Stephan Pastis, "Pearls Before Swine" cartoonist: Mr. Media Interview, Part 3

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BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: If you’ve ever had a question you wanted to ask Stephan, now is your chance.

STEPHAN PASTIS: Tell Mark Tatulli to call in. Where are you, Tatulli? Call in.

ANDELMAN: He helped feed me some questions, and of course, he introduced us so I know he’s out there. I know he’s listening. What do we have here? Kirkman answered back. He says, “I haven’t been able to do much because oh, I keep losing the connection.” Several people in the Mr. Media chat room are very fond of the “Baby Blues” parody. I want to ask you: character-wise, you were talking about your fear of dogs, and if I’m not mistaken, I think the only dog in “Pearls” is chained up and never goes anywhere.

PASTIS: Yes. He’s a new character and in fact, I just did like five more of those strips. You won’t see them till May or June. But that little dog, it’s a little dog that sits on a chain, and for whatever reason, he really resonated. You never know what characters will resonate and which ones won’t, but that guy really did. And I think it’s just that chain metaphor. I think everybody feels that, in one way or another, they’re chained to something. That’s one reason, but the second reason is that dog, his name is Andy in the strip, that dog is the only character, I guess Pig is one, but he’s really the only character that is optimistic, like really optimistic. The strip is so cynical, but that little dog really thinks that he’ll get off that chain one day. And I think, I don’t know, I think that sort of resonates.





ANDELMAN: He’s going traveling, as I recall, most recently. Didn’t he have some travel brochures?

PASTIS: Yes. He was gonna travel. And I think, I don’t know when this appears, in February or something, he gets a girlfriend, and well, I won’t give it away.

ANDELMAN: Okay.

PASTIS: I almost said it.

ANDELMAN: Stephan, we’ve got another call here. Did you have a question for Stephan Pastis?

MARK TATULLI: Yeah, dammit, I thought I’d call in.

ANDELMAN: I thought I knew who this was.

PASTIS: Yeah, I do too. I recognize that smoke-filled voice.

TATULLI: Hey.

ANDELMAN: Hey, Mark, is that you?

PASTIS: What’s going down, Mark?

TATULLI: Stephan, let me think if I have a question for you. Can you expand on the whole theory about comic polls?

PASTIS: Yes. Should I say more? Did I not say enough about that?

TATULLI: Did you get it off your chest?

PASTIS: I know. I really went off on that, didn’t I?

TATULLI: No. I agree with you a hundred percent.





PASTIS: Hey, by the way, I’m giving this strip away. Everybody’s gonna know this now, but I did a strip this week, I don’t know when it’ll appear, next summer, and Pig is holding a newspaper, and it’s a newspaper that is for comic strip characters and only comic strip characters. But the headline of the paper, if you use a magnifying glass, it says “LIO Kid Waterboarded, Won’t Talk.”

TATULLI: You made it work.

PASTIS: Yeah, I stuck it in.

TATULLI: I don’t think you can get much more out of that, I’m telling you.

PASTIS: It’s really small, too.

TATULLI: I’m not well known enough, and it would be just too inside. You’re too big to do anything.

PASTIS: I don’t know. Buddy, you’ll see it.

TATULLI: I can insult other comic strip characters with complete immunity right now cause they can’t get back at me because nobody will know what they’re talking about.

PASTIS: That’s really funny. See, Mark’s great because Mark draws more flak than me now, and he runs cover. So that’s terrific.

ANDELMAN: People on the web chat, I can see that they’re kind of wondering who we’re talking to, Stephan. This is Mark Tatulli, creator of “LIO” and also “Heart of the City.” “LIO” is one of the fastest-growing strips of the last couple years. What are we talking now – 250, 300 papers?

TATULLI: Well, let’s just say 400, shall we?

ANDELMAN: Oh, sorry!

TATULLI: Yeah, somewhere in that neck of the woods. I have no idea. It changes month to month, but it’s around the 300 range right now.

PASTIS: I’m in 1,500, Bob.

ANDELMAN: Well, Mark, it’s only been 18 months/two years. Mark, you can see this. If you look, Mark was actually the first cartoonist interviewed on Mr. Media. But, Mark, I know you’re a “Pearls” fan, obviously. You wouldn’t be calling in other than to hassle Stephan.

TATULLI: I think I’m the original “Pearls” fan. I could send it to Stephan Pastis way back when, and they said, “Look at this shit in the paper.” Oops, can I say that?

PASTIS: Can we drop the S-bomb?

ANDELMAN: You can, actually.

TATULLI: Sorry about that.

PASTIS: I would’ve done that an hour ago.

TATULLI: What is this? Flat characters talking on a wall? And I said, “People, you’re just not reading the strip. It’s great. It’s nothing like it in the paper now.” “Get Fuzzy” came out a little earlier. I think it came in 1999, I believe, and Darby really changed things up cause he had a great drawing style that reminds me of “Tintin.” I think that, if newspapers were more part of the national dialogue now, “Get Fuzzy” would be introducing new words to our vocabulary because he just comes up with new phrases that are just great. But then Stephan came along, and his strip was just so acerbic and so just that he was rude, and it was funny everyday. And that’s what just made it just great, and I thought, “Oh, this is great. This is a new way for comics coming through. This is gonna be huge.”

