Tim and Eric
by Fred Topel for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

If Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s TV show is Awesome, Great Job!, you know their movie has to be even bigger. So their movie is bigger than awesome, it’s Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie. However, the movie is not a collection of sketches like their TV show. Billion Dollar Movie is actually about Tim and Eric blowing a billion dollars filming an unreleasable movie. So to pay back the investors, they have to revamp a mall full of crazy stores to make it a billion dollar business. The film still breaks the fourth wall and takes breaks for weird sketches, but there’s sort of a plot in there.

Heidecker and Wareheim premiered Billion Dollar Movie at Sundance, promising the audience it had been de-Rangoed, which I didn’t get. They actually had two films at the festival. Heidecker stars in the experimental film The Comedy, which is named ironically. Set in a community of hipsters in Williamsburg, New York, the film is a statement about hipsterism. Wareheim has a smaller part in The Comedy too.

Wareheim and Heidecker were understandably exhausted when they did interviews on Main Street. Not only had they had midnight screenings the night before, but they stayed for the Q&A (where the audience gets a chance to ask them questions) and their own after party. I at least skipped the Q&A to get some sleep and prepare questions. Both films were notorious, with many audience members walking out. The Shrim scene in Billion Dollar Movie was probably the breaking point for many. I don’t even want to describe what it is, just look it up.

SuicideGirls: So what was the Rango reference with regards to Billion Dollar Movie?

Tim Heidecker: Well, the joke’s over.

Eric Wareheim: We can reveal.

TH: As a joke we suggested that Sundance was going to be intercutting outtakes from the Rango movie into our film as a promotional vehicle for the DVD and we tok it pretty seriously and played it pretty straight, on Twitter and Facebook made a big deal about asking Sundance to take the Rango out. It’s amazing that all week, since we’ve been here, you get people coming up to us that know we’re joking, but going, “Sorry about getting Rangoed, man.”

EW: Rango’s become a term now.

TH: So now it’s a term when you get Rangoed and just today, a fan made a trailer of our movie and intercut Rango in and it’s really well done.

EW: They synced the mouth of the lizard to our dialogue.

TH: So it’s a thing where we made this movie and the movie is what it is and we’re really happy with it, but it’s the center of a circle of all this other shit that we’re doing around the movie as well. This Rango thing, all the press we’re doing for it, all the promos and all these little things we’re doing that we feel like it’s part of the package. It’s part of the whole film.

EW: It was interesting, a lot of people got the Rango thing. There was applause when we were de-Rangoed.

TH: Yeah, our audience knows that the joke doesn’t necessarily stop when the movie ends. If you follow us on Twitter, if you follow us online, there’s a multi-player role playing game or something.

SG: How can we solve the economic crisis and save small business?

EW: Just stay positive, be creative, look outside the box.

TH: Everybody pay for this movie. Don’t steal it and then I’ll pay it forward. We all win that way.

SG: Are you guys eternally happy?

TH: Oh yeah. ‘Til the end of time. We’ve been happy since the beginning of time and we’ll remain happy until time ends.

SG: What gets you so angry that you have to yell and scream?

TH: Customer service.

SG: True. Can’t you tell they’re just reading a script and not even listening to you?

TH: I can tell. They’re not. And Italians.

EW: Ohhh.

TH: He’s got a big thing for Italians.

EW: I’m Italian.

TH: Hates their music.

EW: Yeah, I do. All tenors.

SG: Are you in the business of deconstructing comedy?

TH: No.

SG: Have you heard that before?

TH: We’ve heard that. We’re in the business to make each other laugh and hopefully make other people laugh. Our sensibility and our sense of humor is I guess sometimes we make fun of comedy. The punchline is what can be bad about comedy but we just do what we do, try not to intellectualize it too much.

SG: I of course like to intellectualize it.

TH: Yes, well that’s what your job is.

SG: Do you think you fit into the meta movement?

TH: I wasn’t aware there was a movement.

SG: I’m happy to see so much meta comedy. Certainly when you pause the movie to explain what’s happening in the movie, that’s a comment on the movie experience.

EW: One thing I would say is that I feel like we fit in a post comedy movement which is something that you’ve seen it all, you’ve heard it all, you’ve seen all the different styles. The joke to us around the laugh. That’s what we like to explore, what happens before and what happens after the actual punchline.

SG: Is that a step beyond irreverence?

TH: I think it’s just a different muscle. The irreverent stuff is another thing that just makes us laugh. It’s irreverent to you if you find it offensive, so it’s going to be different for different people I would think.

SG: Is offensive a necessary quality of irreverence? I find a lot irreverent but I’m not offended.

