When Nelson Mandela was released from prison and won South Africa's free election, he began making profound inroads in the country's battle against Apartheid. The worldwide news may have covered the broad strokes of his efforts, but you might not know the details of how he did it. One of Mandela's... more

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison and won South Africa's free election, he began making profound inroads in the country's battle against Apartheid. The worldwide news may have covered the broad strokes of his efforts, but you might not know the details of how he did it.

One of Mandela's unorthodox initiatives was to rally behind the country's rugby team. The Springboks had been a symbol of racist Apartheid policies, but Mandela saw a political opportunity. If the black and white South African's could come together to support the team, it would be the first step toward a united nation.

The film Invictus portrays the 1995 World Cup. Morgan Freeman plays Mandela and Matt Damon plays Springboks captain Francois Pienaar. Clint Eastwood directed the film, showing how both players and fans slowly came around to each other over the season, while Mandela's advisors pleaded for him to focus on other affairs. Freeman has already been named Best Actor by the National Board of Review for his performance.

Freeman and Damon gave a press conference to support the film. For those who haven't read many Morgan Freeman interviews, you might be surprised by how playful he is. Perennially cast as the wise old sage, the real Freeman likes to mess with interviewers. The profound nature of this story didnt prevent him from joking around. Damon offered a little sarcasm too but otherwise stayed on point about the story of Pienaar and Mandela, often referred to as Madiba.

Q: Morgan, congratulations on the NBR Award.

Morgan Freeman: Thank you so much. Anybody know what NBR means?

Q: Of course. National Board of Review.

MF: Hey, hey, hey. And do you know why he's congratulating me?

Q: Well yes, you won.

MF: Hey, hey, hey.

Q: Is it true you've been considering playing Mandela since 1993? What took until now to find the right opportunity?

MF: This started out with Madiba naming me as his heir apparent so to speak when he was asked during the press conference at the publication of his book, Long Walk to Freedom, Mr. Mandela, if your book becomes a movie, who would you like to play you? He said, Morgan Freeman. So, from then on, it's like okay so Morgan Freeman is going to be Mandela somewhere down the line. We spent a lot of time, Lori [McCreary] and I, my producing partner at Revelations. We were trying all this time to develop Long Walk to Freedom into a script. Couldn't happen. Then, in 06 I believe, we got this book proposal from John Carlin and it was perfect. We bought it. We got a script written. And, this was the role to play to give the world an insight into who Mandela is and how he operates. It was perfect.

Q: Matt, what did you get from the real Francois Pienaar?

Matt Damon: Well, the first thing I did when I read the script was, I called Clint and I said, I can't believe this happened. I can't believe this is true. And he said, I couldn't either, but this is true. So, I went immediately and looked up Francois online and I said, Clint, this guy is huge. We've never met but I'm 5'10". I told him on the phone and he started laughing and he said, Oh hell, don't worry about that. I said, Alright. He said, You go worry about everything else. And I said, Alright, Ill worry about everything else. You worry about the fact that I need to grow 6 inches to play the guy. I had about 6 months to get ready. I worked hard on the accent and on training physically to build myself up to try to pull off the illusion of being the captain of a South African rugby team. Ultimately, I just try to look at every possible pitfall. When I'm way, way out, say 6 months away, I look at what could possibly blow this illusion? What are the things? And then, I start thinking about ways to solve those problems before I really get into it. So, I kind of made my little checklist of things I had to do and just planned it out and then I got to South Africa. The very first day, Francois invited me over to his house for a gourmet dinner that he was cooking. He invited me to meet his wife and two boys. Morgan and I went. I just remember I rang the doorbell and he opened the door and I looked up at him, and the first thing I ever said to Francois Pienaar in my life was, I look much bigger on film. And he laughed and laughed and he gave me a big hug and then took me into his house and that was it. We were off and running and he was just an invaluable resource for me the whole time. I was constantly asking him questions, everything from what color is your mouth piece to whats your philosophy on the captaincy and on leading a team and life in general. He just was incredibly available and a very articulate guy and he was incredibly helpful to me.

Q: In doing your research for it, did that include the accent?

MD: Yeah, well Francois's accent has changed quite a bit because he went and played in England for so many years. All of his closest friends and his wife, everybody says, Well, you know, his accent has changed quite a bit. Listening to any existing interviews from that day, you can hear how its changed, but there was a good key to that. Tim and I, the dialect coach, talked a lot about [how] a lot of people, when they do a South African accent, really overdo it and end up making somebody sound like Frankenstein. Its actually a quite beautiful accent. We talked about smoothing it out because Francois speaks quite smoothly and borrowing some of that and trying to make it so that its subtle, so that its not so over the top where you're just like "Wait a minute. Thats a little big."

Q: Morgan, I've had the privilege of interviewing you several times over the years.

MF: Yes, you have.

Q: You've always described acting as playing, which is nice to hear. I was wondering, when you play Nelson Mandela, does it become more than that?

MF: No. It might have become more than that were I playing or working with someone other than Clint Eastwood. He is so enabling. He is so out of your way as an actor and he likes to watch actors play. I don't think I do anything other than that when I'm working. I'm just playing. Work is something else. Work is maybe what you do.

Q: Matt, in 1990 when Nelson Mandela came to Boston and there were hundreds of thousands of people on the Common, do you remember that?

MD: Sure. I remember the Boston visit. I remember the whole world tour. I remember he just went all over the place. In fact, in my high school, we had the Free Nelson Mandela ribbons. Remember the black ribbon with the writing? Kids were wearing those before they knew who he was. In fact, I have an old scrapbook that I was looking through. This is the photo album that my mother put together for me to go to college. She gave me a photo album of pictures from my whole childhood that progressed. And, I saw recently that the Free Nelson Mandela ribbon was in there from 1986 or 1988, probably 1988 when I graduated high school and all the kids were wearing those ribbons. So I remember. It was very big. My freshman year at Harvard in Fall of 88, I remember the Divest Now marches and everything that was going on. College campuses are usually the places where a lot of that stuff is cooking and people are talking about that stuff. So yeah, it was a very, very big deal, the Boston visit, and really that whole kind of coming out tour that he did.

Q: As you became good friends with Francois, what did you pay attention to and incorporate into your performance from your observations of him?

MD: There are the more obvious physical things that I have to do to try to pull off that magic trick, and then, just talking to him philosophically about certain things, you know, leadership. That's really if you look at the structure of the script, its the greatest world leader of our time appealing to this other type of leader and forging a bond with him and basically saying, I need to use you to do this and the guy saying, I understand exactly why and his team exceeding its expectations. They've been asked to exceed their expectations and it's a metaphor for what the country needs to do because everybody is expecting them to not be able to heal. Those were the things. It was Francois's integrity and leadership, but those were the kind of things that I needed to get across with the role and then the obvious kind of attendant physical things, lifting weights and stuff.

Q: How does a fight scene in, say, The Bourne Ultimatum compare to playing rugby?

MD: Oh, I was in better shape for this movie. I mean, I was in the gym every day and with Francois who came with me to the gym a few times. This is his life. I don't want to embarrass him. I can't. If Jason Bourne looks a little flabby, thats on me. [Laughs] This is the fictionalization of somebody's actual life. I didn't want to let him down. It wasn't going to be for any lack of effort, which really was what that team was famous for actually. They were known for going the extra mile and for knowing themselves well enough to say okay, we might not be the most talented team, and the line is even in the movie. The coach says, We might not be the most talented team, but were going to be the fittest. Francois talked me through their training regimen. It was just unbelievable what those guys did, all of them, every single guy. Its that great thing about a great team. Its like when every single person commits to something and sublimates their own personality for the greater good of the whole team and thats basically again the metaphor for that whole country.

Q: Have you played rugby since you came back?

MD: Hell no!

Q: Did you do this film before or after The Informant!?

MD: After. So, I had a good time putting the weight on and then a tough time reshaping the weight.

Q: How much did each of you know about the sport of rugby and do you still know the rules?

MF: Nothing. I know American football. I know just a little bit about soccer. I know baseball. I know basketball. But rugby is foreign language.

MD: And you know golf.

MF: I know golf.

MD: Same. I'm with Morgan. I knew a little bit about rugby but very, very little. But I do think it helps in terms of an American audience, the game is enough like football in the sense that its a battle for field position and you score by running across, running into what looks like an end zone and putting the ball down. I think in terms of the nuance of the game, obviously Americans won't get that stuff but in terms of the peanut butter and jelly version of what you need to know, I think its pretty clear.

Q: Why is this an important film?

MD: I'd say the film is telling a story that I think is a wonderful thing to remind everybody of, in South Africa and all over the world. If we listen to the better angels of our nature, there are creative and good solutions to serious problems. It's just an incredibly uplifting movie, and from the moment I read it, I was excited about just being a part of the ensemble that told this story. I think its a good thing to put out there, particularly now. There's not a lot of good news so this is a nice thing to put out for the holidays.

Q: Morgan, If you'd been contemplating this since 1993, what was the most important thing you wanted to get across in portraying Nelson Mandela?

MF: When he said that he would prefer that I be the one to play him in 1990 or whenever that was, I had to start then preparing myself to do it. So, I met him not long after that and I said to him, If Im going to play you, Im going to have to have access to you. Im going to have to be close enough to hold your hand. And, over the years, while we were trying to develop Long Walk to Freedom, that is what happened. Whenever we were in proximity, like a city away for instance, I would know about it and I would go to him and have lunch, have dinner, or sit with him while he's waiting to go on stage for whatever, and during that time, I would sit and hold Madibas hand. Now that's not for camaraderie. I find that if I hold your hand, I get your energy, it transfers, and I have a sense of how you feel. That's important to me trying to become another person. I have a lot of pressure to bring a character like that to life in any kind of real sense. The danger, of course, is always at caricature, sort of indicating what the person is like. The biggest challenge I had, of course, was to sound like him. Everything else is kind of easy to do: to walk like him, he has a few tics and things that I noticed and I picked those up. I didn't have any agenda as it were in playing the role other than to bring it as close to reality as I possibly could. The agenda is incorporated in the script and all I had to do was learn my lines.

Q: Matt, you do a number of films that have some kind of social consciousness to them, and you also have The People Speak on TV next week. Can you talk about doing projects that have some kind of social value and what that means to you?