PASTIS: The thing is too, thank you, and now I gotta be nice to Mark.

TATULLI: I know, and that’s a real struggle for you.





PASTIS: The great part too is, with Mark coming along and like “Cul de Sac” and “F-Minus” and some of these, it is really, really opening things up. When you’re in a newspaper and you’re the only edgy strip, you just get killed. Every complaint is about you. You’re just the most hated thing. And when there’s five or six of you, there’s safety in numbers. And so that’s one great thing about having someone like Mark on the page, and another great thing is the more of these edgy strips you have, the more likely that the paper will draw young readers and all the better for you if you have sort of a young, edgy strip. So, yeah, we need more like that.

TATULLI: And what I’ve noticed, too, is that editors, as they become younger and, I guess, more hip to the kind of strips that we do, is they defend us a lot stronger now. When there’s a comics poll, I’ve noticed, and my strip is not volunteered as one that will be dropped, older readers will call in and volunteer and say, “Why don’t you get rid of ‘LIO’? Get rid of ‘LIO.’ Get rid of that crap. I don’t know what that is.” But the editors will come to my defense so I think they’re catching on. And it’s a tough process because they don’t want to lose their old readers, but at the same time, they want to attract new ones.

PASTIS: To add to what Mark is saying, I do think that change is happening. I do think that newspapers are now pretty much well aware that they are losing, I think it’s about three percent every six months, so they’re losing quite a few readers. And I think what that is, I’m not an expert on newspapers, Bob, maybe your wife could say more about this, but I think what it is is just a factor of the older people passing on and not being replaced by a younger reader. So they are learning that they need to take a shot at really attracting these younger readers. And so you are seeing some of the legacy strips go and some of the younger strips coming along. At a minimum, what you’re seeing is editors who are trying to balance the page. Do a few strips that appeal to older people and some that appeal to younger people. So, yeah, it’s happening.

ANDELMAN: Stephan, let me ask you while we have Mark on the line. I know there was news in the last couple months that “LIO” was optioned, I believe, for a movie, and congratulations to Mark on that. Is there any action, and this came up in the web chat too, is there any action on maybe a “Pearls” cartoon or movie?

PASTIS: It’s really weird. Mark knows about this. I talked to him about it. But in July, August, September, October, for whatever reason, I started to get contacted by producers. And it happened a little bit in the past, but a bunch of them hit all at one time, and I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know if your name gets bandied about somewhere or something, but for whatever reason it happened, and they all seem to want to do the same thing, which is something related to TV. And I think I’m a little more leaning toward movies because I kind of like to write the script, and TV, you almost have to live in Los Angeles if you’re going to do that. It’s a lot more ongoing work. So I don’t know. I’m kind of keeping everything open right now, and I would like to animate it one day. I think that would be pretty fun, and I am, as we speak, trying to write a movie script. It centers largely around the crocodiles, but yeah.

ANDELMAN: Well, then that matches up well with a question that came up on the web chat and that is, “What do the crocs sound like?”

PASTIS: Oh, man. You know I hate to do it because then I influence people, and I know everybody has a different take. I have probably had 60 different ethnicities suggest it to me, and all of them think they know for sure. The most common I hear is Cajun, but to be honest with you, I don’t really know what a Cajun accent sounds like so I can’t say whether those people are right or not. But, yeah, that’s a very common question.

TATULLI: I’m gonna duck out of here now.

ANDELMAN: Alright. Hey, Mark, thanks a lot for calling.

PASTIS: Thank you, Mark.

TATULLI: My pleasure. I’ll talk to you. Bye.

ANDELMAN: Take it easy. Well, that was nice. That’s kind of a twofer for people listening, I think.

PASTIS: That is a twofer. Now if Cheryl Hines will call in, my day will be made. She’s not gonna call in is she, Bob? It’s not gonna happen.

ANDELMAN: I’m working on connecting you. I’ve got the wheels turning on that.

PASTIS: I’ll even take a Jeff Garlin.

ANDELMAN: You need two Jeff Garlins for one Cheryl Hines. In terms of adapting “Pearls” for another medium, what about the comic book like the Bongo adaptation of “The Simpsons”?

PASTIS: I would like to do that. It’d be so much work. The other thing that I’m trying to do is I’m trying to write a book, sort of like Scott did with The Joy of Work and all that, sort of my perspective on life but then fill it with a lot of strips that sort of illustrate the stories I’m telling. It’s not what you’re saying, but it is something different. It’s hard because when you’re a comic strip guy, you have pretty much full control. My editors don’t say very much to me. And when you go into any of these other realms, even writing a book, you walk into a little more editorial supervision in terms of, I don’t know, your editor is sort of a partner on the book. When you start doing screenplays, then you really give up a lot of control, and it’s hard. Comic strip guys, if they have one thing in common, well, other than depression, I suppose, is I think we’re control freaks, and we’re all juvenile. We all drink a lot. We have a lot of things in common, but I think we’re all control freaks. I think that’s one of the things. We are all control freaks.

ANDELMAN: You’ve often said that Rat is closest to you, and I assume you mean that personality-wise. So I wondered who do some of the other characters get aspects of their personality from?

