Brent Butt
January
8, 2014
"I remember having this thought to myself when I was 18: This is all just shit that I have to do because I can't just lay down and wait for a comedy club to open up. I have to do other things. But this is all just killing time till I can start doing standup." – Brent Butt
Guy MacPherson:
Exciting times for Brent Butt.
Brent Butt: It is. It’s some exciting times.
GM: The ‘Almost a Movie Star’
tour. Once you’re a movie star, we can’t be meeting in public places.
BB: Exactly. Once we determine what my net worth is… I can’t wait
for that info to come out! Then we’ll go meet on a yacht or something.
GM: Did you watch the
latest Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee?
BB: No. There’s a new batch now, eh?
GM: It’s fantastic. Louis C.K.
And instead of going to a coffee shop, they go on Louis’ yacht.
BB: Now why the hell wouldn’t they go for coffee?
GM: He made coffee on the boat.
BB: I’m against that.
GM: And there was a cartoon!
BB: I’m against that. Why do you monkey around with something
that’s working? Because somebody said we could get more people to watch this. I
don’t know. The purity of it is what made it great. The whole idea is just two
funny people talking. And that’s supposed to be enough. That’s the idea behind
it.
GM: And big-name guests. Although
this season they have Patton Oswalt and Todd Barry, who aren’t exactly
household names.
BB: Todd Barry is one of the greats on Twitter. He busts me up on
Twitter. Talking about how great he is and then participating in the trending
topics in a glib, superficial way. And he usually twists them around to be
about him.
GM: Back to you, though.
BB: Let’s talk more about how great Todd Barry is!
GM: Anyway, big tour coming up.
Big movie. I saw the trailer. Loved it.
BB: Thank you. I’m very happy with the trailer. And I’m very happy
with the response from the crowd when it had its premiere at the Whistler Film
Festival. That was its World Premiere.
GM: So you were happy that the
laughs came at the right places.
BB: Yeah, yeah. The laughs came early and often. I was happy with
how it turned out but you don’t know really until it gets out in front of
people. There were a couple scenes, even when I wrote the movie – because as
you know I didn’t want to make a goofy, zany comedy; I wanted it to be
realistic and I wanted it to be kinda dark and gritty like a real murder
mystery, and it happens to be funny because of things my character says or he’s
in over his head. But I didn’t want zany comedy. I didn’t want, like, the
detective climbing up a ladder and it starts to go backwards. In my mind, that
was the exact type of thing I could see in a detective comedy – and probably
have seen in a detective comedy – and it was the perfect example of what I
didn’t want my movie to be. So the result is I was happy throughout the
scripting even, but there were a couple places where I thought the two are
butting up against each other. Comedy and drama.
There were a couple situations where I wondered if one is going to kneecap the other. Like, is my character saying something funny in the middle of this serious situation going to take away the gravity of it? Or vice versa, is the gravity of the situation going to kneecap the joke so that one or neither works. Then when we shot it, I was happy with how it went. I thought it really worked. But again, you gotta get it up in front of people. You don’t know until it gets in front of people. They’re the ones who’ll tell you. One of the scenes specifically I was really waiting to see how it would work. And it was perfect. The scene was quiet because it was quite a tense scene, and everybody was hanging on it. My character says a funny thing, there’s a laugh, and then it stops and goes back to the seriousness of it. That was exactly what I’d hoped would happen. That was the exact response I wanted. So we were over the moon at the screening.
There were a couple situations where I wondered if one is going to kneecap the other. Like, is my character saying something funny in the middle of this serious situation going to take away the gravity of it? Or vice versa, is the gravity of the situation going to kneecap the joke so that one or neither works. Then when we shot it, I was happy with how it went. I thought it really worked. But again, you gotta get it up in front of people. You don’t know until it gets in front of people. They’re the ones who’ll tell you. One of the scenes specifically I was really waiting to see how it would work. And it was perfect. The scene was quiet because it was quite a tense scene, and everybody was hanging on it. My character says a funny thing, there’s a laugh, and then it stops and goes back to the seriousness of it. That was exactly what I’d hoped would happen. That was the exact response I wanted. So we were over the moon at the screening.
GM: Is a lot of it in editing and
direction?
BB: It can always be ruined. Conversely, something that doesn’t
seem that funny on the page can be made funnier. So yeah, it’s all got to sync up. In order for it to work really well, the best situations are when it’s
there on the page, it gets shot well, it gets performed well, and gets edited
properly.
GM: Were you in there for the
editing process?
BB: It’s done in stages. The editor assembles it just as the
editor sees it; no real input. I mean, there’s a few notes. When it’s being
filmed, the director will say to the script supervisor after a take, “I like
that take. Circle that take.” So the editor basically builds the movie as the
editor thinks it should be, bearing in mind the notes from the director. But in
terms of shots, you kind of let the editor do it. And that’s what you want from
an editor. I generally find the best editors are editors. Directors are good at
editing, and some producers and writers are good at editing, but editors are
terrific editors. They’ve done it a lot. They have a real sense of flow. It’s not
so much hands-off as you show me how you see it. We’ve given you all this
material that we think is good and we think we’ve done our job so now we would
love to see how you, a skilled editor, build the show.
And it’s really interesting because almost always the transitions are different than how you imagined. Often in your mind you imagine it in a very linear fashion. You imagine a wide establishing shot, a medium shot and then you go into some coverage. Especially if you’re writing it, you’re often just thinking in terms of what information do I have to get out. So when I do that I think of it in a very nuts and bolts kind of way. And then when you see the editor’s assembly, you go, ‘Oh, he started on the close-up of the hand! That’s great! If you’d given me ten years I wouldn’t have thought to start that way.’ So that’s what an editor brings to the table. So it’s done in stages. The editor assembles it. Then the director goes in and sits down with the editor and says, ‘Make the following changes. I think the scene is nice but needs to be faster. Or I really don’t like starting on the moving shot.’ So you make those changes. And then after that it’s my job to come in. Everybody has a different way of working and my thing is if you come in long, which you always do or always should, I don’t want anybody else taking material out of the project to make time. So let’s say we want the movie to be 100 minutes and it comes in at 130 minutes, at the editing stage and the directing stage, don’t remove any lines of dialogue to make it shorter. Make it as short as you can without removing material and then I’ll come in and decide.