MD: Sure. I think actors, we react to the material that's out there and I probably just react more strongly to things that I feel will have some social value. I think this movie is a great example. I think this is a really wonderful message to put out. It's a completely non-partisan message incidentally. This is about healing and coming together and it's an incredibly uplifting story. I think thats why it appealed to me. It wasn't that I went and said, I want to make a movie that's about this. It's that I read this terrific script and it was about the greatest world leader of the past 50 years and he was being played by Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood was directing. It was a pretty easy decision for me. And The People Speak, Im really proud of. It came out really well. It's going to air on the History Channel on the 13th and that we just stumbled on a way to tell history that I think is great because it's factual. It's just the actual documents. It's the speeches and diaries and journal entries, all of these great speeches. In fact, there was the anniversary of John Brown's execution I saw a couple days ago and the Times did a whole thing and we have that David Strathairn reading John Brown in The People Speak, the last thing he said on the public record before they executed him. He was just 150 years ahead of his time. Its just incredible to read his words. There's a whole movement to pardon him that I saw in the paper the other day.

MF: Not too late, they say.

MD: Yeah, exactly. It's never too late. Because look, I mean, he ends up getting arrested by Robert E. Lee who leads the Secession force two years later over this issue of slavery and John Brown predicted. He said, This is only going to be solved with blood. This is the only way. This is a slave nation and we can't permit it anymore. So there are these great inspirational speeches and have a website where teachers are going to be able to access them. If you're teaching about Frederick Douglass and you can bring a reading by Morgan Freeman into your classroom, I have a feeling high school kids are going to be much more interested and be able to connect to these voices and that was the thing, looking at all of these readings, you connect to them much more than when you read them on the page, when you see these actors speaking the words. There's just something very powerful about it.

Q: Thank you both.

MF: Before you go, let me just say this. In a movie like this, in a project like this, actors, directors, producers, we all get so much attention and so much credit but I want you to see, whatever happened to Tony, I want you to see the young, unassuming man who actually wrote this script. Because no word on the page, nothing happens. Tony Peckham, that is the man who gets kudos from all of us. Thank you all so much.

Perhaps your idea of a riveting coming of age memoir is one filled to the brim with episodes of Augusten Burroughs-style, pulling-down-the-ceiling craziness – the sort that are inevitably revealed as half-true, at best -- in which case Emily Gould’s new book of youthful remembrances And The Heart... more

Perhaps your idea of a riveting coming of age memoir is one filled to the brim with episodes of Augusten Burroughs-style, pulling-down-the-ceiling craziness – the sort that are inevitably revealed as half-true, at best -- in which case Emily Gould’s new book of youthful remembrances And The Heart Says Whatever might not be for you. Neither a catalogue of childhood horrors or the Letters to a Young Blogger tract that some were anticipating from the ex-Gawker gamine, Whatever is rather a 28 year-old writer’s diaristic self-examination of how she got from there (living out Chrissie Hynde songs as a suburban Ohio co-ed) to here (balancing a Brooklyn-based life as a yoga instructor with a burgeoning writing career). That turns out to be enough, as it’s in the skillful telling that Gould succeeds, gliding effortlessly and fatalistically through a blizzard of potentially formative events ranging from her deflowering, at 17, of a younger virgin, to her stint as an ass-busting blues bar waitress, to her disastrous attempt at integrating a new puppy into her life, all while studiously avoiding fashionable self-deprecation and moments of can’t-you-just-see-Zooey-Deschanel-for-this manufactured whimsy.

In the way it suggests Gould’s impressive recall of events both large and inconsequential, and demonstrates her facility for turning each memory over as if in her hands for inspection, Whatever more than justifies its existence, achieving a measure of authorial gravitas that turns an inner journey into a relatable read. It will also, however, leave some readers blue-balled due to the author’s refusal to turn her scalpel onto the media empire that birthed her as a public persona or the failings of the crumbling-before-our-eyes Manhattan publishing world. The zeitgeist of mid-aughts media is conspicuously absent from Gould’s account. Her infamous face-off with Jimmy Kimmel on live TV over Gawker’s “Stalker Map” in 2007, dramatic departure from her editorial perch at Gawker over ethical concerns soon after, subsequent 8,000-word soul-baring essay “Exposed” for the New York Times magazine in summer 2008, and eventual targeting by Gawker itself in a half-witted effort at hoisting-by-petard – it all gets short shrift, perhaps because Gould perceives that the only thing more fleeting than Internet fame is Internet disaccord.

Gould also likes cooking – a lot. In addition to her long-running primary blog Emily Magazine, she now operates a Tumblr called Things I Ate That I Love in which she lends consideration to her various cooking and eating experiences in addition to indulging ephemeral fixations on, say, Megan Fox or the meaning of a friend’s new tattoo. She’s also currently hard at work on a regularly recurring Internet show called Cooking the Books, on which she casually interviews selected authors about their upcoming titles while preparing a dish (usually in montage form) with an attempted thematic tie-in and during which no gaffe, self-inflicted or otherwise, will fail to register on the hostess’s noticeably fluid face. SuicideGirls recently called up Gould in Brooklyn to discuss her new book, the evolution of the cooking show and its place in her future, her expanding canvas of body art, and how she’s putting the past to bed.





Ryan Stewart: What are you working on today?

Emily Gould: Oh, God. I have this thing I’m working on. I’m not usually this terrible and flakey with deadlines, but it was originally due at the beginning of May -- at the end of the first week of May -- and then I got an extension to June 1st. Now I’m blowing that deadline, too. It sucks, because I handed in one draft of the piece and then I got back revisions and I became so daunted by them that I just had to hide from the piece for a while. I think there are two personality types for this kind of stuff: One is like the kid who got the test back from the teacher as a child and really studied the test and was like ‘What did I get wrong? How can I do better next time?’ But I’m the kid who stuffs the graded test down into the bottom of the backpack and tries to forget it ever happened. I’m more like ‘B plus? Okay, great, fine!’ It does make the whole editorial process kind of excruciating.

RS: Is the next cooking show coming up soon?

EG: I think we’re going to have it done this week. It’s Julie Klausner. I just saw the rough cut yesterday and I’m really excited about it. We try to keep things pretty brief, because it’s, you know, the Internet? [laughs] We really think the ideal thing is for it to be, like, five minutes long, and I think even that is kind of long for the Internet. But Julie’s is all good and it’s so funny. It was really hard to figure out what to cut, because she’s amazingly funny all the time and everything she says is golden. I think we might actually experiment with a slightly longer episode for this one, cause it’s awesome.

RS: I heard you’re having Will Leitch on soon, for his book. I worked with him once at a little magazine called Venture Reporter.

EG: Oh, cool. Was that a long time ago?

RS: Yeah, it was around 2001-2002. Mostly what I remember about him is that the ladies seemed to love him.

EG: As a lady who loves him, I feel qualified on that. He’s always in a relationship, so you feel, like, safe around him. He’s never gonna hit on you and be inappropriate, so you can get super-drunk with him – not that I’ve ever done that. Also, he just has these non-threatening good looks, the boyishly handsome thing, where you’re like ‘Oh, it’s just Will, it’s just Will!’ and then you have a sex dream about him, and you’re like, ‘What the fuck? Do I want to have sex with Will?’ It’s horribly jarring, and then you have to have your friends show you a video he made for the Internet a million years ago that features him several pounds heavier than he is now and topless in the shower and then you’re like ‘Okay, cured.’ [laughs] We actually go back, weirdly, to way before I worked at Gawker. We had the same editor of our young adult novels and we’ve had all these other weird career similarities. Astrology is bullshit, but I totally believe in it. Our birthdays are one day apart, so maybe we have some kind of astrological similarity. We’ve also both been humiliated by blowhards on national TV, we both worked at Gawker Media, and our books just came out on the same day too.

RS: Since you brought it up, do you feel like Jimmy Kimmel got the best of you in that confrontation?

EG: Oh, yeah. I come off as such an asshole in that interview. I completely sympathize with everyone who makes fun of me. Maybe I wasn’t wrong about what I was saying, but I was saying it in the most obnoxious way possible. I had also been put in the super-awkward position of defending this thing that I didn’t create. It was just part of my job to make sure the interns were doing a good job of maintaining it, so it was hard for me to defend it, really. Yeah, that hugely sucked. Also, usually when you do a remote, like with the Larry King people, there’s usually a monitor set up so that you can see the other people who you’re having a conversation with and they didn’t have that for me -- on purpose, I think. It was really hard to tell by the tone of Jimmy Kimmel’s voice whether he was fucking with me, and you can see if you watch the video – which I’m not enough of a masochist to do – the moment when I realize that he’s not fucking with me, he’s not kidding. It’s kind of hilarious, because you can see it in my eyes. I’m like ‘Oh shit, he’s serious.’ To me it was inherently ridiculous that someone who had a TV show predicated on the idea that both he and his whole audience were drunk would get upset. That was what The Man Show was, and then he got upset because someone said that they saw him drunk walking down the street? You really feel like you have this pristine public image that has been punctured somehow by a random sighting of you? Give me a fucking break. But, I don’t know, it’s not my job to defend what Gawker does anymore. I don’t have to say that they were, like, on the side of truth and justice and the truth must out, thank you! I just think it’s pretty ridiculous when people who get paid millions of dollars complain about their privacy being violated.

RS: I’ve always approached you as sort of a humorist, whether on Gawker or other platforms you’ve written on.

EG: Well, I hope that I’m funny. I think my sense of humor is pretty dry and sarcastic. I do have a problem a lot of the time where people will interpret something that I’ve said or written as being very serious or earnest, when I was actually totally kidding. And it’s hard because you can’t really say ‘Oh, you don’t get it, I was just kidding’ without sounding like a pompous jackass. What you’re basically saying is ‘Oh, my God, I’m so sorry that you were too stupid to understand what I was trying to say.’

RS: I love that moment in the Kathryn Borel episode of Cooking the Books where she sort of casually says “You know, I killed a man once,” and your reaction to that.

EG: [laughs] We had trouble editing that, because we felt like we had to introduce this information about her book. It’s an important aspect of the book, but it is hard to go from “Killed a man” to “Here’s how to make Hollandaise.” It’s hard for me to watch the cooking show sometimes because I’m super-annoyed by my facial expressions. I really wish I didn’t have such a spastic, hyper-mobile face, but oh well, that’s just how my face is. And my laugh? Oh, Jesus Christ. It’s been hard going around doing all of these interviews, because I feel obligated to watch them and listen to them, but it doesn’t give me a narcissistic thrill. It’s not fun.