PASTIS: In the couple times I ever got to talk to Sparky, I asked him that question about “Peanuts,” and he said that they were all parts of him. And I didn’t really understand the significance of that until I did my own comic strip, and that is so true. What he said to me was, “You can’t write one based on someone else because you don’t know anyone else well enough to really get inside the character. And you’ve got to live with these characters for years.” So, like I said, I didn’t know the significance, but when you start to do a strip, you realize that they have to be sort of based on you. So they’re really all me. Goat is me. I read a lot. I read a lot of history books. I’m a little bit cynical. Rat is the most natural voice. If I had my way, I’d probably write only for Rat all the time. It’s just a voice that’s easy for me. Pig is, I guess, the sweeter side of me which rarely shows itself, but that’s me, too. The crocodiles, I will actually walk around the house talking like that, annoying as that may sound. Zebra, I don’t know who Zebra is. I guess that’s me. The duck is me to the extent I can’t stand a lot of my neighbors. I don’t sit out there with a bazooka but something to that effect. So that’s sort of me. They’ve all kind of got to be you.

ANDELMAN: I think you mentioned that Andy, the dog, was the most recent character added.

PASTIS: Yes.

ANDELMAN: Do you have any other characters coming in the next year?

PASTIS: I keep wanting to do this monkey. Monkeys are the greatest animals. And I have a boy. I have a character who’s a cross between a boy and a monkey, and I love the way he looks, and I just can’t work him in. I haven’t been able to figure out a way to work him in. I think he’s called “The Boy Who’s Just Barely a Monkey.” I think that’s what he’s called. And I really want to work him in, and I haven’t figured out a way to do it yet. There’s a cat who you’ll see more of next year. He’s Zebra’s cat. He was really popular. I’m trying to think. I know I’m leaving somebody out that I just created, and I can’t…

ANDELMAN: I think if you’re going to do the monkey character, you’re going to need as much space for type as the pajama diaries usually has. It’s just that fraction of art, and everything else is text.

PASTIS: Yes. Yes.

ANDELMAN: Hope you get that title in.

PASTIS: That’s true. That is quite a long title.






ANDELMAN: You mentioned that you are working on a book, and you already mentioned Bill Watterson. Do you ever have that day when you think, “You know what? I’d like to take three months off or six months off and not do this for a while.”

PASTIS: Like last Thursday, I really hit a wall. Boy, I’ll tell ya! Any cartoonist you talk to, they’ll tell you this exact same thing: There are days where you look at what you’ve done, you go, “Oh, I will never be able to do that again. It’s over. I cannot think of one idea. I’m in the wrong profession.” I mean it. I’m saying it kind of jokingly, but it’s over. And it is a horrific feeling, and it hits. It usually hits during days when I’m down, and you can’t do anything. And on those days, yeah, you think that. But you think three months isn’t enough. You need a year, but there are other days like Saturday where I wrote, and it just flowed. There were five or six, and it was just a dumb little drawing. I drew a croc in a circle, and the circle looked like he was standing in a sewer. So I thought, you know, I’ve never put them in the sewer lines before. I could probably riff off of that somehow, and that turned into a week of strips where they tried to get into the Zebra’s house through the sewer. By the way, anyone listening, you don’t have to read the strip for the next year because I’ve given away every single plot line. But, no, there are some days where you hit it and you go, “Wow, that’s terrific.” But I will say that, maybe it’s because I was a lawyer for nine years, but I really love doing it. I don’t always love drawing it. Drawing is hard for me, but I really, really love writing it. That process is so…I would do it if I wasn’t paid. I would do it as a hobby. I would do it because I love to do it. That’s always infuriating. If you’re syndicated, you get guys that write to you and say, “Oh, you got this idea from this TV show or this comic strip or whatever and you’re stealing your ideas.” That’s such a strange concept to me. It’s like someone who enjoys fishing, running to the grocery store and buying a salmon. Why would you do that? It’s the act of doing it that you love, and I love writing.

© 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Cheryl Hines, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor: Mr. Media Interview, Part 1

By BOB ANDELMAN

Cheryl Hines has one of the most challenging acting jobs on television: she plays Larry David’s long-suffering TV wife on the HBO comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” now in its sixth season.

For years, many people have assumed she was David’s real wife, and further complicating the premise this year is the news that David and his wife Laurie have divorced. What does this development mean for the show?

AUDIO EXCERPT: "We thought that there was going to be a terrorist attack on Los Angeles, and I wanted to stay in town and Larry wanted to leave. And so in the outline, that’s all that was written, really. Then when we actually did the scene, it turned into this very soft-spoken scene where Larry and I were talking, and we’re having this serious conversation, but I felt very funny. I was like, “Well, if something happens, don’t you think we should be together?” And he’s like, “Actually, I think that’s a little selfish. Just because one of us perishes, does that mean the other one has to?” And so we sort of went back and forth and just asking him what he wanted to do. In one take, he said he thought he’d go to a dude ranch. And I think the take that ended up on the air, he said, “I thought I’d go to Pebble Beach.” So just getting through that scene, I don’t know, it unfolded into a scene that was never written but turned out to be very funny, I think."

Joining us today is the lovely Cheryl Hines who, hopefully, can shed some light on where all this is going -- or maybe not.








BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Cheryl there’s been a lot of chatter lately about whether Larry’s real-life separation from Laurie David would be incorporated in the show. If so, that would seem to threaten your livelihood in some ways. So I wondered what your thoughts about this might be.