And it’s really interesting because almost always the transitions are different than how you imagined. Often in your mind you imagine it in a very linear fashion. You imagine a wide establishing shot, a medium shot and then you go into some coverage. Especially if you’re writing it, you’re often just thinking in terms of what information do I have to get out. So when I do that I think of it in a very nuts and bolts kind of way. And then when you see the editor’s assembly, you go, ‘Oh, he started on the close-up of the hand! That’s great! If you’d given me ten years I wouldn’t have thought to start that way.’ So that’s what an editor brings to the table. So it’s done in stages. The editor assembles it. Then the director goes in and sits down with the editor and says, ‘Make the following changes. I think the scene is nice but needs to be faster. Or I really don’t like starting on the moving shot.’ So you make those changes. And then after that it’s my job to come in. Everybody has a different way of working and my thing is if you come in long, which you always do or always should, I don’t want anybody else taking material out of the project to make time. So let’s say we want the movie to be 100 minutes and it comes in at 130 minutes, at the editing stage and the directing stage, don’t remove any lines of dialogue to make it shorter. Make it as short as you can without removing material and then I’ll come in and decide.
GM: So they have those
instructions.
BB: Yeah, I don’t want anybody pulling material. Outside of that,
do whatever you can to make it as good as you can. I always love the editing
process. And so much of it is built there. So much of the timing is built
there. And if it’s not there on the day of the performance, that’s where you
can tweak it and you can speed things up a little bit and find clever ways to
remove information if a scene is dragging. So I don’t want people removing
material but I’m happy with them offering suggestions. So they say, ‘I think
this scene could possibly go.’ But I want to make that decision of what can and
can’t go. So the editor does it, the director does it, then I do it. We all
work with the editor because he runs the gear. He’s the guy working the
machine.
GM: What are your titles? Star
and executive producer?
BB: Generally speaking in the movie business, versus TV, you’re
generally not an executive producer unless you’ve ponied up money. That’s the
rule of thumb. And I didn’t pony up any money to do this. No actual cold, hard
cash from me.
GM: So will it say anything else
other than you as Leo?
BB: Yes. Producer. The producer in film is the person or people
who get it done, make it happen; executive producers are kind of the money
people.
GM: Through that whole
post-production process, what did you learn that might have surprised you or
was different from TV? How much different is being a movie star?
BB: The process is similar. The two TV shows, Corner Gas and Hiccups, that I did were
single camera, so they were shot in a similar fashion. You gain information in
a similar fashion. So the process is pretty similar. You can afford to take a
bit more time with a movie. In our case, not a lot because we shot this thing
in 20 days of filming. But the big difference for me was glaring. I couldn’t
even wrap my head around it. It didn’t feel right to me. The big difference to
me was, in a TV series I wear a lot of hats: I write, I act, I edit, and
sometimes I direct. So there is no break in the course of your day. For me,
when you're in production, it's 17 hours from the time I get up. I'm eating
while I'm working. There's no break. So you finish a take and now we're going
to turn the camera around and you've got eight minutes. I run to my desk and I
start working on the script that I have to finish that's coming up. Or I'll run
to my desk and edit one that we did last week. There's never a time that I
shouldn't be doing something. There's one episode then another is coming and
another is finished. It's just on a chain, right? So in the movie, I wear the
hats, but it's a one-off. All my writing has been done. Now I'm in the process
of acting. And I'm not going to be editing until months after we finish
filming. So to come to grips with the notion that when we're on a camera
turn-around, I just sit here and...
GM: Tweet.
BB: That's what I said: This
is actually a Twitter break. This is what this is for. It took me three or four
days.
GM: But you got used to that.
BB: I loved it. Having some time
to kill, isn't that sweet?
GM: The movie's set in Vancouver.
From TV and I guess standup, the general population knows you as a Saskatchewan
guy. Is the movie your love letter to Vancouver?
BB: It is, in some ways. First of
all because it's an awesome city. And so often it's not portrayed as itself. In
fact, when the crew started asking what city it's supposed to be, and we said
Vancouver, they said, 'Vancouver gets to be Vancouver?!' The crew was all
excited about it because it doesn't happen that often. We don't hammer that
home or anything. But you see the Vancouver skyline, you recognize it, you see
the Lion's Gate Bridge.
GM: We might see that in other
films but it's always supposed to be somewhere else.
BB: Yeah. It's just not
hiding it as Vancouver, that's all. And there are little homages throughout.
Like, you see a picture of a guy who's on his boat and the marina is the Urban
Well. I had to come up with a name for a marina otherwise we'd have to get a
licence from one of the existing marinas. I'd written it as False Creek Marina
initially but then you gotta go through the process. And we didn't shoot in
False Creek; we shot in another one. So it's easier to just make up a name. So
Urban Well sounds like a good name.
GM: If you make more movies, this
could be your Hitchcock thing: every movie would have an Urban Well in it.
BB: Yeah, exactly! That
would be fun to do.
GM: Are your Saskatchewan peeps
upset? I mean, I know you've been here 20 years.
BB: I don't think so. I
mean, there are people in Saskatchewan who want me to just do everything all
the time in Saskatchewan. But a) there's no tax credit systems and now there's
no funding and lacking infrastructure because so many skilled people had to
move where movies were being made. But other than that, Corner Gas took place in Saskatchewan, but that's why we shot it there
– it was written to take place there. I don't have a desire to make every story
in the same locale. Hiccups and No Clue were Vancouver-based because this is where my home is; it's
very practical and handy. And it's beautiful. If you're working in a visual
medium, it doesn't get any better than Vancouver. It's got everything you want.
You see that a lot in No Clue, too. You see the beauty of
Vancouver and then you see the gritty, back-alley, seedy... Because this is a
film noir in a lot of ways. I mean, it's a film noir comedy and it's a
contemporary movie. We're not trying to make an old movie, but those elements
that make a film noir – less than pleasant people, dramatic lighting – those
things are there.
GM: When does it open?
BB: March 6th in Vancouver and
then March 7th in the rest of the country.
GM: What about the States?
BB: I don't know yet. We have a
US distributor; we have an international distributor. The response at the
Whistler Film Festival was strong enough that some things changed. We cut a
45-second teaser trailer to put in front of Anchor Man 2, so everywhere across Canada when you go see Anchor Man 2, you see a teaser trailer for No Clue, which is great because Koechner is in both. That was the
thinking behind this. So the US distributor was up there and he came to me and
said, "We should maybe talk about releasing this in northern States that
get the TV bleed from Canada and who are familiar with your work on TV and
maybe you could do some standup down in the northern States." He even
thought maybe we should do something in March. But I don't know what's going to
happen. That's up to them completely.