RS: Did you create the show just as a way of keeping a foothold in the literary community, or does it figure into the big plan?

EG: Oh, my grand scheme? Actually, this is a great example of how something that’s an Internet idea can become something real. I think I tweeted something about how I wished there was a Reading Rainbow for adults. I wished that there was a show about books that made books actually seem fun and interesting, because it really doesn’t exist at all. And my friend Val, who was just finishing up film school and was kind of casting around for a project, saw the tweet and wrote to me to say ‘Hey, we could do that, we could do something like that, we’d just have to figure out what it would be.’ And I thought ‘Okay, great!’ and we probably shot the first episode maybe two weeks after that happened. So, it was sort of a natural thing. I love cooking and I live in New York where all of these writers either live or hang out or visit because they’re on tour promoting their books, so it’s like, why not? Insofar as how it fits into my career scheme, it’s just hard to be by yourself all day, hunched over your computer. It’s not the most fun sometimes, and to sort of have a project that’s collaborative and actually be part of a team with Andrew and Val and work on the show is a really nice counterpoint to pretty much everything else that I do.

RS: Given your history at Hyperion, it’s kind of surprising that you haven’t found your way back into the editorial side of publishing.

EG: I don’t think they would have me, even if I wanted to be in book publishing right now. It’s kind of a bummer, it really seems like everyone I know – with the exception of my super-talented Free Press editor Amber Qureshi – who is a great, young, up and coming publishing person is bailing. They’re either leaving the industry all-together or they’re doing some sort of Internet venture that has to do with publishing, or they’re going over into the magazine world. I don’t see myself being in editorial ever again. I had a lot of fun working on the books that I worked on at Hyperion, but I don’t actually think that I’m the world’s best editor. I did the thing that bad editors do, actually, which is I would take writing and make it sound more like me. A good editor takes a piece of writing and makes the writer sound more like themselves.

RS: Do you think Gawker narrowed your career options? In the book you talk a little about the feeling that bridges were being burned during that period.

EG: I say that I felt unemployed and unemployable. I was pretty down. It isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. As you get older you go further down one path and other doors close to you, and that’s just part of the deal. It would be really hard for me to imagine going to work again at a big corporate blog. I don’t think I’ll ever have a job-job again. Right now I teach yoga. If I ever have an office-y, you-have-to-wear-non-spandex-clothes job again, it would probably be a teaching job. I’m loathe to acknowledge this, but Gawker is kind of the ultimate as far as working for the Internet goes, and I don’t see why any print publication would hire me. I have zero print experience. I could go back and do something that reaches fewer people, but it would feel like taking a step back. So, yeah, that sucks for me! [laughs] God, Ryan, I’ve never really thought of my career in such a holistic way before.

RS: Gawker is actually directly mentioned only infrequently in the book, but when it is you express regret for the meanness of some of your barbs. Do you see a qualitative difference in the Gawker-style put-downs you created back then and what you still do on your blog?

EG: Well, humor can be really nasty, and one of the surest routes to Funnyville is via super-duper meanness. During my time at Gawker I was not really too quick on the uptake. I should have noticed that this was happening way before I actually did -- and to my credit, when I did notice that it was happening I quit -- but Gawker used to be less powerful than the people it was making fun of. Then it started to become more powerful than the people it was making fun of, and that’s just not as funny. The first rule of comedy is that you can make fun of anyone as long as you’re not bullying or beating up on someone who’s obviously weaker than you. It’s not funny to be, like, “Hey guys, look at that homeless drunk guy – he’s retarded!” It’s like “O-kay…” And that’s the position that Gawker was in. It was a gradual shift, it happened over the course of many months, but it definitely happened. It’s never been…..I’m good at being mean. It comes naturally to me. It’s like, yay, I’m so good at it! But it doesn’t make me happy to make other people unhappy. I’m not a sadist. And once you realize that about yourself there’s really no place for you in the realm of making other people unhappy.

RS: On your blog you recently commented on Lynn Hirschberg seemingly setting up M.I.A. with those truffle fries. Did you notice that Hirschberg also used truffles in her Megan Fox profile?

EG: Oh, no. Poor Megan Fox! But I also feel like, okay, lady, you’re sitting down with Lynn Hirschberg. I mean, don’t you have access to Google? You have to know what you’re getting into a little bit. Maybe it’s your publicist or whoever saying “It’s the Times Magazine, you have to do this!” Did she literally do the same thing?

RS: As I recall it was similarly put to the reader as an observation, like “Megan is having some truffle French fries in the hotel restaurant…”

EG: She probably just takes them all to that same restaurant. I know that when I’m interviewing people it’s like, you know your places where you can go and it’s quiet and the people know you and they’ll give you some corner booth. It’s probably less nefarious than, like, fallaciously getting them to eat something, but yeah, I do feel weirdly defensive of M.I.A. and people in that situation. For people who like to talk about themselves, it’s so dangerous to just let yourself babble on and on about every thought in your head. It’s so fun, it’s so great, someone’s finally asking you about yourself -- then you read the profile later and you’re like ‘Oh, my God.’ It’s very easy to focus on someone’s worst asset. It takes a lot of restraint to not just do that over and over again, and it’s hard to write a great celebrity profile. I’ve never done it.

RS: Some interviewers try to compensate by going overboard with the crafty editing afterwards, shaping things.

EG: That’s just shady. The really crafty interviewers are the ones who are just silent and make you feel so awkward that you’ll appreciate anything just to fill the holes in the conversation. I love her, but this is what Vanessa Grigoriadis does, and it works! She gets amazing stuff, because people are just sitting there and total silence has fallen over the table and they’re just picking at their sushi, so they say something. You’re put in the position of making the interviewer feel less awkward, and of course they’re completely playing you. It’s actually real easy. See, this is why I’m not a brilliant, Janet Malcolm type of investigative reporter. I don’t have that much game.

RS: Do you have any thoughts about the recent news of Megan Fox being booted off Transformers 3 because she wouldn’t get a tan and put on weight?

EG: I haven’t really formed an opinion about that, until you just mentioned it. But it’s funny, I just posted a photo of Megan Fox from US Weekly on my Tumblr today to illustrate a quote from this early 80s Martin Amis book that I just happened to be reading for whatever reason. The narrator of the book is this caricature of an over-the-top horrible alcoholic misogynist, he’s a kind of very obvious stand-in for the author’s worst impulses and the quote says “You know, I’ve been told that I don’t like women. It’s not true, I love women. I think chicks are cool. And people have also told me that men don’t like women, period. Oh yeah? But if they don’t, who does? I’ll tell you who doesn’t like women. Women don’t like women.” And I think Megan Fox is a good example of how women don’t like women.

RS: Have you always been alert to the dangers of being pigeonholed as one kind of woman? In the book you recall that even your feminist-minded short story teacher at the New School was trying to put every girl in her own little box.

EG: Well, as a writer everyone is put in that kind of box. It’s what makes your work marketable and shelvable, you know? It has to be classified and categorized somehow, it’s just that the categories are so inherently problematic. It’s just the idea that something is Chick Lit if it’s by a woman and it concerns itself with love and romance, and if a man writes a similar book then it’s not that, it’s just a novel, a coming of age novel. I think of people like Nell Freudenberger and Nicole Krauss, who early in their careers took a lot of shit. It was like ‘Oh, look at this author photo, she’s clearly trying to trade on her looks and her sexual attractiveness as a woman.’ You don’t have a choice about that stuff, you know? They had to take a picture of her, so what is she supposed to do, splash acid on her face? Then she’ll be taken seriously? Now both of the writers I just mentioned are in their early 30s, they have children, and people do take them more seriously. I think our culture doesn’t really know what to do with women who are past the stage of being dewy ingénues who you can project anything you want onto, because she clearly doesn’t have her own agency or thoughts at all. You can just make up what she’s thinking and project it onto her. Then there are mommies and wise crones who the culture can revere, like Patti Smith or something. But if you’re in an in-between mode then you’re really scary, because they don’t know what to do with you. There’s no label for you, no box for you.

RS: Is part of the reason why you decided to get conspicuous tattoos to sort of force people to lend a few more seconds of consideration to you up front than they otherwise might have?

EG: My God. What a question! It’s interesting. I think everyone who gets tattoos gets them for a whole lot of different reasons. There’s never one primary reason. And there are some reasons that you only realize in retrospect, like ‘Oh, this might have been why I got tattooed.’ But I’ll just give you an example. My rule for comments on my personal blog, Emily Magazine, is that I will approve all comments as long as they don’t insult other people. It’s fine to insult me, but you’re not allowed to insult other people. And recently that rule put me in the position of approving this comment. I’m just gonna read it to you, if I can find it. I have to log into the site. Here we go. It’s someone named Jonathan. [in creepy Penthouse letters voice] “As cute as you are, Em, shame about the tats, though. Iiiikk! I’ve got to say that the content here just doesn’t make the grade, nor does your participation help anything along. My advice is to get on with your life. Fulfill your biological function, and leave the Internet to those that actually have something clever to say.”

RS: Oh my.

EG: It just goes down the line and hits all the notes. It’s like, you’re worthless, except for bearing children, and leave the Internet to those that have something clever to say? Yeah, cause that’s what the Internet’s for! [laughs] So, yeah, that guy is skeeved by tattoos. Too bad! I really wish I hadn’t gotten my tattoos now because my whole self-worth is dependent on whether he thinks I’m attractive! They are kind of a good screening process. I would never want to have a job where they wouldn’t want to hire me if I had tattoos. I’d never want to date someone who wouldn’t date someone who had tattoos, you know? So, yeah, it is definitely a way to filter out a certain kind of attention.

RS: Do you involve yourself in any kind of tattoo subculture? I think you’re sort of in the SuicideGirls demographic.

EGh yeah? I think I’m a few body mods away from being viable for actual SuicideGirlness. No piercings, except for my ears. Although I did have my holes stretched for a while, but I let them get back to normal size so that I could just wear normal earrings again. No, I guess? I mean, I do really love tattoos. I think they’re inherently beautiful and interesting, otherwise I wouldn’t have so many of them. But I don’t go to conventions or read Inked or anything, although I probably should because Inked seems to have had an editorial makeover and gotten a lot cooler recently. But no, I’m just a person who happens to have tattoos. Unless I leave New York and go to another city or country that isn’t Asheville or Berkeley or L.A., I’m usually surrounded by people who have tattoos all the time.

