Laugh Lines: Conversations With Comedians (44 page)

Corey: Or the shakes or something.

Nick: Or something, right.

Corey: Have you added any more words to your vocabulary since the recording of the CD?

Nick: No, not one word. I have completely dropped off. I think my vocabulary is done. I am done. I have punched out.

Corey: How do you balance your time between film and TV work and stand-up?

Nick: I have no idea. My friend pointed that out the other day. He’s like, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I just wrote a movie.’ ‘When the hell did you do that?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘We’ve been going out drinking, playing Halo for like the last three months straight and you wrote a movie?’ ‘Yeah!’ The movie fairy just appears on my doorstep.

Corey: What is your writing process like? Do you have to be strict with yourself?

Nick: I do focus in all seriousness. Days are good. Planes are great. If I have a five-hour flight, I’ll just sit there and write. Yeah, I write really fast, I always have.

Corey: When you’re working on a movie script, is it better to get every idea out and not worry about editing?

Nick: Yeah, I just start and keep going. Then they have to proofread my stuff. My friends and producers will proofread my movie and go, ‘Did you get past kindergarten? This doesn’t make sense. You still don’t know which their means they’re.’ ‘No, I don’t; give me a million dollars.’

Corey: You said that people often mistake you for gay. Why do you think that is?

Nick: It’s not a shocker to me. I’ve played so many gay characters, and people are like, ‘You do it so well.’ That always makes me laugh.

Corey: Do you think one led to another, like a typecasting thing?

Nick: Yeah. I think I have a feminine kind of vibe.

Corey: Is it important for you to make each gay character different?

Nick: Yeah, I have. It’s funny, people are like, ‘You play the same gay guy.’ ‘No, I don’t really.’ The guy on ‘Reno 911!’ is cartoony and obviously retarded, and I always say that guy’s straight on the show. Terry has a girlfriend. It’s really goofy. The guy in ‘Chuck and Larry,’ he wasn’t effeminate even though I was running around in a butterfly costume. The scenes got cut out, but I was playing a real, normal guy. In ‘Art School Confidential,’ it was another specific guy. I think they’re all different and have their own nuances. I don’t just generalize a group of people. Terry is the exception. Even Terry is a committed character.

Corey: Have you gotten to keep any of Terry’s outfits?

Nick: Yeah, some things I totally kept. Some half shirts.

Corey: It was neat seeing Paul Reubens pop up as your dad in ‘Reno’ the movie. Was he a hero to you as a kid?

Nick: Yeah, I loved ‘Pee-Wee’s Playhouse’ as a kid.

Corey: So having him slap your ass was an honor.

Nick: It was exciting, and he was really nice. He’s a really interesting guy. It wasn’t like meeting Woody Allen. Some people were freaking out, but he was very cool.

Corey: What is the dynamic like with the Sandler crew, since many of you work together on the same projects?

Nick: I don’t know. Sandler, if it’s the right film, he will find roles. Like ‘Chuck and Larry,’ it was the right film for him to find stuff for all his buddies.

Corey: If the Sandler crew would take on the Frat Pack guys, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn and them, who would come out in the end?

Nick: Take them on in what?

Corey: Like a brawl.

Nick: Oh Sandler’s crew would easily win.

Corey: Is there a secret weapon there?

Nick: I think we’d probably win. I’m not saying those guys aren’t tough. I know Vince can throw a punch.

Corey: Do you get the opportunity to tour much?

Nick: Yeah, I pop out here and there. My tours now are a lot more planned.

Corey: Do you have a dream project that you’d like to see get made?

Nick: Any project that gets made is a dream project. If you get it green-lit, it’s a dream. Yeah, I’ve got several films in development right now, and if any of them get made it will be a dream. One right now is called ‘Happy Hour,’ which is a rated-R comedy that’s I’m excited about. The other is a PG-13 film that I am working with Sandler on.

Corey: Anything you can say about it?

Nick: It’s a buddy comedy about two guys who kidnap rich people’s pets for the ransom. It’s really funny, and I’m not just saying that because I wrote it.

Corey: How difficult is it to get something made? What is the ratio that actually gets made?

Nick: It’s not easy. All these critics bad-mouth us, and say whatever we want we get. That’s not true. Nobody wanted to make ‘Grandma’s Boy.’ It took forever to get that made. Some of the movies we’re dealing with take a while. Nobody’s handing us anything.

Robert Schimmel was one of the first comedians who I knew was funny but I didn’t exactly know why. As a kid, I had to sneak to see clips of comedians on HBO specials hosted by Rodney Dangerfield, and Robert killed on one.

Sadly, he died in a car accident in 2010. But before that, he beat cancer and lived to joke about it.

Corey: What did you use to get through chemotherapy?