GM: Corner Gas was on the Super Station all over the States.
BB: Yeah, that's what I told him.
And also a lot of people that have touched base with me from the States on
Twitter are from southern States.
GM: Movies have changed. Now
you've got Netflix and other means of getting it out there. Is the theatre
still the preferred method?
BB: It's probably different for
everybody, right? For me, I still love going to the theatre. It's an event. I
don't think there's any better way to see it. If you have a great home theatre
system, that could be pretty rocking. It's starting to compete with the
theatre. But being in the theatre in the moment when the trailers start and all
that stuff, to me that's still kind of exhilarating. And it's still different.
It's still like I can't do this at home. I can do a smaller version of this at
home but I can't do this at home. But for other
people, they're like, "I don't like being in a room with other people. I
don't like watching movies with a bunch of stupid people and somebody's got
their phone out texting; their whole face is lit up." So there's people
who prefer to watch it at home now. Shut-ins. Anti-social recluses. (laughs) But it's different for everybody. But the window of how long
a movie's in the theatre before it's available on other platforms is shrinking
all the time.
GM: That's why you've got to get
them out on that first weekend?
BB: Yeah.
GM: Even in Canada?
BB: Yeah, absolutely. Because the
exhibitors book stuff in but they don't contract with Anchor Man 2 that they promise to have it in the theatre
for three weeks because if the people don't come out... It's short-term and you
adjust your schedule accordingly.
GM: So the standup tour you're
doing, it'll get Brent Butt in people's minds. They'll OD on Brent Butt.
BB: Well, here's hoping they
don't OD. The notion always was from the git-go, when I was pitching the idea
of doing a movie, the fact that I'm also a live performer as a standup comic, I
could go on tour to support the movie the way a band goes on tour to support an
album. And that was something everybody could understand and wrap their head
around. It's something you can't always do. A lot of your best actors in the
world don't have any live performance experience. It's gotta be in a big
theatre or something with a play. But to just go on the road by themselves with
a microphone and a snappy tie and perform for an hour... So everybody got that.
Everybody saw how that could potentially be something. So from the get-go, that
was part of the machine.
GM: And it helps that you like
doing it.
BB: Yeah. I don't necessarily
like doing 20 different cities in a month. I haven't done that in a long time.
That's a haul. I haven't done that since pre-Corner
Gas days.
GM: Also, who booked this?
Ontario, BC, Ontario, Nova Scotia, BC. Nova Scotia to BC in two days.
Alberta-Manitoba-Alberta.
BB: Surely you've been around
long enough to understand that the venues aren't sitting by the phone hoping
Brent Butt calls. You say here's when I gotta do these shows, here's my window
performing, what venues are available? So it doesn't make it easy. But there's
always people, like yourself, who say, "But Edmonton's closer to Calgary
than it is to Halifax, ya idiot." And you go, "Hey, I never thought
of that! Geez!" So yeah, there's a ton of things that go into the
logistics and the planning. And that's what the promoter does. That's their
gig. They put it all together. They find venues in markets.
GM: Theatres all the way. I've
seen you at the Vogue.
BB: Not for a long time. I was
the very first live performer at the Vogue when it stopped being a movie house
and became a live venue again. I opened for Kids in the Hall. So they were the
first live act booked there. I was their opening act. It was 1993. I hadn't
been in Vancouver very long. I'd just moved here. I used to do studio warm-up
for them in Toronto when they taped when I lived there. So they were doing this
tour and they were starting out west doing Victoria and Vancouver so they
called me and said, "Hey, you're in Vancouver now, right? Would you open
for us at the Vogue Theatre?"
GM: I moved to Vancouver in '93
and I saw that show. Who knew?
BB: I got a very nice write-up.
GM: It wasn't me.
BB: No. It was Dave Watson.
GM: Oh right. He passed away a
few years ago.
BB: Geez, I didn't even know
that! Good God.
GM: You've really rededicated
yourself to standup. Is that accurate?
BB: I don't feel like there's
been any time away from it for me.
GM: In a quantitative sense.
BB: I'm not a guy in the clubs
every night like I used to be.
GM: But you're more so now than
you were the last six or seven years.
BB: Yeah, because I'm here more
now. And I don't have constant other duties. I'm going to be spending a lot of
this month trying to pop up places, work on material for the tour and do five
minutes here and there.
"I've had this little mantra: The enemy of comedy is conspicuous effort. You shouldn't see any effort. You know, a lot of things have to be done right but that effort shouldn't be conspicuous." – Brent Butt
GM: When you started standup, it
came so easily to you.
BB: Yeah, it felt like it came
very naturally to me. I was able to get laughs early on.
GM: Coming back into it more now,
is it as easy as it always was? Did it take a while to get your legs back?
BB: I don't get away from it that
long that that much rust ever compiles. It's not like I'm hauling myself out of
the basement after three years of having never done a show. It's never that.
The longest it's ever gone in my life is maybe two months where I haven't done
a standup show. There's a bit of ring rust in that time but it never takes long
for it to bust off.
GM: Like within in the course of
a performance?
BB: Yeah, usually. That's why
it's nice to pop up and work on your material itself but also just being up in
front of people with a mic in your hand, that's the gym, right?
GM: Sure. I've interviewed comics
who say it's hard getting back after two weeks off. So when you started out,
bam, you were in it all the time. Now you might do a show, take a couple months
off.
BB: It was my whole life. It
really was. From the time I decided to do standup when I was 12, I became
fascinated with it.
GM: When you were what? Twelve?
BB: Twelve. Twelve is when I told
mom I'm going to be a standup comedian. From that point on, I didn't have a lot
of outlets but I searched for it whenever I could and watch it whenever I
could. I started thinking about what my material would be. Even when I was out
with buddies, I would be in my head formulating bits. If I said something funny
that got a laugh, I would replay it in my head and be like, How could I get to
that joke sooner? That was a long set-up. If I was going to perform what I just
did with my buddies here, we can't have that big two-minute lead-up that got me
to that joke. So how could I get to that joke quicker? I was workshopping in my
head. I remember having this thought to myself when I was 18: This is all just
killing time till I can do standup. I had other jobs and was doing other things
but it was all like, This is all just shit that I have to do because I can't
just lay down and wait for a comedy club to open up. I have to do other things.
But this is all just killing time till I can start doing standup.
GM: So as you're formulating that
in your head of how to get to the joke quicker, would you then go and try to
bring the conversation around to a topic with other friends and get that joke
in? Try it out?
