bullitt,’ except that he wears hot pants. I wanted to play a gay character, but not an effete gay character. I wanted to play a character who’s both openly gay and out, but whose gayness isn’t just a punch line—come in and say, ‘I just picked out window treatments.’ I didn’t want to be that guy. In his head, he’s a total tough guy, whether it comes off like that or not.

Corey: What’s the show about, in a nutshell?

Thomas: It went from being sort of half-sketch, half-sitcom hidden in a ‘COPS’ show to basically about a bunch of people who are in love with each other, who are totally dysfunctional and can’t make it work out in any way.

Corey: You’re working with Kerri Kenney again, who is quite attractive, but is also good at playing ugly.

Thomas: It’s hard to get a pretty girl to play not pretty as well as Kerri does. She plays Woman with Horrible Scoliosis really well.

Corey: I’ve always wanted to see what a script for an improvised comedy looks like. What do they look like?

Thomas: It’s so disappointing what that script looks like; it’s almost not worth looking at. It’s like, ‘We walk up to guy. Guy runs away. Guy is dressed like milkshake.’ People look at it and go, ‘What?’

Corey: When you’re not filming the show, do you keep the moustache year-round?

Thomas: Oh dear, goodness, no. I do keep it, but I keep it in a box, because it’s fake. That’s a thing that surprises people the most is that the moustache comes off. They are $100 a piece.

Corey: Have you ever worn a real one before?

Thomas: Here’s the weird thing, when we did ‘Viva Variety,’ also on Comedy Central, I had a real moustache, and people always thought it was fake. Always. People were like, ‘Your moustache is slipping off a little bit.’ ‘This is real.’ Now that I have a fake moustache, people always think it’s real. I don’t know how that worked out.

Corey: No real grooming needed?

Thomas: No, there’s a little bit of prep work. Some guy out in the San Fernando Valley, he’s like the Q of moustaches, to James Bond, you know?

Corey: Are they real human hair?

Thomas: Oh yeah, they’re the real deal.

Corey: How much are moustache rides?

Thomas: Well, the moustaches themselves are $100, so let’s see, if I can get 10 rides for 10 bucks each, I feel pretty good about it. Of course, there’s time and labor in moustache rides that people aren’t keeping track of.

Corey: Have you been pulled over at all, or had any run-ins?

Thomas: Not yet. I was pulled over once, and the guy didn’t realize I was Dangle until well, well into it—although I do now keep a couple of the DVDs in my glove compartment because cops go crazy for the show. Cops love it. The two people who love the show more than anyone in the world are chronic marijuana users and law enforcement, and those are our two best demographics.

Corey: In the last season, what did you talk about with Kenny Rogers while you were in bed with him?

Thomas: Oh my God, Kenny and I—he’s a real good sport. You can’t faze him I found out. It was real, real easy lying around in a bed with him. He’s the kind of dude you can go out and knock ’em dead with—‘The Gambler’ and ‘Coward of the County.’ Then you can go spoon with him, and either way, you feel like he’s only talking to you.

Corey: This season you’re actually in prison. What kind of research did you do?