CHERYL HINES: Well, here’s the thing. We shot this season long before Larry and his wife got divorced. See, you have to just bear that in mind while you’re watching this season.

ANDELMAN: You’re asking a lot for people who can’t separate reality from TV.

HINES: That’s true. You got a good point, yeah. Yeah.

ANDELMAN: Now you’ve already shot the whole season.

HINES: We have, yes.

ANDELMAN: Right. Now I actually talked to Jeff Garlin a few weeks ago, and he said, to his mind, this is the last season. So it would seem that actually the discussions of whether or not the divorce is gonna be incorporated is kind of superfluous.

HINES: Yes, it really is superfluous. However, that being said, I would not be surprised if we shot another season.

ANDELMAN: Oh, really?

HINES: Yeah. I talked to Larry, and he -- it’s not out of the question, let’s just say.

ANDELMAN: Okay.

















HINES: So that’s kind of exciting, but ever since the first season, Larry acts like it’s always our last.

ANDELMAN: Well, last season, I guess, was supposed to be the last.

HINES: Last season was going to be the last, but he lived.

ANDELMAN: Yeah.

HINES: He died, but he came back to life.

ANDELMAN: Now, whether or not Larry’s divorce makes it into the show, one of the storylines, at least in the early episodes this year, has involved some flirtatious behavior between you and Ted Danson. And I wondered if maybe that was reflecting reality at all or if that was just more good fun.

HINES: I think that’s more good fun. But, certainly, Larry’s very good at finding, at commenting on human nature so it’s in what we do and as a society what we do. So I think he just thought it was very funny that married people can’t really openly flirt that much so our contact with each other is just hitting each other on the shoulder and that’s how we flirt with each other. As he says, that’s as close as we can come to having sex with somebody else.

ANDELMAN: Now men are often portrayed as being flirtatious in these shows, but married women usually don’t get that opportunity unless it’s going all the way through.

HINES: That’s true.

ANDELMAN: I mentioned when we started talking about people having confusion issues between reality and TV, and I was reading in the Curb Your Enthusiasm book that Larry’s own parents were very upset and a little confused in the episode where Larry’s mother died.

HINES: We talked to Larry before he wrote the outline for that show, and he said I’ve got a funny idea. “What if my mother dies, and I don’t go to her funeral? I miss her funeral.” And I said, “That’s not funny,” and he said, “Oh, really, you watch, I’ll make it funny.” And then, of course, he writes it, and it is funny. But I’m sure his parents have had moments of confusion.


















ANDELMAN: Have you had other moments over the years, now I know you work from the barest of outlines, where you’ve had something, and you said that just doesn’t seem funny to me?

HINES: Well, when he died. He died, and he said before we shot that scene, “No tears,” and I was like, “But you’re dying. I’m supposed to watch you die, and it’s not sad?” So he has a way of really finding the comedy in everything.

ANDELMAN: You make a great point because, watching that, I kept looking to you thinking, okay, she would be crying now, right?

HINES: Believe me, I had to fight my instincts because it was sad. It was sad. I forget what actually made it into the show, but when we were shooting the scene, the idea was right after Larry dies, I turn to our attorney, and I say, “Can we talk about the will?”

ANDELMAN: Right.

HINES: And I was like I don’t feel comfortable saying that. Don’t make me say it.

ANDELMAN: You would think you would at least be out of the room where the body is.

HINES: Yeah, but I think some of that did not make it to airtime, but it did make it to airtime that Jeff and I start talking about the cost of the car, haggling over the cost of the car right after Larry dies. So there are moments of this that are just like oh, I have to fight my natural instincts.

ANDELMAN: One of the most well-known developments in your character was originally, she was seen as probably going to be Jewish, but then over time, it was clear -- I guess to Larry, clear to you -- that you weren’t going to be Jewish. Were there other developments in your own character that you were particularly either proud of or found most interesting over time?

HINES: Well, certainly, my character is involved with the NRDC and the environment, which mirrored Laurie David’s involvement with the environment. So it’s been very cool for me because it’s been educational. I’ve learned a lot, and I drive a hybrid car now.

ANDELMAN: Oh, do you?

HINES: Yeah. So that’s been interesting to me. But it’s funny because I think in our first season, I’m said to have been an actor so I did “The Vagina Monologues” the first season and then we never spoke of my acting career again. So it’s interesting if you really watch the episodes like what we carry through and what we just sort of drop.

ANDELMAN: But I do remember, and I’ll get the line wrong, but as I recall, your vagina is big in Canada, right?

HINES: My vagina is huge in Canada.

ANDELMAN: That’s it. See, I knew I was gonna get it wrong.

HINES: These people enjoy asking me how my vagina is, because of the wandering bear episode. Yeah, I’m having some problems because Larry wore a long-lasting condom inside out. It made me have some problems so the Native American Indian that’s helping us get rid of poison oak comes up to me and asks me how my vagina is. Just another day at work.

ANDELMAN: The thing I thought was interesting to me the first season or two was reading that you guys shared a trailer, and I wondered if going forward from here, if you do another series or something, if you would recommend that to your castmates.