BB: Yeah. I had a couple friends
who knew that this is what I wanted to do so sometimes I would say to them,
"Listen to this. What if I do this?" And they would listen and
sometimes they'd laugh, sometimes they wouldn't. I'm sure for a lot of them
there was kind of a notion that it's kind of a pipe dream you're chasing. It's
like saying I'm going to be a rock star. Well, terrific. There's always that
notion of, well who doesn't want to be a rock star? So for me, in this little
rural community, to have this kind of... I think it was short of being an
obsession but it was close to it. I mean, I thought about it all the time. I
thought about standup, I told people. And I did it in high school at variety
night, drama night.
GM: Did you do your own material?
BB: Yeah. For me, that just wouldn't
have been any fun. Maybe it's why I write and create the TV and movie. Part of
it is I'm more apt to hire myself than somebody else is. So it's partly out of
necessity but for me I love to perform and I never want to get to a place where
I'm not performing. But I get a big thrill out of seeing my idea come to
fruition. I wrote a play in high school one time, too, that I wasn't in. I was
in another play on variety night but I'd written this other one that other
people put on. I remember going out that first night around to the back of the
high school gym to watch it and it was such a thrill hearing someone doing the
words that I came up with and hearing laughs. It was a thrill for me. But
standup is those two things combines. It's the thrill of what you get from
performing and the thrill of transferring your idea into the head of somebody
else. It's a big thrill to me.
GM: Like giving somebody a tag,
too.
BB: Yeah. So as far as standup
goes, I've never had any interest in doing something that wasn't mine. I've had
comics come up and give me a tag that's funny within the context of a bit that
you've written. Proudlove or Beuhler or somebody will say, 'Hey, you know you
can say such and such.' Give you an extra line. Fantastic. But I love that
whole part of the creative community.
GM: Are you going to sneak into
the back of the theatre when your movie's playing?
BB: Having gone through it in
Whistler once – and I'm going to go see it here with people –
GM: And was it a little
nerve-wracking? Because you didn't know how they'd react.
BB: Yeah, it was very
nerve-wracking. The director, Carl Bessai, did an amazing job with this
movie. I learned a lot watching this guy, who is a film maker, make this film.
We were waiting in the wings. We were going to go out and speak and welcome
everybody down and that kind of thing before the movie. We snuck down and were
looking as people were coming into the theatre to see how it's filling up and
stuff like that. He took this picture of me standing by the wings with the
light coming in. To him, as a film maker, it was like, "What a great
shot." So he just pulled out his phone and took it. You can see I'm
concerned. Or I'm like, "How is this gonna go?" But also the sun's
coming into the thing. When I saw it, it tells me a lot. It also tells me I
gotta eat less and walk more. It's like a silhouette of Hitchcock. It's a
horrible, physical condition. But you don't know how it's going to go. And you
can't change anything. With standup, I can start doing a bit and it's not working,
I can start changing something or I can go back even afterwards and go, okay,
why didn't that work? Maybe I need to put this here. I can't fiddle around. The
print is done. There's no changing anything now. If they hate it, it's just a
thing that they hate out there in the world. There's no taking it back.
GM: Now you gotta think about –
or maybe you don't – the goddamn critics.
BB: Yeah. Well, what are you
gonna do, right? For me, you want the critics to like your stuff and you want
them to say nice things and at the end of the day it strokes your ego and it
also helps the business of making projects. So you want very much for the
critics to like your stuff and say nice things about it. And it sounds kinda
cliché-ish, but it's one of those things there's nothing you can do about it so
there's not much sense worrying about it. The only thing you can do is really
like what you've done. Then everything else is come what may. If what you
wanted to make gets made, then come what may. That is what happened with No Clue. No Clue is better than I
envisioned it. A big part of that is how Carl was able to do the things he did
on not a huge budget. We had a good budget but it wasn't huge. And we were
shooting in a small amount of time. And he was shooting with two cameras. I was
calling him the Visual Aggregator. He has an ability to vacuum up all this
amazing visual elements. When I watched the first set of dailies, that's when I
was really impressed. I was like, I hope this doesn't look terrible. And
because of the way Carl shoots, with the two cameras and it's real run-and-gun
– he knows what he's doing – it's different from one camera in a controlled
environment that you're very familiar with and you know the process: do this,
do this, do this. And that's not what Carl was doing.
So for me, as the guy who was ultimately in charge of the final product, I've always been able to, no matter who was directing the thing, I knew what they were getting. So I could be on set in the scene and based on where the cameras were and what they were doing, I knew what they were getting. So in my head, I know what the options are going to be for editing. I would say to the director at the time that there's a shot I'm going to need in the edit that I don't have. We need to get this one thing. I've always been able to make an inventory as we're doing it. I know what the shots are: There's the two-shot; there's a single; there's a moving shot. We need a static of that, too, in case I need to cut from that to that. I can do the inventory in my head. But with Carl, I didn't know what he was getting. He was doing it in a different way than I've ever seen before.
So for me, as the guy who was ultimately in charge of the final product, I've always been able to, no matter who was directing the thing, I knew what they were getting. So I could be on set in the scene and based on where the cameras were and what they were doing, I knew what they were getting. So in my head, I know what the options are going to be for editing. I would say to the director at the time that there's a shot I'm going to need in the edit that I don't have. We need to get this one thing. I've always been able to make an inventory as we're doing it. I know what the shots are: There's the two-shot; there's a single; there's a moving shot. We need a static of that, too, in case I need to cut from that to that. I can do the inventory in my head. But with Carl, I didn't know what he was getting. He was doing it in a different way than I've ever seen before.
GM: Is the two cameras something
that's done with other directors?
BB: Yeah. More and more.
GM: Is that to get coverage?
BB: Yeah, you can get twice
as much stuff in that time. Now and then on Corner Gas or Hiccups we would shoot with two
cameras, but it was very rare. And even then it was such a big deal to do it we
would sit down and go over everything: "Okay, what are you getting with
the two cameras?" Well, Carl just knows what he's getting. We had many
meetings ahead of shooting starting where we talked about tone and what we
needed to get and specific gags that I felt had to be done this way. But I
learned early on that what directors bring to the project is. You want that.
You don't want just some guy standing there pretending to be a director and
doing everything you say. You want a director who's going to make it better
than you could imagine and come up with great stuff. And that's what Carl was
doing.
