Michael Showalter came to fame along with the rest of his sketch comedy group, The State, in the early 90s when they went from performing for other NYU students to having a show on MTV. Since then each member of the group has gone to many other great comedy works. Theyve created television shows, written and directed movies. Showalter himself co-wrote and starred in the cult classic Wet Hot American Summer. He also teamed up with Michael Ian Black and David Wain in a stage show called Stella which turned into a show on Comedy Central which may or may not be renewed for a second season. Most recently Showalter wrote and directed The Baxter, a romantic comedy which satirized romantic comedies.
Buy the DVD of The Baxter
Daniel Robert Epstein: Whats going on today?
Michael Showalter: My parents are in town so Ive been spending some time with them and I pretty much have the day off. Im staying home because we have the cable guys coming so Ive got to be here for that. Then tonight Im DJing a comedy show called Sweet. Its a childhood friend of mine named Seth Herzog who hosts the show and Im just his DJ sidekick. The highlight of his show is that his mother does stand up comedy with him.
DRE: Where are your parents coming in from?
MS: Washington D.C.
DRE: Is that where you grew up?
MS: No, I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. But they moved to D.C. a couple of years ago. My sister has two kids. Both of my parents are retired now and so they moved closer to the grandchildren.
DRE: Are they pressuring you for kids?
MS: No, theyre not. I dont even have a girlfriend. Theyd be happy if I just had a girlfriend.
DRE: Youre pretty famous. Why dont you have a girlfriend?
MS: I suck at it. Its not for that I cant meet people or anything like that. Its my own fault.
DRE: Do you suck at keeping girlfriends?
MS: Ive had some long term relationships in my 20s but the last four or five years Ive been pretty much a bachelor.
DRE: Thats rough.
MS: I havent necessarily wanted one. I think its neither here nor there.
DRE: It must be easy for you to meet people since you do things like DJ and people know you from the shows youve done and stuff. Is that one of the reasons you dont want to be with someone because you think they want you for the wrong reasons?
MS: No, definitely not. But you definitely find that people know a lot more about you than you do about them before you even start talking.
DRE: It must be bizarre.
MS: Yeah.
DRE: The Baxter didnt do very well in the theatres at all. Do you feel like IFC did a good job of marketing it?
MS: I think they did a pretty good job. It was a tiny, low budget movie. We made that movie for under a million and a half, which in movie terms is real low. At the time, there was no promotable name in the cast. Now they couldve promoted Michelle Williams. I think they did a pretty good job with it but it just didnt catch on with the audience. I think a lot of it had to do with timing of the release. It came out at the same time that The 40 Year Old Virgin was out and a lot of the reviews were comparing the two movies and theyre very different. It got eaten alive by the momentum of 40 Year Old Virgin and so a lot of the reviews said This isnt as good as 40 Year Old Virgin as opposed to just talking about it on its own.
DRE: Were you satisfied with the movie itself?
MS: Im very proud of the movie. It ended up being a little bit of a different movie than the one I had originally intended to make. There are definitely things I wouldve done differently. I learned a lot from the experience, but I think its a good movie. It has a real heart and a real soul and I think that there are real funny performances and moments throughout the whole thing. If I could do it again, I would make it funnier. I find it very funny, but I also understand that what I find very funny and what audiences find very funny are two different things. A lot of whats funny about this movie to me is that this is how people talk in romantic comedies. Thats a very subtle joke to actually find funny. Its funny to me to just sit and watch character after character talk the way characters talk in a romantic comedy. If I would do it again, I would add more genuine set pieces to the movie. The scene that always got the best response was the scene that involved Peter Dinklage as the wedding planner where Michelle Williams character is hiding under the bed. Thats a big scene of comic misadventure and the audiences really love that. I wish I had put more stuff like that in the movie to counterbalance the kind of semantic comedy that I find funny. But we had a 20 day shooting schedule so there was no margin for error. I cut 30 pages out of my original screenplay to shoot the movie that we shot. When I wrote the movie, I envisioned a budget closer to 10 or 15 million. I feel like we made the movie that I set out to make. Unfortunately, it didnt click with audiences, but thats nothing new for me. Im hoping that over time people can pass it along to each other, theyll enjoy it and itll stand the test of time the way Wet Hot American Summer has.