HINES: I actually loved it. We had a great time together. I loved hanging out together. You sort of have that experience when you do theater because everybody’s in the green room just hanging out because you only have one space. So I really liked it, actually. I remember when Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor did the show, and she was pumping at the time. She was still breast-feeding, and we’re all in one trailer, and she would have to go in that tiny bathroom. I was like, oh, this is probably not good for every occasion. So, yeah, it has its ups and downs.


















ANDELMAN: Now you came into that situation where Jeff Garlin and Larry David and Susie Essman had known each other for some time. I imagine it was probably good for you to be in that situation of close quarters from the beginning because you probably got to know them and become part of the group a lot faster than if you were all going your separate ways after every shot.

HINES: Absolutely right. You’re so right, because sometimes you work on projects, and you really never have a chance, sometimes you don’t even see the other people in the show or in the movie. So it’s interesting that you say that because I never thought about it, but you’re right. It is a fun way to get to know each other personally, and since it’s improvised, it would probably make a good carry-over feeling that you could bring to the screen.

ANDELMAN: I would think it would be that much more valuable especially since the whole, not the whole, but one of the big aspects of the show is the improv, and so these three have dealt with each other and know each other. You’re being thrown in. I guess you can’t really overstate the importance of improv on that show.

HINES: All of the dialogue is improvised so Larry writes a story outline, and then we improvise dialogue. So, yeah, you’re right. It’s kind of a miracle to think that I was cast in this show because these guys already all knew each other. I don’t think Larry knew Susie, but Susie and Jeff had worked together and certainly Larry and Jeff, so I guess I was the odd man out. But I clicked immediately with Larry. We just got along so well from the moment I sat down next to him. So I don’t know. There was an ease to it all somehow.

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©2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Cheryl Hines, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor: Mr. Media Interview, Part 2

(Return to Part 1)

BOB ANDELMAN: Have you dealt with a character like Larry, and I mean a real-life character like Larry before? Had you ever dated someone…

CHERYL HINES: No, never. Never. Most of the people I had dated or been friends with were kind of sunnyside-up people. So it was really fun to meet Larry and live in that world.

ANDELMAN: Cheryl, how different was your approach to the improv in the sixth season than it was in the first season? And, by the way, I’ll point out I do know that you have The Groundlings experience, and it was not like you hadn’t done improv before. But how did your approach and how did it all change for you over six seasons?

HINES: I would say that my approach is the same. When you’re doing an improvised show, it’s really about listening and responding to whatever someone just said so it’s still the same approach. I would say the only thing that may be different is, now that we’ve been doing the show for so many years, I feel like maybe if I said something, and I knew that there was a glitch in it somehow, like maybe I heard an airplane going over or Larry and I overlap dialogue or something, I might stop and say I’m just gonna say this again or let me just take this one more time. I feel comfortable enough to do that, but other than that, it’s pretty much the same process.



ANDELMAN: Now, do you have a particular improv moment that you’re especially proud of? I’ll give you an example while you think about that for a minute. Jeff Garlin had said that his was when he and Larry were in his daughter’s room and the shelf came down, and they just kept going.

HINES: Yeah, yeah. I remember that. Well, there was a scene with me and Larry. I don’t even remember what season it was. We thought that there was going to be a terrorist attack on Los Angeles, and I wanted to stay in town and Larry wanted to leave. And so in the outline, that’s all that was written, really. Then when we actually did the scene, it turned into this very soft-spoken scene where Larry and I were talking, and we’re having this serious conversation, but I felt very funny. I was like, “Well, if something happens, don’t you think we should be together?” And he’s like, “Actually, I think that’s a little selfish. Just because one of us perishes, does that mean the other one has to?” And so we sort of went back and forth and just asking him what he wanted to do. In one take, he said he thought he’d go to a dude ranch. And I think the take that ended up on the air, he said, “I thought I’d go to Pebble Beach.” So just getting through that scene, I don’t know, it unfolded into a scene that was never written but turned out to be very funny, I think.

ANDELMAN: Now, I’m thinking back on our conversation. And so he thought it would be selfish if you stayed together. So if you perished in the crash-something, he would go to Pebble Beach. Well, earlier, you had concerns that he died, and you immediately wanted to talk about the will. So I think it all worked out. There’s some karma there.

HINES: It’s true. None of us are that perfect, are we?

ANDELMAN: Cheryl, how has being on “Curb” affected your other job opportunities?

HINES: Well, it’s opened up a door into film and other television projects for me that I would’ve not had the opportunities otherwise. Or so it seems. I went to some event, this was pretty early on, and Ron Howard was sitting in front of me, and he turned around and said, “Hey, I love your show and you’re so great on the show,” and I thought, “Oh my God, Ron Howard knows who I am!” So it’s been sort of that experience for me. I’ve had some really great filmmakers approach or hand me opportunities because they had seen my work on the show. So it’s huge. For me, it’s changed my life.



ANDELMAN: You co-starred with Robin Williams in RV. And I wondered, again, if the improv experience on “Curb” made that, first of all, made you that much more attractive to producers on that and if it was easier for you to work with someone like Robin because you had been in that environment.

HINES: Probably. Because, certainly, Robin has a reputation for going off-script, shall we say. So when we were shooting, he would go who knows where with it, and I would just roll with it. Who knows? You’ll have to ask Barry Sonnenfeld, but Barry Sonnenfeld is another person that I hit it off with immediately, and we became friends and remain friends. I’m sure improv may’ve been an attractive component, let’s say, to that project.