The first day I looked at the dailies, I don't know if I actually squealed in the trailer by myself but I was so fucking over the moon I couldn't believe it. I was like pumping my fist in the trailer by myself because it looked like, just the raw footage untreated, looked as good as anything I'd ever seen anywhere. And the close-up coverage on people and the way Carl and our cinematographer, Jan Kiesser, worked the cool compositions and the dramatic lighting without being stark cartoony dramatic lighting. Very real but very dramatic. It looked so much better than the shit I had in my head, which was all very kind of static-y and it was all about the gag in my head. That's why I always knew we needed a film maker to make this movie not just somebody who says he's a director. We needed somebody who knew everything about making a movie. And Carl's one of those guys who's worked as a DP, he built stuff from scratch, he does other people's things. He's kind of done it all.
The first day I looked at the dailies, I don't know if I actually squealed in the trailer by myself but I was so fucking over the moon I couldn't believe it. I was like pumping my fist in the trailer by myself because it looked like, just the raw footage untreated, looked as good as anything I'd ever seen anywhere. And the close-up coverage on people and the way Carl and our cinematographer, Jan Kiesser, worked the cool compositions and the dramatic lighting without being stark cartoony dramatic lighting. Very real but very dramatic. It looked so much better than the shit I had in my head, which was all very kind of static-y and it was all about the gag in my head. That's why I always knew we needed a film maker to make this movie not just somebody who says he's a director. We needed somebody who knew everything about making a movie. And Carl's one of those guys who's worked as a DP, he built stuff from scratch, he does other people's things. He's kind of done it all.
GM: Except for comedy, right?
BB: He hasn't done a lot of comedy but the great thing with No Clue was don't come in and make this a comedy movie. Make this a dramatic movie. And then there's this one guy that flows through who says funny things. But aside from a couple specific gags that have to be done a certain way, like when there's reveals or something, other than that forget that this is funny and make this dramatic murder mystery.
BB: He hasn't done a lot of comedy but the great thing with No Clue was don't come in and make this a comedy movie. Make this a dramatic movie. And then there's this one guy that flows through who says funny things. But aside from a couple specific gags that have to be done a certain way, like when there's reveals or something, other than that forget that this is funny and make this dramatic murder mystery.
GM: That's what I thought was
great about Corner Gas. You hired real actors and the
writing took care of the funny.
BB: If the audience buys
into the reality of what you're doing, anything that's incongruous is just so
much funnier. So by hiring actors on Corner
Gas,
actors are able to make these people seem like real people. And they sell the
situation and you buy it. You know people like this and it seems like a real
thing. I've had this little mantra: The enemy of comedy is conspicuous effort.
You shouldn't see any effort. You know, a lot of things have to be done right
but that effort shouldn't be conspicuous.
GM: That's certainly your standup
right there.
BB: Yeah. I mean, I try to
make it seem as effortless and off-the-cuff and un-thought out as possible.
GM: Although there are other
styles of comedy, like you mentioned Anchor Man,
where it's not rooted in any kind of reality, or at least played a lot more
obviously comedically and broad and over-the-top.
BB: Yeah, there's all kinds.
There's Carry On movies... That's why I'm
always fascinated with Rowan Atkinson because his two biggest were TV
projects, Black Adder and Mr. Bean. Black Adder is all verbal language play. It's just a
framework to have people say brilliantly crafted verbal jokes. That's all it
is. And Mr. Bean, nobody says anything. It's
all visual and physical. I was just fascinated that Rowan Atkinson could do
these two extremes so well. One is a silent movie and one is a radio play,
essentially.
GM: And there's Not the Nine O'Clock News, too, which he was really good in.
BB: Yeah, he's done a lot of
things. A very talented dude. And I liked Johnny English a lot. Did you see the first Johnny English movie.
GM: No.
BB: I liked it a lot. I
thought it was very funny. I remember Nancy saying one time, she likes it when
a comedy says this is a comedy. It's kind of ballsy to go for
it, to not hedge your bets with a dramedy. There's something that when somebody
just goes for it and says this is either funny or it's nothing. I respect that.
GM: What did Nancy think of No Clue? I know she didn't read it ahead of time.
BB: Yeah, she went into it
knowing nothing other than her minute-long scene that she's in.
GM: There's a mystery element to
it. Was she able to figure it out?
BB: She said she didn't.
GM: But it all worked in her
mind?
BB: Yeah. She seemed
genuinely impressed in how it all came together. I sat beside her at the
screening, which I thought about not doing but at the end of the day, what the
hell.
GM: The optics wouldn't have been
good. People would talk.
BB: But hearing her bust out
laughing at some of the gags, there's nothing more gratifying. Because she
doesn't laugh easily. Like most people who are gifted comedically, she doesn't
laugh out loud that much because you often see it coming or you just kind of
appreciate it as a craftsperson. And a couple of the gags that I really liked
on paper and I thought we did well, I remember thinking, "I hope Nancy
laughs at this." And hearing her laugh at it...
GM: In the trailer, there are drawings. Is that throughout the movie or just in the trailer and credits.
BB: No, just in the opening
title sequence. Those are really lifted from the opening and closing title
sequence. E1 liked those elements and they were trying to put a real kind of
film noir trailer together so they put those elements in.
GM: You didn't draw them, did
you?
BB: No.
GM: What are the differences in
the acting between TV and movies?
BB: There were just things I've
never had to deal with before: real emotions, fear, terror, sexual attraction.
My character's legitimately in over his head in a real serious situation.
GM: Did you get help with the
acting part?
BB: Not really. Sometimes the
director'll come and we'll have a talk here or there. But I know who my
character is and I know what the situation is. I did what I did and if it
wasn't working, then the director would come and say maybe try this or that.
But it was more of a stretch than I've ever had to do before.
GM: You compared your acting to
Bob Hope's.
BB: I said with Bob Hope it
didn't matter if he was an astronaut or a cowboy, you're getting that guy. And
to some degree, that's kinda how I have been. Even with No Clue. But the thing is, that guy is put into much more dire, real
situations with a lot more at stake. It's real and dire. There's real
consequences if my character can't navigate the situation. There's real death
and his could be one of them. And he's not good at this; he's not James Bond.
He doesn't know what the situation is all the time. He's got to try and figure
this out as he's in over his head. There's no learning curve for him. It's
like, you've never had a moment's difficulty in your life and your life is on
the line: go! That's kind of how it happens for him.
GM: He's a novelty salesman?