DRE: Do you think your fans were expecting something like Wet Hot?
MS: Yeah, I think they were. I was feeling an internal rebelliousness towards what Wet Hot was and what the Stella videos were in terms of their kind of crassness and lowbrowness. That sophomoric comedy which is stupid beyond words, but really funny. I really wanted to do something that had more sophistication and was more structurally sound. So when writing this movie jokes werent my number one priority. My number one priority was to accomplish a mood and a feeling and in fact, I really set out to write something that would have a G rating. To see how clean I could make it. As opposed to Wet Hot or Stella which is how disgusting and pornographic can I make it. I had been watching nothing but old movies when I wrote The Baxter. There was no color coming off of my television. I was so fucking sick of all these movies where everything is about bodily functions and exploitation of one variation or another.
DRE: Was it cool to see that Michelle got an Oscar nomination?
MS: I was thrilled.
DRE: Did you meet her at some event in Brooklyn?
MS: I saw her at an event and thought shed be perfect for the part. Then she moved to Brooklyn and I bumped into her on the street once or twice. I introduced myself and then offered her a part through her agent. I had to really talk her into it. She was a hard sell.
DRE: Is that because she wants to do serious things?
MS: Yeah. Shes a serious actress and I dont think she quite understood the sensibility. Shes almost like a method actor so this kind of comedy is hard for her. I think shes fantastic in the movie, but Justin Theroux or Elizabeth Banks know what theyre doing with this kind of material. They were very good at kind of playing their conventional type characters. Michelle needed to feel like she actually understood her character, which is a foreign concept to a comic actor.
DRE: At the press day for The Baxter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain implied that Stella wont be coming back to Comedy Central.
MS: I dont know that thats true. I think that the most I can say about Stella on Comedy Central is that they want to bring the show back. Im speaking about Comedy Central. Its an expensive show for them and nobody watched it, but they really liked the show. I think they feel like its a great show. I think that internally they need to figure out how to make it work and thats why its taking them so long to make a decision. It would be false to say that theyre not bringing the show back. Right now its neither nor. They havent picked it up. They havent not picked it up. I dont think theyre ever going to not pick up the show. I think what they may do is wait and see how well the DVD does. Theyre going to put a decent amount of money and marketing behind that. If the DVD sells well, a year and a half from now, you might see Stella back on Comedy Central. Thats kind of how they do it.
DRE: They really pushed Stella with ads and commercials, were you surprised when it didnt good ratings?
MS: Honestly, I was. What I learned this year, having had both Stella and The Baxter hit the marketplace in a pretty short period of time and have both projects not get the response that I had hoped for, is that I cant blame other people for not pushing this stuff. Its just something that a mainstream audience just may never get. I just have to look at it and be like, This is something that a small group of people really love and they understand it and they get it and it has real meaning for them. I think Comedy Central felt like they really had something because its quality. Theyve got other stuff thats just farting and shitting but I also cant blame the audience because they just dont get it. Theres nothing else to say. People watch Stella and they dont understand why its funny. I think part of the problem is that nobody knows if comedy is an art form or not. If they do, they dont want to say it. Theres no critical level that is guiding an audience toward whats good and putting it into context. With music and other mediums theres critics, theres websites, theres magazines. Theres an entire media devoted to whatever that art form is telling the consumer whats out there and why its good. So when something like Stella comes out, the audience is hanging in the wind. The consumer just is left totally to their own devices to figure it out on their own and theres a lot to figure out. Also its about timing because the audience for Stella is in college and high school. Stella came out in the summer when school wasnt in session. There was no word of mouth.
DRE: Chris Elliott told me that he really liked Stella. I thought that was cool.