RS: Did I read correctly on your Tumblr that you have a quote from Videodrome tattooed across your stomach? I love that movie.

EG:That’s my friend Val. Yeah, Tumblr is confusing. That’s Val, who does Cooking the Books with me. She has the best tattoos of anyone I know. She has a full scene from Barbarella, which is amazing. She has the Videodrome quote. She’s one of those people who, for a long time, never had one tattoo and over the course of a couple of years really made up for lost time in a serious way. But I love it, I think it’s awesome. It really suits her; she’s becoming more and more herself with every tattoo.

RS: In other media you’ve been asked why you chose to write a memoir that largely recounts interpersonal relationships and mostly shies away from media critique or telling The Gawker Story. Your position is that you just don’t find that as interesting.

EG:Well, I didn’t even work there for a year. And my friend Moe, who worked at Jezebel during part of the time that I worked at Gawker, we were talking about this the other day and she uses this great word to describe her time at Jezebel -- she says that the days were “textureless.” Everything just kind of blurred together. Honestly, when I was working there I would often actually fall asleep and dream about checking my email. I would dream about having instant message conversations. There was so little actual, physical life being lived during that time. It was so boring. It was so fraught with intensity and that go-go drive that enables you to assimilate so much information so quickly and then shut it all out again. But in terms of my actual life – I describe this in the introduction to my book -- my decisions were like ‘Okay, I can only have one more glass of wine, I have to get at least five and half hours of sleep, otherwise’…every day was like running a marathon. It was just not interesting! [laughs]

RS: I remember also reading an interesting post on your Tumblr where you begin a dissection of the millennial generation, the late-Gen Ys, and you sort of concede that your perception has diverged from theirs and that you’re not the one to carry that torch anymore.

EG:I think it’s up to someone from that younger generation. You and I – you’re like, 32 or so? – the Internet is kind of a second language to us. And for people who have never really had any other kind of lives – social lives – besides ones that have been heavily mediated by social media, I think they have a way better handle on this stuff. They’ve always had to deal with it. They’ve never had to adapt to dealing with it the way that we did. I’d be really interested to hear a first-person take on that. I mean, I can write about it in a certain way because we noticed it happening because it was near us. But I’d like to hear about what it’s like to have always had this stuff in your life. So, yeah, I’m probably not the person, which is fine. I’m not the spokesperson for anyone besides myself. It’s not a job that I applied for or one that I’m really interested in.

RS: Still, I think it would be interesting to hear any criticisms that you have of the younger Gawker writers, the new generation.

EG:I don’t know enough about the new Gawker generation, because I don’t read Gawker and I haven’t in a couple of years, to weigh in on it in an informed way. And it’s hard to make a sweeping generalization about a generation of people – how do you delimit that? But I have generally positive feelings about younger people. The people who come to my book readings tend to be in their late teens or early twenties, and they’re the ones that seem to be having a really strong connection to the book. There are also people who are forty that have had a strong connection to it -- it doesn’t mean they can’t -- but from my perspective that seems to be what’s happening. So, of course right now I’m having a surge of ‘The kids are allright! Everything’s gonna be fine!’

RS: Do you think that, as a writer, you’ll eventually move away from a first-person perspective and start to do more third-person writing?

EG:I would love to get away from writing about myself, and I really hope that I can. It’s my most cherished dream, to not write about myself, but we’ll have to see how it goes. I feel like I still have some work to do. I have to figure out why I do the crazy shit that I do before I turn my attention to why other people do the crazy shit that they do, but I am interested in that and always have been. Maybe that’s where I’ll go next.

RS: Some people have commented that this book wasn’t as salacious a read as they were expecting.

EG: [laughs] There are definitely times that I mercifully pan over to the fireplace. My mom would love to hear you say that my book is not salacious. I’ve had so many conversations with members of my family where they basically, in the sweetest, nicest, most supportive and gentle way possible tell me that I’m basically a whore. I think I’m really frank and blunt about not just sex, but also the social and emotional experiences that surround sex, what it’s like to go over to someone’s house and awkwardly watch Curb Your Enthusiasm with their roommate for a perfunctory half-hour before you do what you obviously came there to do. That’s the kind of stuff that I’m interested in. Sex in and of itself is not really my.…I’m not an erotica writer. In fact, I had to take an erotica class in college as a graduation requirement for my concentration in writing, and I did really badly in the class. I was a total failure at writing anything remotely hot, because I would always try to be funny. Being funny is a huge enemy of writing something that someone could actually masturbate to. Those are two totally opposing impulses.

RS: Is there anything in particular we should take from that Belladonna song? “The heart says danger, and the heart says whatever.” What wisdom is Stevie trying to impart to us?

EG: She is very profound. I think the other sort of graphic element besides the title on the cover of my book is a picture of one of my tattoos, and I think that if you were to ask anyone why they got a certain tattoo they’d probably have a really hard time telling you. There are probably twenty or thirty different things that it means or has meant to them. And the title of my book is like that, too. It has a lot of different meanings besides the obvious, but I guess the obvious one would be a sense of romantic surrender, the sense that the heart wants what it wants. It’s giving in to impulse. But as anyone who has ever given into impulse will tell you, it’s always a little bit more complicated than you think. In times that you think you’re ceding control you’re sometimes grasping control, and when you think you’re grasping control it’s likely that you’re actually giving control up. So, yeah, it’s like the Janet Jackson album.




And The Heart Says Whatever is available in bookstores now.

During the Detroit Motor City Expo, I talked to the guys fromBlack 13 Tattoo Parlor about doing an interview with us. They were excited about the idea, and it took a few weeks for everything to come together. The real time delay was on my part, as I had to come up with a handful of questions that really... more

During the Detroit Motor City Expo, I talked to the guys fromBlack 13 Tattoo Parlor about doing an interview with us. They were excited about the idea, and it took a few weeks for everything to come together. The real time delay was on my part, as I had to come up with a handful of questions that really showed what a unique shop Black 13 is.
I'm excited to have this interview live on the site, and hopefully by the end, you'll understand why.



Tattoo Snob: Let's start off with a roll call.
Doy: Black 13 consists of owners Josh Woods and Doy Gardner. Josh, Steve Martin, Ian White, and Marty "Riet" McEwen are our artists.

TS: Does your shop have a motto? (If not, make one up anyway.)
D: "Artists as well as gentlemen" will that do? ha.



TS: Most people wouldn't expect a shop of your caliber to be located in Tennessee. Do you think it''s harder to be successful there compared to larger cities?
D: I feel like success is based on what you put in to it. There are great shops all over the world in smaller and larger cities. I feel like Nashville is a really great city and I felt like it would be a enjoyable experience for out of town clientele. I moved here in 99 and noticed pretty quickly that there wasn't a ton of extensive work going on here. Everyone I met with extensive work traveled outside of Nashville to get it, and no one I knew of ever traveled to Nashville to get tattooed. I wanted to see a different approach for not only tattooing, but for the customer service side too. Josh and I met and ended up talking about everything. We realized pretty quickly that we both wanted the same things.

We want a shop that first and foremost cares about its clientele, and the artwork coming out of here. We want to create something that artists never want to leave, a family that takes care of one another. In my opinion, as long as you take care of people and do the best you possibly can, everything else will fall into place.



TS: What percentage of your work would you say is local clients versus those traveling from outside the area?
D: At this point I would say up to about 75% percent is "out of town" clientele. We see people that live at least 45 mins out on a regular basis. Some over a few hours. Some out of the country. Its great!



TS: How often does collaborative work between artists happen?
D: There isn't a whole lot of that going on right now. The guys always share input and thoughts on each others sketches and art. Every once and a while someone requests it, but its rare.



TS: What is the PROMocalypse? How did this idea start?
D: Hopefully it will become a yearly event that you will always hear about. Ha. In short, PROMocalypse is a dance for the living, a dance for the dead. Josh has wanted to do a prom for a while, and I like dressing up so we combined the two. For the most part, it will be straight up like high school prom. We will have one small dance room for zombies, but other then that, prom. www.promocalypse.com has the full story.



TS: What other shop events are planned throughout the year?
D: We have our yearly party coming up August 7th at Mercy Lounge here in Nashville. We will be celebrating two years! I believe Ian will be doing some art over in east Nashville for the Tomato Fest. Other then that, just a hand full of conventions throughout the rest of the year.



TS: A number of guests artists are penciled in for 2010. Who's on that list, and when will they be there?
D: Sean Herman will make it out sometime this year. Thats what he tells us. Amanda Leadman will be in and out. Lenny Renken is TBA. Theres a few others waiting to be locked down. The updates are in the guest artist section of www.black13tattoo.com

TS: I hear the shop has a rockin' van. Can you tell us a little more about that? There's a shop t-shirt of the van too, right?
D: Prior to opening the shop with Josh, I bought this van in Kentucky for $700 bucks. I needed it to get my travel drum cases around. It was in pretty bad shape but it ran and served its purpose. Once Josh took on Marty "Riet" as an apprentice we knew we had to get him to do it up. Cam took care of the paint and body work, Marty spray painted everything on, and Cam clear coated it. Marty ended up doing a sketch for the shirt with me driving. It's available in the online store!

We thought it would be funny to do our version or spin with a rat fink inspired van design. Ol' boy Marty drew me driving it, I like it.





TS: What is the shop or artists involved in outside of tattooing?
D: We all, minus Marty, enjoy riding the ol motorcycles. Everyone, minus me and Marty, is into working out and eating right. Steve has a little one and everyone tends to keep busy with the little time we spend out of the shop. We are there a lot now.



TS: Most importantly, how many pages of Cherry Creek flash do you have posted in your shop?
D: Thankfully, NONE! Ha..

TS: Any last words?
D: Thanks for the taking the time to hear from us and share our work. Many thanks for the PROMocalypse support too. Thanks to Tramp, Joe, and everyone over at Eternal for making great inks. Please check us out on www.black13tattoo.com. from there you can add us on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.

Thanks guys!