ANDELMAN: I imagine there’s been actors and actresses who’ve worked with Robin Williams over the years who were not as thrilled with him going off-script.

HINES: If you’re not used to improvising, it’s a very scary place to be because when you’re studying acting, you’re taught to find all of your answers in the script because that’s what it’s all about -- the words in the script. So, to some actors, that’s where the project lives and so when somebody goes off that script and starts doing something else, it can really be jarring.

ANDELMAN: Did you have an experience with Robin where he was basically doing a performance one-on-one with you going off-script?

HINES: Oh, yeah, every take, every take. He’d do probably two takes by the book and then one take he would say, “Can we do one just for me?” And we would do one, and who knows what he’d do. You just have to be ready for anything.





ANDELMAN: Interesting. That’d be an interesting experience. It’d be very different than watching him even in concert than to have him doing a performance three feet away from you.

HINES: He’s so great. I love Robin so much, and he’s really such a nice person. But he is either on, like a 100 percent on, or he’s super quiet. And when he’s on, he’ll perform for himself. He’ll be standing in the lunch line just doing bits, but who cares who listens? But when you’re sitting there eating lunch with him, you do feel like a lot of people would pay a lot of money to hear you right now going off on your French fries or whatever.

ANDELMAN: A completely different topic, though. You’ve found a new use for your celebrity, I understand, promoting the “Quaker Heart Smart Challenge.”

HINES: Yes.

ANDELMAN: I wondered what brought you into that?

HINES: My dad had a heart attack two years ago, and he’s okay now. But he had to have surgery, and it was a very dramatic situation. And we found out he had heart disease, and so it really sort of snapped me into thinking about health and having a healthy heart and all that sort of thing. So it seemed like a good fit for me.

ANDELMAN: What kind of things will you be doing with Quaker to promote this?

HINES: Well, we did a thing with Larry King, actually. We had a breakfast here in New York where we kicked off the Heart Smart Challenge because we want people to go to quakeroatmeal.com to sign up for this challenge. And every person that signs up, Quaker will donate a dollar to the Larry King Cardiac Foundation. So I’m just sort of speaking out about it and letting people know about it.

ANDELMAN: That’s very nice. As someone who has a lot of heart disease in the family, I appreciate that.

HINES: Oh, well good. It’s scary.

ANDELMAN: It is.

HINES: Certainly, it’s definitely helpful to try to be preventative about it.

ANDELMAN: Well, when you see a parent be diagnosed with it or have a heart attack or just suddenly do the family history, then you certainly realize you were more involved in it than you think you are.

HINES: Exactly.



ANDELMAN: There is a movie listed as being in production on your Internet Movie Database listing that sounds like a “Curb Your Enthusiasm” gag, Space Chimps. Can you elaborate?

HINES: Interestingly enough, Space Chimps is being directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. So I’m teaming up with Barry again. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and it’s an animated film. So, yes, I am voicing a chimp that goes to space. Actually, I think it’s going be a really cute movie. You know what? It’ll be a family movie.

ANDELMAN: And you get that it does sound like something that Larry invented?

HINES: Oh, listen, believe me. Yes, I do know that. I can’t wait to promote that movie, by the way.


© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

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Jeff Garlin, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 2

(Return to Part 1)

BOB ANDELMAN: On the show, of course, you play Larry’s manager, Jeff Greene. But what is your manager like?

JEFF GARLIN: My manager is David Miner at 3 Arts Entertainment, and he’s one of the kindest, best people you could ever hope to work with. And he is just a great, great person and a great, great manager and nothing like the scumbag Jeff Greene.

ANDELMAN: Is Jeff a scumbag? I thought he was the…

GARLIN: A total scumbag. A total scumbag.

ANDELMAN: I would’ve never described him that way.

GARLIN: I play him, and I’m telling ya, he’s a scumbag.

ANDELMAN: Listen. Over the summer, I picked up, at a bookstore in Buffalo, I had one night there, and I picked up a book. It’s the Curb Your Enthusiasm book, big yellow book.

GARLIN: Okay.

ANDELMAN: I hate to tell ya what I paid for it. It was on the closeout shelf.

GARLIN: It did well when it wasn’t on the close-out shelf, and I would’ve liked to have bought some copies from the close-out shelf.

ANDELMAN: I can tell ya that this store in the Buffalo mall has some. The book is real handy because it takes that basic concept that I guess Larry wrote for each episode, and then there’re comments from cast members about the improv and the unexpected things. I wondered, as you look back on the show now into the sixth season, do you have an improv moment of your own that really stands out?

GARLIN: Yeah. One of my favorites is -- and I do one this coming season that I can’t talk about -- when Larry and I are looking in my daughter’s room for the doll’s head, and the shelf comes down. And the shelf was not supposed to come down. It just did, and I kept on going. I didn’t stop obviously, and I told my wife that I’d been having nightmares about the shelf, and I knew it would fall. And lo and behold, here I am, and it falls. I thought that was pretty funny.

ANDELMAN: It was a great moment. That episode was terrific about the dolls.




I want to talk about your movie.