BB: Specialty advertising
salesman. Basically his office is on the same floor as a private detective's
office and a woman walks in the wrong place. And he knows the private detective
is away and he wants to help. It's like, "I don't know where my brother
is. Can you help me?" Alright. And before he realizes he's out of his
depth, he's in over his head. So for him there's never that kind of 'hang on,
this might be more than I can bite off.' I like to write with a question in
mind and then you bring everything back to that whenever you can. And the
question for this movie is, If you were thrown in the middle of the ocean, how
far could you swim? You don't know how far you can swim until you have to find
out. Like, if you're at Kits pool doing laps, you get tired and you quit. But I
bet you get tired and you quit sooner than you would if you were in the ocean.
The notion behind the movie is you don't know how far you can swim until you get thrown in the ocean. In other words, you don't know what your abilities are until you get put into a situation where you have to find out. And that's kind of what happens with Leo. He's never done this kind of thing before. He's had a very safe, content, quiet, low-middle class/upper-lower class life. Safe. And within a matter of a small amount of time, he's just in it and there's no kind of 'I don't want to do this.' It doesn't matter; you're in. So how would a real-life person who wasn't Jason Bourne, somebody with no training, no background [react]? And kind of what we learned from this movie is he's maybe better at this than he would have given himself credit for.
The notion behind the movie is you don't know how far you can swim until you get thrown in the ocean. In other words, you don't know what your abilities are until you get put into a situation where you have to find out. And that's kind of what happens with Leo. He's never done this kind of thing before. He's had a very safe, content, quiet, low-middle class/upper-lower class life. Safe. And within a matter of a small amount of time, he's just in it and there's no kind of 'I don't want to do this.' It doesn't matter; you're in. So how would a real-life person who wasn't Jason Bourne, somebody with no training, no background [react]? And kind of what we learned from this movie is he's maybe better at this than he would have given himself credit for.
GM: And therefore us, too?
BB: The notion is you might be
better than you think you are at something if you've never tried it. It's kind
of like that notion of all these people who went over to fight in World War II.
Just farm kids and a guy from college who's studying to be an accountant, and
the next thing you know they're in the shit, right? And some of them end up
being incredible. Audie Murphy didn't know he could fly a plane better than
anybody else and navigate the skies and shoot down the enemy better. He didn't
know he was the best pilot in the world. He was just going about his business.
GM: And you named him Leo so you
could get a Leo nomination?
BB: (chuckles) I just kinda liked the name Leo. You know, there's always a
reason. My birth sign is Leo. It's also short. And it's a name that you're
going to be typing a lot.
GM: Back to your standup. You're
doing this theatre tour and working out at some clubs here and there. Just as
there's a difference between TV and the movies, do you have to play it
differently in the theatres than in clubs?
BB: The big change is the
performance of it. I find you gear everything down a but just because you're
filling a bigger space so you gotta take your time with it a bit more. So it's
just like you gear down. There's club speed and there's theatre speed. The
speed you go at performing for a thousand people is slower than 160 people.
GM: And that's something you just
figured out by doing it?
BB: Yeah. The first time I played
a really big room, and the first couple of gags didn't work that well, I knew
right away why it was. I'm a little guy on a big stage in a huge room. It
doesn't make sense for me to just be rattling this stuff off. It's a different
pace. It's not 40 percent of what your club speed is. You just gotta take a
little bit off. Partly because it's just got to travel. It's got to get out to
them. Their laugh has to come back to you. It's a bigger space so just the
physics of it mean gear down, take 10 percent off your performance speed.
GM: All things being equal, do
you have a preference of venue?
BB: All things being equal,
I think there's no better situation to do standup than a 200-seat club. Low
ceiling, everybody's kind of tight to each other and it's dark. Anywhere
between 150 and 250 in a tight room with a low ceiling is the best possible
scenario. But having said that, I also love playing a theatre because it's a
wash of laughs. It comes in like a giant wave. As a performer and as a standup,
what you're doing is like what Seinfeld said: It's referred to as a monologue
but it's very much a dialogue. It's just not words you're getting from the
crowd but they're responding and they're reacting. You say something and they
do something. And how they respond, it's like a conversation. Like, if I start
talking politics and you drift off, if I have any sense of social capability,
I'll be like, "Oh, he's not into politics." And we'll talk about
something else. Or if I ask you how things are going in your marriage and you
clam up, maybe we shouldn't talk about his marriage. So you get that with a
crowd. So that's part of the fun of it, too.
In a theatre versus a club, that's when you can really start, because it's 10 percent or so sped down and it's coming in waves and everything's taking a bit more time and it becomes a bigger thing, you can really start playing with that time and start surfing it in a way. It kind of goes from boxing to surfing. Not that I've done either. I mean, I've been in a fistfight and almost drown by waves so I know when those things aren't going well!
In a theatre versus a club, that's when you can really start, because it's 10 percent or so sped down and it's coming in waves and everything's taking a bit more time and it becomes a bigger thing, you can really start playing with that time and start surfing it in a way. It kind of goes from boxing to surfing. Not that I've done either. I mean, I've been in a fistfight and almost drown by waves so I know when those things aren't going well!
GM: Who's opening for you?
BB: Different people in
different regions. Ivan Decker's going to be opening my BC shows. Jamie
Hutchinson will be opening the prairies, except Erica Sigurdson's coming to
Regina. She'll play the casino shows with me. Graham Chittendon in Ontario and
Nova Scotia.
GM: Did you get any good footage
of your talk show you did in Victoria?
BB: Some great footage,
yeah. We've actually hired a guy to piece it together. I'm going to be looking
at it probably this week. It was kind of like take these five days and all this
footage and build kind of a sizzle reel, basically. I'm not looking for five
different shows, just great moments. It's one of the reasons I wore the same
thing every night, so we could take great moments and make it look like one big
show.
GM: A sizzle reel is kind of like
a trailer to give to somebody who might want to produce it?
BB: Yeah. Make this look as
exciting and appealing as possible. Partly for other people, partly for me,
too. Make me want to watch this show, make me want to do this show.
GM: But it's not for public
consumption.
BB: No. Probably not from
those Victoria shows. Those were really for us to get this and see what it's
like. You've known me long enough to know that I've always loved the idea of
doing it.
GM: And Canada needs one.
BB: Yeah, we're ripe for it.
There's no kind of late night entertainment show that's helmed by a funny guy.
There's room for it, I think. But it's a helluva thing to do, especially if
you're going to do it nightly, if it's not a once-a-week thing.
GM: Why?
BB: Because you're doing an
hour every day.
GM: But everybody does talk
shows. In the States.
BB: No, not everybody does.
GM: It's doable.