Black 13 Tattoo
Black 13 Tattoo Twitter

It's nearly impossible to get all the remaining Monty Python members together again. Graham Chapman passed away in 1989, and no matter how many retrospectives there are, you'd be hard pressed to find John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones in the same room at the... more

It's nearly impossible to get all the remaining Monty Python members together again. Graham Chapman passed away in 1989, and no matter how many retrospectives there are, you'd be hard pressed to find John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones in the same room at the same time. Gilliam directs movies, Idle adapted Python to Broadway for Spamalot. Palin is roaming the world, Jones is doing voiceovers and Cleese continues to act.

Even in the IFC channel miniseries Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut interviewed each of the Pythons separately. Bill Jones (Terry's son) and Benjamin Timlett directed the six hour biography of Monty Python's career. It features inside dirt on classic sketches like The Fish Slapping Dance and Dead Parrot, tension on the set of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, protests against The Life of Brian, Chapman's funeral and more. The five did all attend the the series' premiere in New York.

Eric Idle and Terry Jones got together with Bill and Ben to present a 90 minute cut of the documentary to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences on May 25. The miniseries version is eligible for Emmy nomination this year, so perhaps screening an abbreviated version and letting the voters schmooze with two Pythons can secure some nods. They'd better get Python's humor though. Idle asked Jones in front of the audience how many Emmys Flying Circus received. Regretfully, Jones said none. Idle looked for the silver lining, asking how many nominations they received? Sadly, also none.

After taking photos and signing autographs for Academy voters, Jones and Gilliam retired to the green room for a glass of wine. Imagine having two Pythons all to yourself getting liquored up! Idle's animated riffs woke Jones up from his eight hour jet lag (Heathrow to LAX is a killer) as the duo revisited Python one more time for the fans.

SG: What do you think your chances of an Emmy are after schmoozing the Academy tonight?

EI: Well, they're not for us, are they? We don't win anything anyway. However well we do, we still get nothing. So I think we're truly fucked really. It will be lovely if they won because it's sort of good. What they've done is amazing and that would be great. So what are the chances? I have no idea. I only bet football, soccer.

TJ: I think it'll get nominated because of the turnout tonight.

EI: Well, it better. Jesus, all that money you forked out, all that wine, all those freeloaders.

SG: After you've won the Tony, do you really need Emmys?

EI: Well, does one need these things anyway? Actually, the Grammy was the most amazing thing. I didn't expect we'd win a Grammy for the best Broadway Show. John [Du Prez] and I won Grammys. Yes, we've won. But we've been nominated for Grammys, many times but Steve Martin always won.

SG: Is there any one sketch you think no one talks about enough?

EI: Camel Spotting is not recognized as the great classic that it is. I don't know remember what it was but Michael always credits that. I don't know. I don't sit around discussing sketches that much.

TJ: Actually, one of my favorites was one I did, Stanislav Richter playing Tchaikovsky's first piano concerto while escaping from six padlocks.

EI: Oh, I love that. That's hilarious. That's in my "best ofÖ"

TJ: It's the one that goes dum, dum, dum, dum, dum. What happens is the orchestra starts off and this sack rolls onto the grand piano. Then sort of a hand comes out and bangs on the thing. Anyway!

SG: Now that sketch will get its due with our readers.

TJ: Oh good.

EI: It's a very funny sketch.

SG: Calling it The Lawyer's Cut is funny. Is there actually any legal vetting about what you can talk about?

TJ: No. No, I think it was Mike's title. He came up with it, according to Bill.

EI: Funny.

SG: We've heard stories about Saturday Night Live. Are there any Monty Python tales of '70s debauchery?

TJ: Well, we used to drink a lot.

EI: There's a book out which I edited last year about us on the road, which is as close as we came to having fun. We went on the road, we toured England and we toured Canada and it was a bit rock n' roll, young men on the road. So it has been sort of told. It's not very interesting. 36-year-old sex.

TJ: But what I was thinking was when we were doing the TV shows, we'd think nothing of having a couple of pints before doing the shows.

EI: You would think nothing of having a couple pints. Graham would think nothing of having two bottles of gin. I would always have a bath before a show.

SG: But alcohol is a depressant. SNL did coke to keep their energy up.

EI: They didn't do coke on the show usually. I was there through most of the early '70s. What they did do which was terribly frustrating is they smoked weed and then sit down to try and write sketches. Of course, you can't find the typewriter. SNL, they'd go, "Well, let's write a sketch about something in New York." Then they'd roll big joints and then 20 minutes would go by and then they said, "So, what are we going to do?" We were very disciplined. We would work 10 'til 5 on our writing. We were professional writers.

TJ: I guess we actually missed out on the drugs because it was a bit later than us.

EI: In Canada when we toured, it was a certainty that we were all out of our heads. Of course it's kind of cleverer than that. People can watch it stoned and I think that was one of the appeals. It helped to watch it stoned.

SG: What do you think of the culture that's kept Holy Grail alive, mostly college kids it seems?

EI: Well, I think eight-year-olds and 10-year-olds love it now because it's like pretending to be children. It's men riding horses like kids do. And it's tremendously violent.

TJ: I never noticed the lack of horses when I watch it. You just accept it.

EI: Totally accept it as a convention.

SG: Would you agree that's your seminal work?

TJ: No, we think Life of Brian is.

EI: I like Holy Grail. They all say Life of Brian but I personally feel Grail because it's like A Hard Day's Night. We don't know what we're doing. We're kind of cute, we're young enough. It's not being done, what we're doing. We're staggering into something wonderful I think.

TJ: In England, Life of Brian is the most popular. It always comes up as the funniest film of all time and things like that, in votes for that.

SG: Even in those films, are there elements that go unnoticed?

EI: I think nothing in Python goes unnoticed. That's the most extraordinary thing about it. We did something so temporal at the time just for that moment and it's actually still being talked about 40 years later. It's kind of remarkable.

TJ: We never thought it would be.

EI: It's impossible.

SG: But it is between those two films?

TJ: Yeah, although on the other hand, I think Meaning of Life has got the funniest, best bits in it.

EI: I think Meaning of Life is still shocking, kind of objectionable and repellant. I'm very proud of that.

SG: Do you think Mr. Creosote inspired the fat suit comedy we've seen ever since?

EI: Probably.

TJ: Yes. Absolutely yes.

EI: You see a lot of Python jokes being recycled. They say it's homage. At least that's what Dreamworks says.

SG: Wow, you said it.

EI: I did say it. Lucky I don't want to work.

SG: You'd think there'd be more sketch movies as attention spans get shorter. Why do you think no one does it anymore?

TJ: Well, I guess in the way that you want to come out of the movie having had an emotional experience as well as a laugh, I guess.

EI: That's the trouble, you see. A sketch can be in any order whatsoever. There's no story, there's nothing, so you can watch it for about 60-67 minutes and then you need the hook of a plot or the hook of something.

TJ: It was odd. Actually, I'll tell you what, talking about sketches that aren't remembered. I think one of the funniest sketches in Meaning of Life is Eric in the tiger skin, which never gets mentioned. It comes at the wrong moment of the film and people don't respond to it. If it was in a different place, it would get laughs.

EI: I think people respond to completely different things. Some people see the same thing, like the film, and they laugh at different places. I think that's just taste in comedy.

SG: Do you think Monty Python pioneered comedy music, even before Weird Al?

EI: But he just does parody songs. We would tend to do something more obscure, off the wall.

TJ: I like Eric's "Galaxy Song." It's a great song.

EI: That's later on. In the show, it would be like they'd suddenly be singing about summarizing Proust and things completely stupid.

TJ: The archeology sketch.

EI: I love that song. I love that song. For no reason, an archeologist would slip into a song. That was The Rolling Stones' favorite song. They would sing it all the f***ing time. Before they went on stage, Keith and Woody would sing, "Today, I hear the robin sing. Today, the bird is on the wing."

TJ: It's John miming to me singing.

EI: And you have a beautiful baritone, Terry, as we saw.

SG: Do you think online is where the edgy comedy is going on right now?

TJ: Yes, certainly.

EI: Totally, totally. That's a good point because that sketch thing that everybody needs, they make it themselves and they edit it themselves and they put all the clips together and then they send them off to each other so that's where the sketch things are found, absolutely.

SG: Do you see edgy things you like?

EI: I never go online. It's very bad. I read books. It's an old fashioned things.

SG: Terry, do you find that people still discover Labyrinth, which you cowrote, and see new things in that?

TJ: I guess so. I was always sort of dissatisfied with it. I'd rung Jim Henson up to see if he'd be interested in doing Erik the Viking. His secretary said, "Actually, Jim was trying to get a hold of you because he's doing a film." So I wrote a screenplay for him and it was totally about something different. I mean, it had a lot of the things in it but it was a different idea. For instance, I thought you should never get to the center of the labyrinth before the girl does. I thought you should save that for the end. Then Jim had the script and then he said, "No, no, you had to have fun in the center of the labyrinth." Also he wanted David Bowie or Michael Jackson to be the king and he wanted him to sing. Anyway, so I rewrote it and then it went away for about a year and then it came back and it was totally different and he'd lost all the jokes. So he said could I put it back? Jim wanted it to be about coming of age.

SG: So if I love the Helping Hands and the Door Knockers, was that not you?

TJ: Oh no, no, the helping hands was me. Yes, that was my idea. Actually what I did, they'd all started into production. So they had all these characters and puppets and Brian Froud had done a lot of drawings. So I just had a collection of Brian's drawings and the Door Knockers were a couple of drawings that Brian had done so I sort of brought those in, and the wizard with the talking duck on the head. I haven't seen the film since it came out.

Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyers Cut is available on DVD.

No one comedian has had more influence on my life than Bill Murray, both personally and professionally. I have seen many of the movies that Bill Murray starred in the 1980’s, such as Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters, a minimum of 50 times apiece, probably a lot more. Much of the way I crack jokes,... more

No one comedian has had more influence on my life than Bill Murray, both personally and professionally. I have seen many of the movies that Bill Murray starred in the 1980’s, such as Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters, a minimum of 50 times apiece, probably a lot more. Much of the way I crack jokes, the way I move my face to emphasize something and even the way I walk can be traced back to the genius that is he, the fifth of the Murray children.