GARLIN: I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With.

ANDELMAN: Yes. It’s a great title. What inspired it?

GARLIN: Actually, Larry David hates the title, by the way, because it ends in a preposition. He thinks that you can’t do that. “No, you can’t end in a preposition.” But the title came from, I was having lunch with a friend of mine’s girlfriend at the Museum of Natural History, and we’re talking about relationships and what we’re looking for. And I said what I was looking for and then I said. “What are you looking for?” And she said, “I want this, I want that, I want someone to eat cheese with.” And I went, “That’s it! That’s so great. That’s so simple. I get that, and I’m gonna use that as a title someday if you don’t mind.”

ANDELMAN: It’s a very memorable title, and I don’t know what Larry would’ve expected, “I Want Someone With Whom to Eat Cheese”?

GARLIN: Yes. That’s what he wanted to change to.

iFilm Clips:
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ANDELMAN: Were you more brave or crazy to write, direct, and star in the movie?

GARLIN: I definitely wasn’t brave, maybe crazy. But write, direct, and star, that’s easy. Producing is the crazy part. Producing is the brave part because that’s the hardest job there is. Producers do all the crap that nobody else wants to do.

ANDELMAN: Well, that’s true, but producers, their faces aren’t out front there when the product comes out.

GARLIN: Yeah, but if you believe in the product... I hate calling it my independent film product. I’ve done movies that are pure product, if you will. But you just do the best you can no matter what situation. If it’s something like, for me, something I wrote and directed and I act in, I’m obviously passionate about it, and I have no fear of being out in front of the public with it because I controlled it.

ANDELMAN: Were you nervous to see those first reviews come in?

GARLIN: I actually read them by accident because I really planned and I still plan, I don’t want to really read reviews anymore. I got a rave from the New York Times, and I’m good.

ANDELMAN: Yeah, that was something, and it was kind of buried inside. And I saw it last night, and I thought, oh my God, look at that. Wow.

GARLIN: Yeah, that’s what I said. “Oh my God, look at that.” Those were my exact words.

ANDELMAN: I was very happy for you and for me that it was a good review because I don’t know how it would’ve been to bring it up if they had slammed the movie.

GARLIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I don’t think anybody’s gonna slam the movie. I think some people might not be crazy about it, think oh, it’s okay. So that’s cool. They’ll say it’s okay, or they’re gonna love it. I think it’s a good movie, and I don’t think there’s anything in there that’s false or hackneyed like you might see in other movies where it frustrates a reviewer. But they might not love it.

ANDELMAN: It looks like, from the cast, that you borrowed a couple of women from Denis Leary’s “Rescue Me” - Amy Sedaris and Gina Gershon.

GARLIN: I don’t know that I borrowed them from “Rescue Me.” They did that after I worked with them, but he borrowed them from me.




ANDELMAN: Any good Sarah Silverman stories from the set?

GARLIN: No.

ANDELMAN: Oh, come on.

GARLIN: I’d like to be able to say oh yes, this or that. No, she’s beautiful and she’s funny and she’s just a great actress and so, no, I was lucky to have her.

ANDELMAN: Did you film this before or after the first season of her TV show?

GARLIN: Before.

ANDELMAN: Oh, before.

GARLIN: I wrote the part for her, and I filmed it long before she was the Sarah Silverman we know today.

ANDELMAN: How do you think, if at all, the film will change your career? You said in the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” book that, thanks to “Curb,” you know you’ll always have a career. But do you think this will change?

GARLIN: Not the way “Curb” has. It will not change my career, no, but it helps legitimize me as a film director which is what I aspire. If you tell me the rest of my life I’d never act, never do anything but write and direct films and do stand-up, I’d be thrilled.

ANDELMAN: I have one more question for you, Jeff. I have to ask: How, how did you miss out on the Daddy Daycare sequel?

GARLIN: They didn’t offer me enough money. That’s the reason I didn’t do it. I don’t care how crappy it was, I would’ve been more than happy to do it. I love Cuba. He’s a great guy. I would’ve loved to have worked with him. Fred Savage is a great guy. So it would’ve been a nice experience even though it wasn’t the greatest movie. But they didn’t offer me enough money, and when you’re doing something that’s now that’s a piece of product, you’re doing something that’s a product. I need to be paid correctly, and I was not offered the right money. We went back and forth, and so we couldn’t agree on money. So I didn’t do it, and I’ve never gotten reviews that wonderful, ever, for anything because I was singled out in every review as being smart for not doing it.

ANDELMAN: That’s why I wanted to ask you about it. You were certainly smart to have done the first one. It was a fun…

GARLIN: I got to work with Eddie Murphy, my God. What an honor.

ANDELMAN: Yeah. Well, you lucked out on that. I think not getting the money you wanted was probably God’s way of saying, “Move on.”

GARLIN: That’s what I’m saying. I’ve got a wife and kids so if you want to pay me the money, I’ll act in any crappy movie. I don’t care. But if you’re not gonna pay me… So it worked out the way it was supposed to. My kids were disappointed because they wanted me to do it, and my wife kind of wanted me to do it. But no, no thank you.

ANDELMAN: Okay.

GARLIN: If we’re gonna do crap, I gotta be able to build a pool afterwards.

ANDELMAN: More rules. See, this is just like a moment of “Curb.” We’re learning more rules for living here.