MS: Ive encountered a lot of high profile people like that who like the show. Rob Burnett, who is the executive producer of David Lettermans show, loves it. He thinks its the best show on TV.
DRE: Wow. So wheres the development deal?
MS: Thats the thing. They love it, but its too avant garde.
DRE: I read that youre teaching a screenwriting class at the Peoples Improv Theatr.
MS: I am indeed. Im really excited about it.
DRE: How did that come to you?
MS: We came to each other mutually. Ive wanted to have a steady gig like that and Im friendly with Ali Farahnakian, who runs the PIT. He and I got into a conversation one day and he followed up on it.
DRE: What else are you doing?
MS: Im going to be doing a fair amount of performing in the next couple of months. Im going to be going on tour with Eugene Mirman in May. He and I and a third guy are going to go on tour doing clubs.
DRE: Are you going to be doing standup?
MS: Its not really standup. Its alternative standup, which is a completely different animal all together. We basically go on tour and we do our comedy at a music venue. Im also going to continue to do acting jobs. Im doing a cartoon voice for a show called Ghost Foot. Its going to be on Comedy Central.
DRE: I read that everyone from The State is in scene together in the Reno 911 movie.
MS: Yeah, that was amazing. It was the whole group. I dont think weve all been together since the mid-90s so it was a true reunion. We had a blast being together. It was just like old times. It was really cool.
DRE: Would you guys ever consider doing something together again as a real group?
MS: The answer is definitely yes. The question is what, when and how. Theres so many of us and people are busy and all this stuff. But I think theres a genuine desire on everyones part to do something. We just have to figure out what?
DRE: Would you guys do it as The State or something new?
MS: I think we would do it as the State. Personally, I would love to do an annual special on Comedy Central.
DRE: Last question and its one youve heard before, whats up with The State DVDs?
MS: The latest words are that theres been some movement there but there have been five different regime changes at MTV since this conversation came up and every single one of them starts by saying theyre going to make a State DVD and it never happens. I really dont understand why its such a big deal.
DRE: With everyone doing so well youd think it would be an easy decision.
MS: I know. Also, why dont they rerun it? Why doesnt Comedy Central rerun the show? It makes no sense.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy the DVD of The Baxter
Daniel Robert Epstein: Whats going on today?
Michael Showalter: My parents are in town so Ive been spending some time with them and I pretty much have the day off. Im staying home because we have the cable guys coming so Ive got to be here for that. Then tonight Im DJing a comedy show called Sweet. Its a childhood friend of mine named Seth Herzog who hosts the show and Im just his DJ sidekick. The highlight of his show is that his mother does stand up comedy with him.
DRE: Where are your parents coming in from?
MS: Washington D.C.
DRE: Is that where you grew up?
MS: No, I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. But they moved to D.C. a couple of years ago. My sister has two kids. Both of my parents are retired now and so they moved closer to the grandchildren.
DRE: Are they pressuring you for kids?
MS: No, theyre not. I dont even have a girlfriend. Theyd be happy if I just had a girlfriend.
DRE: Youre pretty famous. Why dont you have a girlfriend?
MS: I suck at it. Its not for that I cant meet people or anything like that. Its my own fault.
DRE: Do you suck at keeping girlfriends?
MS: Ive had some long term relationships in my 20s but the last four or five years Ive been pretty much a bachelor.
DRE: Thats rough.
MS: I havent necessarily wanted one. I think its neither here nor there.
DRE: It must be easy for you to meet people since you do things like DJ and people know you from the shows youve done and stuff. Is that one of the reasons you dont want to be with someone because you think they want you for the wrong reasons?
MS: No, definitely not. But you definitely find that people know a lot more about you than you do about them before you even start talking.
DRE: It must be bizarre.
MS: Yeah.
DRE: The Baxter didnt do very well in the theatres at all. Do you feel like IFC did a good job of marketing it?