The films I mentioned above are known to Murrayphiles as the first wave of his film career. The second wave includes Ed Wood, Quick Change, Breckinridge, Groundhog Day and What About Bob? In fact Bill Murray’s dramatic skills in those films impressed me so much that in 1994 I said to any who would listen, “In five years Bill Murray will be nominated for an Oscar.” When Wes Anderson discovered new facets of Murray for Rushmore I thought my prediction was coming true. But the third wave, Rushmore, Cradle Will Rock and The Royal Tenenbaums bore no fruit until Murray was in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation as Bob Harris, a far past his prime American film actor. Though he lost the award to Sean Penn things may change this Oscar season when Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou is released on December 25th.

Check out the website for The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Daniel Robert Epstein: I like your Blues Brothers t-shirt.

Bill Murray: I like yours too, Sean John.

DRE: I don’t think we’ve seen you smoke pot onscreen since Caddyshack.

BM: I haven’t been keeping track of it but yeah.

DRE: Is that sense memory?

BM: Well actually they usually give this herbal dust stuff which makes you cough. It’s not really pleasant so you want to make sure you nail it on the first take.

DRE: Is this the hardest movie shoot you’ve ever been on?

BM: Yes it was. This was by far the most physically demanding, the most emotionally demanding both personally and professionally. Also the most ambitious.

DRE: Would you have done a movie like this with anyone but Wes Anderson?

BM: I don’t know. If you read the script and you didn’t know who was in charge you would be much less confident. I sure as hell wouldn’t leave the country and go over there for just anybody. You have to have faith in some people.

DRE: Wes has mentioned that it was harder to get you for this film because you no longer have an agent. How come you left CAA?

BM: It was a lot of things but it was a mutual separation. It was just time. Michael Ovitz was my guy and he became the pariah. The business also changed and I like to cut my own lawn now so I don’t need a landscaper. I really don’t get work from agents and I haven’t for a long time. People call me. I had a long run with CAA but it wasn’t working for me.

DRE: People have called this the serious phase of your career.

BM: My blue period.

I think all phases of one’s career are serious if you take it seriously no matter if you are doing high profile dramatic pieces or not. That’s just a perception. I’ve taken all the work seriously but you can’t take the response and reaction to it too seriously. But you can’t get all bent out of shape if it’s not pleasant. I just love the shooting of the movies when the camera is rolling.

DRE: Did Wes have to hound you do this role?

BM: Wes told me about this thing years ago when we were making Rushmore but I didn’t make anything of it. He didn’t come after me much at all. I have a lot of faith in him so he doesn’t have to explain much to me. If I feel I need something explained then I ask. When we were discussing this movie we were taking a boat trip. I told him I wanted to rehearse and he was like “What?” and I said “Yeah I want you to tell me the story.” So he had a script to him and he read it to me. I just laid back sunbathing while he read it to me. It was like a bedtime story. That was all he did. We didn’t even finish, at one point I just said “Ok that’s enough.”

DRE: As someone with improv background, is it difficult to follow a script to a T?

BM: I don’t mind it. I still get to improvise when there is something there. He did make a script that was really hard to speak. I defy you do some of these tongue twisters with another actor two or three times in a row. But it’s nice to have a script where I don’t have to improvise. I used to have to rewrite whole movies.

DRE: Angelica Huston has called you melancholic. But Steve Zissou is melancholy and lovable at the same time. Is that difficult to accomplish?

BM: To be melancholy and lovable is the trick. You’ve got to be able to show that you have these feelings. In the game of life you get these feelings and it’s all about how you deal with those feelings. A melancholy can be sweet. It’s not a mean thing but it’s something that happens in life like autumn.

DRE: Do you find that you still follow the teachings of Del Close when you improvise?

BM: Well it’s sort of in my blood and bones now. He was a genius that made improvisation a high art. He was one of the brightest men I ever met and a really deep soul. He’s gone now but a lot of people live on that know part of what he knew. I feel like I got some award because I worked with him and now we’re supposed to go on and tell people something he told us.

DRE: Do you ever get back to Chicago?

BM: Yeah I went to a four game series with the Marlins. I went to the new Frank Gehry bandshell and it’s just mind boggling. It has those towers.

DRE: What do you think of finally getting that Oscar nomination for Lost in Translation?

BM: I think it’s going to be a thing where once every 25 years I will get an Oscar nomination.

DRE: Have you kept in touch with Scarlett Johansson?

BM: It’s funny because you just don’t keep in touch with people that often. My wife would feel funny if I spent too much time with this 18 year old girl.

DRE: Did you keep any of the Speedos from Life Aquatic?

BM: I don’t know where all that stuff went. Usually you steal your wardrobe but they held it in case of a reshoot but I haven’t seen any of it. I remember being freezing while wearing them though.

DRE: What do you think hurt Steve Zissou more, that [Cate Blanchett’s character of] Jane Winslett-Richardson told him he was too old for her or that his son got together with her?

BM: I think they are both sides of the same coin. His son is the representation of his youth is the killer. A girl telling you that you’re too old is a bull dyke, that’s the game, but your son hitting on the girl you have a crush on is tough because you can’t claw over him.

DRE: You’ve spent a lot of time in France. Do they treat you differently over there?

BM: People in Europe only know me from the movies so they see me as a film character. People here have seen me on television playing wacky characters on sketch comedy. When you do David Letterman it shows people a different side. I’m just a citizen here but in Europe they see me in a more artistic sense.

I like it over there. Their film culture permeates the culture a little more there than here. When I lived in France I went to the Cinematheque everyday. There is a paper telling you exactly what film is playing and every detail. They don’t have that here.

DRE: Were you surprised when Lost in Translation became such a phenomenon?

BM: That’s a good question. Why did that film get so much attention? The film is so interesting because it shows a personal decision we all have to make sometime. It’s when you bump into someone that’s not your mate, husband or wife and something happens between you. How do you behave in that situation? I read a definition this year that a hero is someone that does something they don’t want to do. The thing is that Bob Harris really wanted someone to make him feel. Nothing happened between him and that girl which made him a hero, a different kind of hero. It’s the kind that everyone can be. Not everyone can be Indiana Jones or a Ghostbuster but everyone can make the decision to do that thing they want to do.

DRE: Both Steve Zissou and Bob Harris spend a lot of time looking back over their career. Do you do much of that?

BM: It’s not that they are looking back so much but that they had success and now they are concerned about having success in the future. Where their next meal ticket and the thing that makes them feel good will come from. Zissou goes back to the ocean because he loves the ocean and how to make a life out of it. But to be able to keep going back to the ocean he’s got to make a documentary. For Bob Harris, he likes being an actor but to stay known he’s got to make a commercial so that he makes some money to live his lifestyle.

For me I’ve had lots of things to do and a few years I thought about whether I should be a big movie star. But I didn’t want to be a big movie star so I decided I want to live my life and see what happens. At the same time I took these jobs where I don’t make a lot of money but I work with good people and I do what I want to do. I thought that maybe one of them will be a hit one day and I will get what I need in terms of being noticed and damn, Lost in Translation did that. But between that I made seven movies that were good but didn’t have it all work at once like that. I like working to not be the biggest star in the world. I’m trying to help Life Aquatic but I don’t want to feel desperate. I don’t want to be that guy mumbling into his drink at a bar. I’ve had a great run and if I change careers that would be an adventure too.

DRE: What would you do if you changed careers?

BM: I’m not sure but I’ve been thinking about it. It would be bold to say that I did that and had some success. I would like to write a play. I always felt that’s what I should do.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

I slapped this together, it's not great, but worth a look (video)

When Scissor Sisters first burst forth with their debut self-titled filthy gorgeous album in 2004 their brand of hedonistic dance was too hot for mainstream America to handle (the CD was even pulled from Wal-Mart's shelves). It was a different story across the Atlantic in the U.K. however, where... more

When Scissor Sisters first burst forth with their debut self-titled filthy gorgeous album in 2004 their brand of hedonistic dance was too hot for mainstream America to handle (the CD was even pulled from Wal-Mart's shelves). It was a different story across the Atlantic in the U.K. however, where the band were welcomed with open arms - and notable record sales. There the release spawned a total of five Top 20 singles, and became the country's top-selling album that year (and the 9th biggest seller of the decade). The band's follow up full-length, Ta-Dah, released in 2006, also fared much better outside of the U.S. It went straight to the top of the U.K. album charts, and the first single, "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'"(a collaboration with Elton John), also hit the number one spot - and stayed there for four consecutive weeks.

The wide chasm in reception and record sales between the two continents - the Scissor Sisters' first two albums each sold in excess of 3 million units across Europe - can easily be explained when looked at in the context of cultural attitudes. The more liberal Europeans have been dancing continuously since the '70s and dance-based music is ingrained in the fabric of European life. In America however, seizing on the opportunity afforded by AIDS, the disproportionately influential Christian right whipped up a frenzy of anti-dance "disco sucks" hysteria, stopping the party in its tracks and creating a deep-seated prejudice against the genre as a whole that remains prevalent to this day in significant pockets of society.

However mainstream America has started to loosen up, shake its collective booty and dance again. The success of European-produced tracks from the likes of Madonna (who enlisted William Orbit for Ray of Light and Stuart Price for Confessions on a Dance Floor) and Britney Spears (who prominently featured Bloodshy & Avant's production talents on her past two albums) has brought the dance aesthetic back to the mainstream, and paved the way for 100% domestic-raised spawn of disco to return to the fore.

So as Scissor Sisters prepare to step back on the dance floor with their much-anticipated third album, Night Work, the mirrored ball is at least proverbially spinning above middle-American heads. Though this bodes well in many respects, it does pose a new set of dilemmas for the band. Previously, against a background of overbearing earnestness as practiced by a generation of shoe-gazing indie bands, their tongue-in-cheek flamboyance seemed refreshing. Now, their once unique style has become de rigueur in pop culture thanks to the Scissor Sisters-influenced and much-imitated House of Gaga. Hence, to stay ahead of the pack, they’ve been forced to switch things up visually and musically.

SuicideGirls caught up with Scissor Sisters' frontman, founder and driving force, Jake Shears, to talk about Night Work, what inspired it, where his party is headed, and what he'll be wearing to it.

Nicole Powers: This album was quite a long time in the making. I know that you recorded a third album which you then shelved. It's actually something I really admire - that level of self-editing.