Robert Schimmel: When I got diagnosed, my doctor told me, ‘I don’t know how open-minded you are,’ and I was with my mom and dad. ‘You should consider smoking pot during your therapy because it will help with your nausea and pain.’ And I remember going to the doctor, ‘This is a dream come true.’ What would be better than your doctor telling your parents you have to smoke pot? Tell me that’s not almost worth it. The only thing to top that would be the doctor telling your wife, ‘You’re gonna have to be in a threesome; that’s the only chance your husband has.’

Corey: You tend toward the self-deprecating humor.

Schimmel: That’s the kind of stuff I do. It’s not picking on anybody; it’s not making fun of anybody else.

Corey: What was it like for you being away from the audience when you were going through treatment?

Schimmel: I snuck out of the hospital twice to perform when I wasn’t supposed to. I went to Las Vegas to perform at the Monte Carlo one night. I had to. I had to know what I was fighting for.

Corey: I love that you are asking fans to donate comedy books and CDs at your shows to give to local hospitals.

Schimmel: I was listening to everything, George Carlin and Chris Rock, Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart. Actually Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay sent me something that wasn’t released in stores. He doesn’t just push the envelope, he shoots it out of a fucking cannon. I have asked that the national (non-Hodgkins lymphoma) organization to be familiar with my material before presenting it to patients. They’ve told me, ‘You’re bringing public awareness, no matter which way you’re doing it.’

Corey: How is the awareness going?

Schimmel: If you really want to think about something shocking, more people died last year from non-Hodgkins lymphoma than died on Sept. 11, and that’s only one kind of cancer. I asked my oncologist, ‘If you had the money to spend on research as the government has spent on terrorism, where would you be now?’ And he said, ‘Looking for a new job,’ because he believes they would have a cure already, but they don’t have the resources. So, we’ll spend billions of dollars to kill other people, but we won’t spend the same amount of money to save people’s lives.

Corey: People talk about cancer in whispers. You’re a comedian. Is it tough to get the message out there and be funny at the same time?

Schimmel: I feel like I’m obligated to the people who are still in the hospital or the people who died during experimental treatments, and I’m here because of what they went through when their doctor said, ‘You know what, you have a few weeks left and we can try this thing and there’s no guarantee it may not save you, but it could save somebody down the line.’ And they say ‘OK, do it.’ I owe that to them because I’m still here, and the thing is, people don’t know how many survivors there are. How are you supposed to get the word across? It didn’t rob me of my sense of humor or my career, and there’s a lot more people like me.

Corey: What has the reaction been in the clubs since you began talking about cancer onstage?

Schimmel: At this show, one of the club owner’s friends was there and had a brother die who was sick for a long time. Her brother was a Jesuit priest, and I told her, ‘He might be gone, but he lives on through the work he did.’ And she said, ‘Well, he touched a lot of people,’ and I had to bite my lip.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was “Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke,” and again, I didn’t know why it was so funny at the time, I just knew it was. I caught up with Cheech when he was touring the country with his collection of Chicano paintings.

Corey: What do you think the average American thinks when they hear the word ‘Chicano?’

Cheech Marin: Bewilderment. I think 99 percent of the country doesn’t know what a Chicano is, much less what their art looks like. That’s what part of this show is, too, to educate the public as to what Chicanos are. Of the Latino pie in this country, nearly two-thirds or three quarters of that is Chicano, which is by far the biggest group.

Corey: What does Chicano mean to you?

Cheech: It’s an ever-evolving term. What Chicano means to me is a synthesis between Latin roots and the American experience.

Corey: How do you feel about this milestone birthday?

Cheech: Ha, ha. Kill this guy. It’s a milestone. I never really thought about the other birthdays—30, 40, 50—didn’t really phase me. Sixty kind of gives me pause. Entering a new territory. As long as my health and my energy keep up, it’s just another birthday.

Corey: Is there a role you haven’t had the chance to play that you’d like to?

Cheech: I would just like to keep working. My career has been characterized by just doing the next thing that’s in front of me, and I will keep on doing that. Once you compile a big enough body of work, the view starts to change. Like hookers and politicians, if they stick around long enough, they start to get revered.

Corey: Do you prefer yourself with or without the moustache?

Cheech: Without, definitely. Funny thing is, with the moustache I look like my mother and without, I look like my father. I don’t know how that works, but it does.

Corey: What would you like to be your legacy?

Cheech: What I got into this for is that people would repeat our stuff, and it would be this inside joke. Some private joke shared among comedy aficionados, Cheech and Chong lines. That is the most fulfilling thing when people come up and say, ‘Me and my brother or me and my father would say those things over and over.’ That is comedy nirvana as far as I’m concerned.