BB: Oh, it's doable for
sure. But here's my point: It's such a workload. Like, you don't see Letterman
making movies. You don't see Jimmy Kimmel making movies. You don't see them
doing other TV shows. They produce things but they have very little to do with
it. They own the rights to it and make money from it. But if you're somebody
like me who likes creating and doing, as much as I love the idea of doing a
talk show – and I really, really do; for a long time it was the thing I wanted
to do more than anything else. That was the end goal was to do a talk show.
But that was all pre-Corner Gas, pre-Hiccups, pre-No Clue. I love the process of doing all this stuff. So I don't want to get into a situation where I can't do this other stuff but I've been kicking around with some people who really know the logistics of production – because I don't; I know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to production logistics – so I'm talking with Laura, who works for my company, who knows everything there is to know about the logistics of putting a show together. Are there ways that we could do a talk show that would allow me to do other things. And it is potentially doable. It's a haul, though.
But that was all pre-Corner Gas, pre-Hiccups, pre-No Clue. I love the process of doing all this stuff. So I don't want to get into a situation where I can't do this other stuff but I've been kicking around with some people who really know the logistics of production – because I don't; I know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to production logistics – so I'm talking with Laura, who works for my company, who knows everything there is to know about the logistics of putting a show together. Are there ways that we could do a talk show that would allow me to do other things. And it is potentially doable. It's a haul, though.
GM: I would imagine in Canada you
wouldn't need to go year round. You could take three months off in the summer
and put on repeats and you could do a movie or something like that.
BB: You would have to create
a situation like that. But then you also have to seriously consider how much of
you people want. You have to have a realistic sense of the appetite that people
have for you. Do people want to see me every night on the show and then go see
me do a movie, or is it going to be, "Jesus, shut up with this guy. Every
time you turn around." I mean, if people started getting sick of Will
Ferrell during the promos of Anchor
Man 2,
because he was everywhere doing everything. Like, I never thought I would ever
hear anybody say, "Geez, I'm getting enough of this guy." And I heard
it for Anchor Man 2.
GM: Oh did you? Good, because that's
how I felt.
BB: Yeah. There's people who
are big fans of his and think he's a genius: "Jesus, every time I turn
around..."
GM: The way talk shows are now,
it's more of a comedy show with the host as the star. When I was growing up, it
was more of a talk show and you watched for the conversation. So there's that
model to consider, how much to thrust yourself into it if you want to be doing
other projects as well. But you should do it.
BB: I wouldn't mind taking a
run at doing it. I still like the idea. I'm just more aware of the obligation
now than I was before, having been in production for 15 years.
GM: And with Bullard, it seemed
like nobody liked it, although I liked it. When you're on all the time, it's
like anything, people are going to eventually start noticing what they don't
like and start chipping away at it. I stumbled across it before I ever even
heard about it. I'd never seen him before and I saw this ugly guy doing comedy
in his monologue and thought, "Who's this? Canada has a talk show?"
And I was sucked in. And then I excused the parts I didn't like because I came
from a framework of liking it rather than immediately hating it.
BB: When you're out there
that much all the time, any time you put yourself out there, you're
volunteering to be critiqued. So if you're putting yourself out there all the
time and every day, it's a lot of opportunity to say, "Hey, did you like this?
What did you think of this?" It's a lot of that. And you're gonna screw up
sometimes. You're going to do things that don't work that well. If you're
asking people to find stuff about your show that they don't like, there's a lot
of opportunity there. One of the things that makes it so amazing when people
can do it consistently so well, like Letterman did and like Carson did and I
think what like Jimmy Kimmel is doing now. It's very human and very real and
there's a palpable sense of it could not work at any given time, and sometimes
stuff doesn't work but the magic is making it work 90 percent of the time and
those 10 percent failures will be charming in some capacity. That takes a
special type of person.
GM: Those guys weren't needy,
that may be it.
BB: Maybe. They're not
begging for your approval all the time. They're like, "We're gonna do the
best we can. We're gonna do this show but at the end of the day...". Yeah,
I think that's a good point.
GM: I saw Wilmott in Victoria.
BB: Mike Wilmott.
GM: As he shuffled past me, I
thought how is it possible that I'm older than that guy?
BB: (chuckles) There are times when he gives off an elder countenance,
doesn't he? He lives large. He lives hard. He goes at it, man. Smoking,
drinking, talking loud and eating bad food. He goes for it. And you can't not
love the guy. From the time he was 20 he was kind of like your gruff drunken
uncle. He's always had that kind of 'grab you and give you a noogy' kind of a
big lovable, gruff... And it's so authentic with him, that's why it's worked
for so long for him. As strong an act as he was at 25, at 45 he was stronger.
GM: He's grown into that guy. Was
it harder to watch as a 20-year-old?
BB: No, it was never hard to
watch. It always worked. Because it's authentic. It just keeps getting more and
more authentic. The older he gets, the more authentic it becomes. I think when
he's 65, he'll probably be right about at his peak, his zenith.
GM: Anything else we need to talk
about?
BB: I don't know. Whatever
we can do to get people down to the Vogue. It's a big room.
GM: How many does it hold?
BB: If you fill the balcony,
I think it's over a thousand. The best live venues are ones that can be half
full when you take the balcony away but it feels like a packed theatre. I think
it's 700 on the main floor. Don't quote me on that. So it's a matter of getting
a few hundred people out and having a good time. It's always the concern
especially in big markets. There are options. And Patton Oswalt's going to be
here [around that time]. So you start competing for comedy dollars, for that
specific niche; not people who want music or people who want to see a play –
people who want to see standup. Now you start fragmenting those people. And in
some ways, if I'm Joe Guy you can see, or that you have seen... I mean, I was
doing shows every Tuesday night, two shows, in town for six or seven years
before going off to do Corner Gas.
So I was a guy you could come down and see for five bucks. You could watch him get drunk. What I'm hoping is that there's a translation from people who were in their 20s coming down to that show at the Urban Well are now in their 30s, have more disposable income and go, "We used to see that guy all the time down at the Well. Let's see the big theatre show." It's very different. You know what it was like in the old days. I would go up for two minutes in between acts. I'd be at least half in the bag.
So I was a guy you could come down and see for five bucks. You could watch him get drunk. What I'm hoping is that there's a translation from people who were in their 20s coming down to that show at the Urban Well are now in their 30s, have more disposable income and go, "We used to see that guy all the time down at the Well. Let's see the big theatre show." It's very different. You know what it was like in the old days. I would go up for two minutes in between acts. I'd be at least half in the bag.
GM: You've developed a lot of new
material since then.