Jake Shears: It's true. It was about a year ago and it just felt like we'd been working on songs for about fourteen, eighteen months. We played some of them live and the shows were really fun. We'd play some tiny shows for friends, but I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't feel like the songs themselves were reason enough to come back out again. It was really important that we had something to say when we came back out, and had a record that was about something and meant something. It was a tough decision to make. I mean, I just wanted to go on tour and be out there again. It was going to be a lot longer if we were going to make a whole other album, but I knew in my heart that I wasn't going to regret it. In fact, now I'm happier than I've been in a long time. This whole last year, it's been amazing. From exactly about a year ago when we started making this record, it's just been a blast. It's been really fun and I feel super confident.

NP: At what point when you were recording this record, which I understand you started doing in June 2009, did you know that it was going to work? What track were you working on when you started feeling it again?

JS: This song called "Fire With Fire," which is our first official single. That's sort of what the song’s about. It's a very different song from the [rest of the] album, and it's a very different kind of song for us. It's very sincere and sweet and earnest. It meant a lot to me. It was really one of those moments where I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I realized we'd done something amazing, and that it was all going to be OK - that we could go forward with our heads high.

NP: Once you'd nailed "Fire With Fire" did other tracks start tumbling out?

JS: That was one of the last things we wrote. That really felt like the culmination of everything. Everything had sort of been tumbling out anyway. These songs really came quick, and it felt really inspired.

NP: This is the first time you’ve worked with an outside producer. What made you decide to do that?

JS: Well, we produced our first two albums ourselves. I'm so proud of our first two records and I'm really proud of how we made them. They're very kind of homemade and really have all our fingerprints all over the songs. But I knew that we had to have another set of hands working on this record with us. It was what we wanted. We really wanted a third person to make the music with us, to produce the music with us, but we just had no idea who that was going to be...

So it was Neil Tennant's idea, I was hanging out with Neil in Berlin. He's got a house there. It was his idea actually to call up Stuart [Price]. He was an old friend of the band. His band Zoot Woman was the first band we'd ever toured with in 2003 before our first record came out. So we'd known Stuart for a long time, and just his enthusiasm right away...We started working on the record three weeks later.

Working with Stuart, it's funny, because we'd always thought about it before, but it always just seemed too obvious. It sort of seemed like he'd be the most obvious person, and I sort of realized it was obvious because it was a really good match. It just made a world of difference for us. Just having somebody that could help us step outside the music a little bit and gain some perspective. His energy is so positive and infectious.

NP: Was he involved in the songwriting process, or were the songs already written by the time he came on board?

JS: No, we co-wrote tons of stuff together. Two thirds of this album we co-wrote with Stuart, and so he really became another member of the band and kind of feels like a member of the band now. He really became one of us. We have a huge amount of love and respect for each other so it was a blast. I can't wait to get started on the next one as soon as we possibly can. I can't imagine making a record now without him.

NP: You talk about wanting to come out with a record that means something. What does this record mean to you?

JS: When we shelved that last record I felt really fed up and lost, and so I left for Berlin for a couple of months by myself. I got an apartment there and just kind of reset my wiring a bit. I really just found a freedom again - and my youth. I had started feeling old. I'm 31 now, and it's just too young to be feeling old.

So the ideas for the record really started up in Berlin. I was doing a lot of clubbing and going out a lot and meeting a bunch of new friends and gay people and being out at some incredible gay parties. It got me thinking about New York in the late '70s / early '80s and the gay scene. How liberating that moment must have been, and the excitement, and how great the music was that everybody was so hedonistic. The dancing and the drugs and the sex, and how much fun that must have all been. But unfortunately, of course, AIDS came along and wiped a lot of people out - and a lot of creative people died.

I sort of asked myself the question, where was the party headed? Where was that whole world going? What would have happened if Sylvester hadn't of died? Or Patrick Cowley? Or just tons and tons of people. A whole world just kind of stopped - ended - and I think that we still feel those repercussions from that today. So this record as a whole is really dedicated to those people. I really want this album to carry the torch for all those who really didn't die in vain. And to pose a hypothesis of where that party was headed. Even though that's kind of a heavy sentiment, the record is infused with an insane joy.

NP: I think it's necessary to remember. I mean you look at the music industry in general today, and the club scene, and it's so sanitized and there's a lack of any real excitement or danger - it's all just been safely prepackaged for the masses. You have that combined with how the Christian Right in America was able to frame AIDS as some kind of retribution from god for a whole style of music, which also helped suppress it.

JS: Yes, of course. And just to think about how far back it set the gay movement - what a wrench into our future, our plans. Imagine how much further we would be today without the terror of what happened then.

NP: Well I know that you've spent a lot of time in Europe, and in most of the continent the whole gay marriage thing is such a non-issue. They've passed that and moved on. The fact that it's still a big discussion in America...

JS: Yeah, it's quite absurd I think, and in fifteen or twenty years we're going to look back at this moment. I find it really shocking. [But] look back fifty, sixty years ago - when was interracial marriage legalized? That wasn't that long ago. So it's slow going, but I have faith that it's going to happen here.

NP: It's a little terrifying living in California; It seems like such a cool and open society, but then with issues like Prop 8 you realize that there's a lot of hate bubbling under the surface.

JS: It feels like there's an impulse we have as humans - in probably all of us - that we feel this desire to control what everyone else is doing.

NP: And to judge, because by judging we make ourselves feel superior.

JS: Exactly. I believe in people's personal responsibility and the right to police themselves. That's what I really loved about being in Berlin, this amazing attitude of sort of be and let be.

NP: Well there is something about sitting in judgment that's really big in popular culture now. Judge Judy has taken over from Oprah as the queen of afternoon TV and in primetime we have American Idol and all these other similar shows that allow us all to be sofa judges.

JS: Well it's a humiliation culture. We love to humiliate one another, and that's become a real form of entertainment. That's what I think about red carpets. Red carpets are my least favorite thing in the world. I find them heinous. I would rather roll over in a pile of thumb tacks then walk down a red carpet 'cause it's pure humiliation.

NP: Right. The moment you set foot on a red carpet you're offering yourself up to be judged.

JS: Totally. It's like you're there for people to throw tomatoes at you. I think the red carpet is a real symbol for a blood bath. I don't even know how to end that statement but it's really a symbol to me of that kind of mentality.

NP: Talking of symbolism, you're known for your strong sense of style and your live shows, which are always pretty spectacular. What sort of imagery are you going to incorporate into your artwork and performances this time around?

JS: I think at this point in time it's interesting, because we've been gone for a few years and a lot's happened in pop culture. Gaga's come out and turned everything upside down. It's really made us rethink where we are and where we're going, and that's an exciting thing to have to sort of reconfigure. I don't want to keep doing the same things over and over again. I think overall stylistically, artistically, restraint means more to me now than anything. Restraint is more important now. I think it almost says more than coming out with a live lobster on your head.

NP: Well Lady Gaga has made what you were doing completely mainstream, so you have to react to that.

JS: Of course. And I think it's amazing. I think it's a really beautiful moment in pop culture right now. But once you've got everyone following that mould, it just seems like everything starts to become noise.

NP: So we're going to see a reserved Jake Shears?

JS: It's just going to be more sexy I think. I don't know if you've seen our press photo, but we're all in front of these blinds and it looks very formal. I've got a tie on but I'm pulling my coat back and you can see I'm wearing little panties. I think that says it all, where we're at at the moment.

NP: "Invisible Light" is such an epic track. How did the Ian McKellen vocal come about?

JS: We'd been working on the song for quite a while, and there's a two and a half minute build. We went over and over that with a fine toothcomb. The production on that moment I'm so proud of. If you turn it up real loud on a good set of speakers it'll make your face melt. We were talking about Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Trevor Horn and how great the whole "Pleasuredome" 12-inch was, and Michael Jackson had passed away and "Thriller" was on everybody's minds, and somebody said we need a really deep British man's voice right here.

Ian was the first thing that popped into my head. I've been acquainted with him for years. He's come to our shows. He's such a kind, amazing man. So we contacted him and two days later we took a bunch of recording equipment into his dressing room. He was doing Waiting For Godot with Patrick Stewart in the West End. It was pretty amazing, I'll never forget it. There was just dead silence in the room. We had all these mics hooked up and him reading this monologue that we wrote. Once you started hearing it come out of his mouth, it was just really cool. We were trying not to burst out laughing, it was so amazing.

NP: So who wrote the monologue?

JS: Babydaddy and myself. We wrote it the night before. The song is very kind of abstract. Somebody asked me if it was Shakespeare and I was really flattered.

NP: It does sound as if it could be, and Ian says it with such a level of conviction and theatricality so you feel like it must be some great speech of the theater.

JS: Totally.

NP: But you said Ian McKellen was performing with Patrick Stewart - I can't believe you didn't get some Patrick Stewart on tape too. Scissor Sisters and Star Trek would be my wet dream.

JS: Patrick Stewart intimidates me a lot more than Ian McKellen. He's poses a very formidable figure - I'd be scared to talk to him.

NP: Well I know you don't do requests, but that would be mine.

JS: [laughs] Alright, if I ever come across him in a sleazy nightclub I'll have to tell him.

NP: Well I'm sure Ian McKellen can introduce you. You've got connections.

JS: Oh, I'm sure. You always wonder though, if they even get along, you know, personalities that big. I'm always curious. Who knows how people feel about each other.

NP: Right, two big personalities together - is the stage big enough? I should ask about your tour. You've announced a bunch of European dates but nothing in America yet.

JS: No. We're going to be all over Europe, Japan and Australia 'til August. It looks like end of August / early September when it's going to shape up [that we’ll] be touring America. I'm sure we'll end up touring America multiple times in the next year and a half.

NP: You're just teasing us and making us wait.

JS: Yeah. But what's so great is we're going to be so practiced, and by the time August rolls around the show is going to sound amazing.

NP: Well I'm looking forward to seeing you again live. It's been way, way too long.

JS: I'm excited too. I love performing, so I'm very excited as well.



The Scissor Sisters' new album, Night Work, is released on June 29 via Downtown Records. The single "Invisible Light" is available now from iTunes. For more info go to ScissorSisters.com/ .

If you're not from Los Angeles, Get Him to the Greek might just sound like your average road trip comedy. They have to get from London to California. Actually, The Greek is an outdoor arena in the hills just behind Griffith Park and the Observatory. Concerts have to end by 10:30 because of neighborhood... more

If you're not from Los Angeles, Get Him to the Greek might just sound like your average road trip comedy. They have to get from London to California. Actually, The Greek is an outdoor arena in the hills just behind Griffith Park and the Observatory. Concerts have to end by 10:30 because of neighborhood curfews, but the acoustics and fresh air make it worth going home early.