TH: I suppose it’s a little distinction. Irreverence doesn’t mean anything to me because you’d have to put a level of authority in the equation for us to be irreverent towards. We don’t actively engage with any of those people.

SG: Is Tim the serious one?

TH: Today I am I guess. Not always.

SG: How has the festival experience been for both films?

TH: It’s been good. Positive feedback.

EW: It was a similar experience at both premieres which is people are loving it, people are laughing at the right moments, people are walking out at the right moments.

SG: Walking out of both movies?

EW: Yeah, both movies. The Comedy and Billion Dollar movies have some similar qualities which I think are really interesting, one being sitting on the edge of your seat squirming, you can’t believe what you’re seeing kind of feeling, which I think we’re all happy about creating that kind of energy in both films.

SG: Do you embrace the walkouts as much as the accolades?

TH: Yeah. I don't think we’re masochistic about it in the sense that we’re in it to piss people off.

EW: No.

TH: We are human beings that have feelings and would like to be loved by everyone as every human being does, but we also kind of have a sense of humor about it. And realize that the people walking out are not people we’re going to worry about too much.

SG: Is that part of the magic of the festival? In most theaters people don’t bother to walk out, but here they just give up and go to something else.

TH: I guess what I’ve heard, it’s kind of a thing. First of all, there’s lots of reasons. There’s I’m committed to go do something else, I’m going to try to see another movie. It’s not like, “I hate this movie. Fuck this movie. I want to burn the negative.” It’s like okay, I’m going to go see another movie now. Whatever. The thing is, what I said as the credits were coming up, look at how many people stayed. Most people stayed. That’s the key.

SG: It’s a wonderful silent communication, like "Nope, not gonna stick this one out." Even the filmmakers have a good attitude about it.

TH: It’s certainly crazy energy in the room because you see it happening. Even if you’re not leaving, that must

trigger some kind of thought process in your own head of like, “Why am I staying? Should I leave?” That’s gotta happen to some people.

EW: I think the core of both films is these are both very personal projects for us. Reviews are something but I don't think they’re super important to each of us. We both wanted to create something that was uniquely personal to us and made us satisfied. We’re not making it for a specific audience.

SG: Which film got into Sundance first?

TH: I think our film did because our film wasn’t in competition. We’re just premiering it here so it’s a little bit of a different situation. I don't know if people see that distinction.

SG: Is hipsterism something you thought about before The Comedy came along?

EW: We actually invented hipsterism. And we’re making a pretty penny from that.

TH: I don't know, it’s a catch all word that describes a certain group of people that sometimes abuse it, use it inappropriately I guess.

SG: Has it gotten out of hand these days?

EW: Well, if you’re in Brooklyn, which when we shot the movie, I hadn’t been in quite some time, it’s rampant.

TH: It’s like being in Haight-Ashbury in the ‘60s or something.

EW: A particular style, a particular kind of person.

TH: It’s like a funny irony of the style is so about individualism but it all ends up looking like a uniform.

SG: Do you find that some people who complain about hipsters the most are the worst hipsters?

TH: It’s definitely the rock through the glass house scenario. I don't think Rick [Alverson] intended this movie to be an indictment of that style or aesthetic. It’s a device I think used in the movie to create a setting and a place, an environment.

SG: Do you think it originated in a healthy, subversive or ironic way and then escalated?

TH: This is a theory I’ve heard from a couple different people, and I may not be able to prove it, but I think our generation, X or Y, between 20 and 30, our baby boomer parents were in so general encouraging of us to do what we want to do in life and pursue our dreams, I think there became a huge group of our generation who went to art school and creative things, and somewhat not very practical vocations. It created this class of people interested in arts or film or music that don’t have that many real usable things. Journalists...

SG: Obviously I'm addressing it in a thematic way. Do you guys talk about the theme on the set or are you just riffing?

TH: I think we have a plan and sometimes we deviate from that plan but the plan is to get certain information across. Film is so easy to manipulate that we kind of didn’t need to think too hard about anything. We just sort of went forward and the way things are cut and music and everything, you can just really shape the film a little stronger. Obviously there’s hours and hours and hours of footage that isn’t in the film.

SG: Are either of you from Williamsburg?

TH: I lived there for three years. I was there when it was booming and bustling, 2001 to 2003.

SG: Were you looking to explore more dramatic work?

TH: I don't think it was something we were seeking out necessarily but when the opportunity was brought up, it was something that sounded intriguing and dangerous and risky.

EW: It was also an experimental feel to it, after seeing his first film. It just felt like a piece of art rather than a movie. That was a huge draw for me, to be part of something that’s a different world.

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie opens March 2. The Comedy shows again at the South by Southwest film festival this month.

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/+Tim+and+Eric/