GARLIN: Yeah. Well, that’s my rule.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Jeff Garlin, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 1

By BOB ANDELMAN

Today is a great day to be Jeff Garlin. And for him, tomorrow will probably be an even better day.

The sixth season of the hugely popular and hysterically funny HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” starring Larry David and co-starring Garlin, is now underway.

But even better, I suspect, for Garlin is that his first movie as writer, director, and star, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, opened on September 5.

The New York Times greeted Garlin’s Cheese this way: laid back and affectionate, Cheese is the movie version of a dear friend you could spend all day with.

Not bad for a guy from Chicago.





BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Jeff, there’s a moment in one of the season’s new episodes where you confess to a -- I gotta get right to this -- to a moment of intimacy with a blanket in Larry’s house during Passover.

GARLIN: Oh, you saw that one?

ANDELMAN: Yes, I did. And I want to ask you the new rules of Judaism that you set forth there and will probably go over big with America’s rabbis, don’t you think?

GARLIN: Oh, I think they’re all gonna participate.

ANDELMAN: But it did kind of bring to mind, are there or have there been any lines that can’t be crossed on a show like this?

GARLIN: There’s a line. If it’s not funny, that’s the line that can’t be crossed.

ANDELMAN: Fair enough.

GARLIN: If it’s funny then it’s fine.









ANDELMAN: Judaism comes up quite a bit I guess. I don’t want to give it away obviously, but this had to be Judaism’s finest moment on the show I think.

GARLIN: One of them. We certainly did get a lot of feedback from the Orthodox episode. Yeah, so, the big vagina episode as they say.

ANDELMAN: You and Larry go back many years as stand-up comics. I wondered, though, of all the guys who could’ve been Larry’s foil on the show, how did your involvement in Curb come about?

GARLIN: Well, I approached him about it. We were having lunch, and I told him an idea that I had for an HBO special which ended up being “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” So I approached him. I wasn’t gonna be in it. He insisted I play his manager, and he insisted that I be an executive producer with him. I hadn’t planned on that.

ANDELMAN: Wow. Executive producer seems to be the least of what you should get out of that idea.

GARLIN: Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s pretty exciting.

ANDELMAN: Worked out pretty well. How are you able to mix friendship and business so well?

GARLIN: When you’re working with comedians, when we work together, that line is always crossed. With comedians, there is no sort of business/friendship thing. If you’re friendly, you got a chance. But it’s much better to work with friends to be honest with you. I enjoy it.

ANDELMAN: Now when you had the idea for the show, was the idea of the agent part of the original idea?

GARLIN: No, no. I assumed there probably would’ve been an agent or something like that. It was all part of the gist. The idea was to see the behind-the-scenes life of a comedian during the making of an HBO special.

ANDELMAN: And that was the special that essentially wound up as the pilot for the series.

GARLIN: Yes.








ANDELMAN: When did you realize that you were going to be an integral part of what was to come?

GARLIN: From the get-go. From the get-go. When we were developing it, it was clear that this was going to be something integral to the show. But we had no idea it was gonna become a TV series.

ANDELMAN: Right.

GARLIN: So that caught me by surprise, too.

ANDELMAN: Were either of you hesitant to commit to a series like that when that came up?

GARLIN: Not hesitant at all. As a matter of fact, when we were filming the first hour pilot thing, we were saying how much fun it would be if we could ever do this as a series, not thinking that that was even a possibility or gonna happen. I know HBO was after Larry to do a series, and it worked out well.

ANDELMAN: Last year, a lot of people seemed to think, and I don’t know that there was any great announcement, but a lot of people seemed to think that that was the last season of the show. Here you are back this year.

GARLIN: That was supposed to be the last season of the show, yes. I knew there was a very small chance we’d do another one, and Larry called me up and asked me, and I said, “Yeah, I’ll do another one.”

ANDELMAN: What was the reason for ending it at the time?

GARLIN: We’ve been doing it a long time. You kind of don’t want to repeat yourself. I would say the single biggest reason for “Curb” ’s success is it’s not beholden to money. We’re all professionals who want to get paid, but Larry David is so rich that he doesn’t have to keep doing the show to earn a living or pay off his lifestyle. So the only reason we continue it is out of pride in terms of, if he has a great idea, then we keep going.

ANDELMAN: You’re an executive producer. Can you say whether this show will continue past this season?

GARLIN: I don’t think it will, but there’s a chance. Who knows. When we talked about it before, he wasn’t getting divorced. So I don’t know how that’ll change things.

ANDELMAN: So maybe he’ll have more free time.

GARLIN: That’s exactly what I was thinking, but I still think it’s probably gonna be our last.

ANDELMAN: Okay. You do think it will be the last.

GARLIN: I do think it’ll be the last, yes.

ANDELMAN: Could you and Larry ever take this dynamic that we see on TV, could you ever take that on the road for a stand-up tour?

GARLIN: Well, I am doing a tour with Susie Essman who plays my wife.

ANDELMAN: Really?

GARLIN: Yeah. I’m going on the road with her and Richard Lewis. So yes is the answer, but it will not be with Larry.

ANDELMAN: When does that tour start?

GARLIN: Our first gig, I think, is September 25. We’re playing Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

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©2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.