That's the landmark destination for this spin-off from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Russell Brand reprises his role as Aldous Snow, the rock star who was dating Sarah Marshall. By now, Snow has relapsed into his drug addiction. Record company intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) has the idea of staging a comeback concert for Snow, so his boss (Sean Combs) assigns him to accompany Snow.

Sarah Marshall was the directorial debut for screenwriter Nicholas Stoller. He returned to direct the second chapter in Aldous Snow's legacy. He's stepped it up since the Hawaiian romantic comedy. Now Snow's rampage of debauchery flows in a quickly edited assault of party images from England to L.A. It could make the audience as uncomfortable as it makes Green, as he discovers the life of rock n' roll can be nauseating.

Discussing the film over the phone, Stoller said he found the following questions perceptive. He's been used to answering "What was it like to work with Sean Combs," probably since he cast the artist in the film. We analyzed the party scene, the editing style and unconventional leading men, because what else would you talk about with the director of Get Him to the Greek?

SuicideGirls: There's a rich cinematic history of spinoffs, like Billy Jack. Were you thinking about that when you designed this?

Nicholas Stoller: Oh really? I kept trying to find spinoffs and literally couldn't think of any, when we were thinking about this movie. Billy Jack was a spinoff of what movie?

SG: The Born Losers. He was a supporting character.

NS: Cool, okay. I literally could only think of Elektra that was a spinoff from Daredevil.

SG: Also Evan Almighty spun off of Bruce Almighty.

NS: Oh, that's true. Is that a spinoff? I guess that is a spinoff, not a sequel.

SG: And U.S. Marshals from The Fugitive.

NS: Right, U.S. Marshals. [Laughs]

SG: But Billy Jack was really successful so you're in good company.

NS: Okay, we've got one. One for four. We're going to up the odds.

SG: Was it a tough decision then?

NS: You know, it actually didn't start as a spin-off. Basically, at the Sarah Marshall table read, Jonah and Russell had really good chemistry and I thought, "That's a movie." Those two guys seemed like a movie to me. During the Sarah Marshall shoot I thought of this idea, pitched it to both of them and they thought it was a funny idea and they wanted to work together and thought this was different than other stuff they'd done. Then I wrote a few drafts of the script and Russell was actually playing a different rock star. It just seemed odd to me, so then we decided to make it a spin-off.

SG: Do you have another character who could spin off from this one?

NS: I think the concierge. I want to see what that guy's life is about. Played by a wonderful T.J. Miller.

SG: Are you worried about the spoiler coming out that they do get to the Greek?

NS: [Joking] I am a little bit. I am a little bit. I tried to keep it under wraps for as long as possible because it does kind of ruin the end. I did what I could, but in this age of the internet it's hard to keep that kind of secret. Certainly, it's like with a romantic comedy where you kind of know they're going to get together and it's the journey that's fun. Hopefully that's the same thing with this. People are surprised by the twists and turns of the journey.

SG: Is it tough to make a party look really gross and rough?

NS: Yeah. Definitely the movie is structured like a bender, so it's supposed to start really fun. I'm sure everyone has that friend who likes to party and you hang out with them one night and the first night's awesome. Then the next night he's like, "Let's do it again!" We wanted to certainly capture that. As it went along, I liked to try to make the parties grimmer and grimmer. In Vegas we definitely cheesed it up as much as we could. A lot of it was my costume designer, Leesa Evans, and it's subtle. You wouldn't really notice. It's kind of subconsciously that you're feeling grossed out. It's because the party guests are dressed cheesy. What's happening in the story is gross. The suite itself was Jan Roelfs, who's my production designer, who designed this kind of gross, kind of awesomely gross suite. Then starting in London, you intentionally kind of try to make it seem cool, like it's an episode of Entourage but with Jonah in it.

SG: You know, Entourage makes me uncomfortable too.

NS: Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable. I know, they know how to live it up, those guys.

SG: But I can relate to that gross, sad party that's trying to be cool.

NS: Totally. I'm really glad to hear we captured that. We were really trying to capture it. We shot so many fake parties in this movie. Jonah and Russell would show up to set and I'd be like, "All right, so we're doing another fake party." If I never have to shoot another fake party again, I'd be happy. I don't know how they do it on Entourage. The actors have to yell over music that's not playing. All these extras are dancing but there's no music and it smells like a gym and no one's drunk so it's not fun.

SG: Have you had any rough party experiences as a Hollywood player?

NS: Nothing like what Jonah's character goes through. It really isn't like the music industry, especially in the comedy area of Hollywood. In comedy I'm surrounded by a bunch of other comedy nerds. I just really don't have any. I don't have the crazy party story. I wish I did. That's why I made the movie. I wanted to experience it, even if it was totally fake.

SG: You don't have to confess to a bender, but don't people in Hollywood go out desperately looking for something to happen?

NS: I'll say this is kind of a funny party story. It's not really a party story but Rodney Rothman, who's my producer, and I when we cast Sean Combs, he took us out to his studios which was pretty exciting for us. So basically, we met Sean Combs at Nobu which was pretty thrilling as you can imagine, two Jews get to meet and hang out with Sean Combs. We left our cars there and went with him. He was like, "Come with me in my car." So we went with him in his car to his recording studio. We enter the recording studio and it's like every famous rapper on earth is just there hanging out. So it's like Will.I.Am is there, Busta Rhymes is there, it was crazy. We're there, the hours are ticking by, I go up to Sean, and I don't know him that well yet so I don't want to disrespect him or anything, but I also am getting very tired because it is a Tuesday night. So Rodney and I go up to him and are like, "Hey, are we going to go soon." He's like, "I'm going to show you another recording studio." So we get into his car and I call this like a soft kidnapping, because now we were just with him and he wouldn't let us go home. So we went to another recording studio. By this point it's two in the morning which for me is pretty late. We get there and finally, I just had to say to him, "I think we just have to go home." He wanted to take us to a third recording studio. So anyway, that's something of a party story. It was very exciting. I heard "Boom Boom Pow" before it came out. That's my coolest moment, hearing "Boom Boom Pow."

SG: Do you see audiences embracing alternative looking guys like Jonah, like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel?

NS: Yeah, I think so. Honestly, I think most comedians don't look like Brad Pitt. They're kind of more everyman. I think that there's a long history of that. Even look at When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal is a good looking guy but he's an everyman. I think same with Segel or Jonah or Seth.

SG: But they're still leading men, not just clowns.

NS: Yeah, I think so. I think they can be romantic leading men. You have two different groups of actors. You have the super good looking supermen like Brad Pitt or George Clooney or that kind. Then you also have more everyman, who I actually think are good looking, they're just more the everyman like Tom Hanks or Jason Segal. I think that's always been that way.

SG: Is it possible to have that without a double standard, so alternative women can have leading roles too?

NS: Yeah, I think so. I think that that totally exists as well. I think actually there are obviously very pretty actresses who are very famous but I think sometimes if you're almost too pretty, it kind of can prevent you from being acceptable to an audience. Then that prevents you from being a movie star. I think obviously Jennifer Aniston is quite pretty but she also has kind of an everygirl quality on screen that appeals to audiences.

SG: Could there ever be a Suicide Girl leading lady?

NS: It's going to happen. We'll figure it out.

SG: How did you come up with the aggressive editing style of Greek?

NS: I think with a romantic comedy, especially with Sarah Marshall, you can kind of wander around a little bit. The story can drift a little bit. You can kind of just hang out with this character or these characters in Hawaii or whatever. I think with a road trip comedy that you're just driving, driving, driving, you have to keep it driving. You have to keep that kind of narrative push going. You have to keep it going forward basically. As soon as you stop for a second, I would feel the story kind of sag. Also, it was intentional, it's a rock n' roll comedy so I wanted to have a lot of short scenes. So I'm sure there's way more scenes than in Sarah Marshall and they're much shorter because they're constantly moving locations. They're constantly on the road going city to city. I also wanted to try, unlike with Sarah Marshall, just because the story called for it, to try a little bit more inventive visual stuff like the absinthe montage, try to kind of get in the head of what it's like to never stop partying. Or like the montage in London where they're passing out or getting drunk and what that's like, try to capture that.

SG: Did you know what you were going to use as you shot it, or did you figure it out in editing?

NS: I way overshoot and there's a lot of cut scenes that will be on the DVD that are actually quite good, funny scenes. You kind of learn something new on every movie, or you learn a lot of things on every movie, that when you have a movie called Get Him to the Greek, anything that doesn't have to do with getting him to the Greek, you just cut. There's a fair number of scenes that I very quickly learned, and this is true I think of cutting any movie, a bunch of scenes drop out very quickly. Then you're kind of fine tuning the movie for the rest of the post process.

SG: Does that become the Nicholas Stoller style moving forward?

NS: I'm not sure if I have a style. I would just say that the story maybe calls for that kind of quick cutting and cutting to the joke. I will say that we do try, and this is true of Sarah Marshall and also with Greek and I'd also say Superbad is like this or Knocked Up, which is that we want to have a lot of jokes. We want the audience to be laughing every 30 seconds or every minute. So to achieve that, you do have to cut a lot. So my editor and I, we'll test the movie and do the laugh track. We'll actually record the laugh track when we test the movie so you can play the laugh track with the movie. Obviously not everything needs to get a laugh, but when you're swinging for a joke and it doesn't get a laugh, then we'll switch it out for another joke or we'll edit the scene.

SG: Do you see a third phase of the Apatow wave? First you guys were underdogs, then you were hitmakers and now maybe you can settle into a third thing?

NS: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Usually those kinds of labels are placed on it from the outside. From the inside, it's kind of like whatever we think is the next interesting or challenging thing to do. I think it kind of comes from that. Greek seemed, after Sarah Marshall which I love and loved making and was very exciting, this seemed like a different kind of challenge: to do something where you're following two guys on the road. So it kind of came from that. This is a challenge, it's a different story to tell but it also has the kind of emotional heart that we're trying to tell this balls out rock comedy but with heart and a center to it that's kind of emotional. That's what I'm interested in is delivering hard comedy that has heart but I think the story might change or what seems interesting might change.

Get Him to the Greek opens June 4.