BB: Yeah. And I'm going to be out
there for an hour, hour-and-fifteen. It's usually about an hour-and-fifteen
that I do.
GM: Are you still taking
questions from the audience?
BB: Sometimes. I think I will on
this tour because it opens itself up to allow me to talk about the movie. But
also it's always a lot of fun, that kind of Carol Burnett-y
turn-the-houselights-up.
GM: At the Well, you weren't
taking questions but there were lots of interactions.
BB: I was shooting the breeze
with people, yeah. In that situation, where I'm doing two shows in front of the
same crowd – so many of the people would be regulars – that there's no possible
way you could churn out enough material for every show. So you have to rely on
your ability to play around off the cuff and it's something that I've always
been fairly adept at.
GM: And some aren't.
BB: Some are, some aren't.
GM: It's found material.
BB: Yeah. You're crafting on
the fly.
GM: But there you were asking the
questions; here you're getting asked the question.
BB: But it works well. I've
always enjoyed doing it, as long as the questions come. Sometimes you say,
"Okay, let's open up. Are there any questions?" and no questions.
Then it's kind of weird. Okay, well let's shut the lights back down and I'll
try and slide back into standup. That won't be too clunky! It's all very informal.
GM: You won't have a chance to
relax before the movie opens.
BB: No, the tour ends March 4 and
the movie opens here March 6. So what we're doing, all along this tour, anybody
who comes to the live show venue, we're gonna do a draw. We're gonna fly two
people from wherever to Vancouver for the red carpet screening.
GM: What if they're from here?
BB: One of the things I was
thinking is maybe we can turn this into a positive, maybe we could open it up
to the people of Vancouver and say in lieu of a flight to Vancouver, because
you live here, what else could we do? I could come to your house and make you
dinner. Or we could all go to the Keg. (laughs) Whatever the hell. Something
else. We want to maybe get creative with it.
GM: So people from Vancouver are
still eligible.
BB: Yes. It's still going to the
red carpet premier and walk the red carpet and go to the party and all that
kind of stuff. You will be invited.
GM: How do they enter?
BB: At the venue. When you're
there, you enter your name. The way we're probably do it – and this still needs
to be ironed out – that night we'll pick five from Edmonton, five from
Lethbridge, five from Winnipeg. They go into one drum. We will let everybody
know on that night. So if you're there at the Vancouver show or if you're there
in Winnipeg or whatever, and we pull your name, you know if you're one of the
people that's going in the final draw and be ready to get on a plane March 5th
to come to Vancouver.
GM: So at your show, you will
draw the five names.
BB: I believe I will be drawing
the five names.
GM: So they know it's on the
up-and-up.
BB: Yeah. It's happening right
here and right now.
GM: This reminds me of when you
told me about Corner Gas. It took years and then, there's that thing he was
talking about. Then you were making the movie and there was a long wait for it
to be released and now here it is.
BB: Now here it is, two months
away and it'll be in theatres. It's exciting times. And hopefully it goes well
enough they'll let me do another movie.
GM: Who's they?
BB: The people who decide who
gets the money to make movies. You always gotta get money from sources.
GM: Don't you get three movies?
BB: I hope so. I like that idea.
GM: It says 'All Ages' for the
tickets to your live show. I remember on my show you said one day you want to
do a dirty show.
BB: Yeah, I don't know who
decides that. That's never something that I put out there.
GM: They don't clear that with
you?
BB: No, they just think he
generally works clean. Somehow it comes down to that. And you want to sell as
many tickets as you can. I said on Twitter the other day, somebody asked me
about bringing their 7-year-old to my show. They basically said, "Should I
bring my 7-year-old to your show or are you filthy?" There's a whole lot
of reasons to not bring your 7-year-old to a show without filth. I tried to
respond saying it's not about working blue, it's is your 7-year-old going to
like politics or science or paying taxes? Is this going to entertain? They'll
ask you if it's appropriate. I said I'm not Gwar but I'm not the Doodlebops.
Plus, I don't know your kid. Is your kid a moron? Is your kid super-smart? When you say 'family friendly', if you are an evangelical minister... I've had people come up to me upset because I said the word 'hell' and 'damn' in my act. Like, steamed! I got accused of blaspheming one time. I was like, blaspheming? What year is this that you expect to not hear somebody blaspheme? Where can I not hear any blaspheming? A live standup show! So I just never know what to tell people. I say I don't know. Are you going to be offended by what I do? I don't know. Maybe. I can't worry too much about it. What I think is safe is completely outrageous to somebody else and something that I'm on the fence about, I think Oh my God, is this maybe really on the borderline of filth, there's other people who think it's pablum. So I don't know. Answer your own goddamn questions! Take a leap.
I tried to say this to somebody else the other time: I said I doubt there's anything in my show that's going to scar your kid for life. It might make your kid ask you a couple questions. It's like that Louis C.K. bit about gay marriage. People are like, "What am I supposed to say to my kids?" We're not gonna pass laws because you don't want to talk to your fucking kid for two minutes. Sit down and talk to your goddamn kid for two minutes. "I don't know what to say to him." Scream it out. Tell him two people fell in love. Figure it out!
Plus, I don't know your kid. Is your kid a moron? Is your kid super-smart? When you say 'family friendly', if you are an evangelical minister... I've had people come up to me upset because I said the word 'hell' and 'damn' in my act. Like, steamed! I got accused of blaspheming one time. I was like, blaspheming? What year is this that you expect to not hear somebody blaspheme? Where can I not hear any blaspheming? A live standup show! So I just never know what to tell people. I say I don't know. Are you going to be offended by what I do? I don't know. Maybe. I can't worry too much about it. What I think is safe is completely outrageous to somebody else and something that I'm on the fence about, I think Oh my God, is this maybe really on the borderline of filth, there's other people who think it's pablum. So I don't know. Answer your own goddamn questions! Take a leap.
I tried to say this to somebody else the other time: I said I doubt there's anything in my show that's going to scar your kid for life. It might make your kid ask you a couple questions. It's like that Louis C.K. bit about gay marriage. People are like, "What am I supposed to say to my kids?" We're not gonna pass laws because you don't want to talk to your fucking kid for two minutes. Sit down and talk to your goddamn kid for two minutes. "I don't know what to say to him." Scream it out. Tell him two people fell in love. Figure it out!
GM: You're the parent!
BB: Yeah, that's your job.
Don't feel upset because something happened and now you gotta talk to your kid
for two minutes. Your stupid fucking kid.