MS: I think they did a pretty good job. It was a tiny, low budget movie. We made that movie for under a million and a half, which in movie terms is real low. At the time, there was no promotable name in the cast. Now they couldve promoted Michelle Williams. I think they did a pretty good job with it but it just didnt catch on with the audience. I think a lot of it had to do with timing of the release. It came out at the same time that The 40 Year Old Virgin was out and a lot of the reviews were comparing the two movies and theyre very different. It got eaten alive by the momentum of 40 Year Old Virgin and so a lot of the reviews said This isnt as good as 40 Year Old Virgin as opposed to just talking about it on its own.
DRE: Were you satisfied with the movie itself?
MS: Im very proud of the movie. It ended up being a little bit of a different movie than the one I had originally intended to make. There are definitely things I wouldve done differently. I learned a lot from the experience, but I think its a good movie. It has a real heart and a real soul and I think that there are real funny performances and moments throughout the whole thing. If I could do it again, I would make it funnier. I find it very funny, but I also understand that what I find very funny and what audiences find very funny are two different things. A lot of whats funny about this movie to me is that this is how people talk in romantic comedies. Thats a very subtle joke to actually find funny. Its funny to me to just sit and watch character after character talk the way characters talk in a romantic comedy. If I would do it again, I would add more genuine set pieces to the movie. The scene that always got the best response was the scene that involved Peter Dinklage as the wedding planner where Michelle Williams character is hiding under the bed. Thats a big scene of comic misadventure and the audiences really love that. I wish I had put more stuff like that in the movie to counterbalance the kind of semantic comedy that I find funny. But we had a 20 day shooting schedule so there was no margin for error. I cut 30 pages out of my original screenplay to shoot the movie that we shot. When I wrote the movie, I envisioned a budget closer to 10 or 15 million. I feel like we made the movie that I set out to make. Unfortunately, it didnt click with audiences, but thats nothing new for me. Im hoping that over time people can pass it along to each other, theyll enjoy it and itll stand the test of time the way Wet Hot American Summer has.
DRE: Do you think your fans were expecting something like Wet Hot?
MS: Yeah, I think they were. I was feeling an internal rebelliousness towards what Wet Hot was and what the Stella videos were in terms of their kind of crassness and lowbrowness. That sophomoric comedy which is stupid beyond words, but really funny. I really wanted to do something that had more sophistication and was more structurally sound. So when writing this movie jokes werent my number one priority. My number one priority was to accomplish a mood and a feeling and in fact, I really set out to write something that would have a G rating. To see how clean I could make it. As opposed to Wet Hot or Stella which is how disgusting and pornographic can I make it. I had been watching nothing but old movies when I wrote The Baxter. There was no color coming off of my television. I was so fucking sick of all these movies where everything is about bodily functions and exploitation of one variation or another.
DRE: Was it cool to see that Michelle got an Oscar nomination?
MS: I was thrilled.
DRE: Did you meet her at some event in Brooklyn?
MS: I saw her at an event and thought shed be perfect for the part. Then she moved to Brooklyn and I bumped into her on the street once or twice. I introduced myself and then offered her a part through her agent. I had to really talk her into it. She was a hard sell.
DRE: Is that because she wants to do serious things?
MS: Yeah. Shes a serious actress and I dont think she quite understood the sensibility. Shes almost like a method actor so this kind of comedy is hard for her. I think shes fantastic in the movie, but Justin Theroux or Elizabeth Banks know what theyre doing with this kind of material. They were very good at kind of playing their conventional type characters. Michelle needed to feel like she actually understood her character, which is a foreign concept to a comic actor.
DRE: At the press day for The Baxter, Michael Ian Black and David Wain implied that Stella wont be coming back to Comedy Central.
MS: I dont know that thats true. I think that the most I can say about Stella on Comedy Central is that they want to bring the show back. Im speaking about Comedy Central. Its an expensive show for them and nobody watched it, but they really liked the show. I think they feel like its a great show. I think that internally they need to figure out how to make it work and thats why its taking them so long to make a decision. It would be false to say that theyre not bringing the show back. Right now its neither nor. They havent picked it up. They havent not picked it up. I dont think theyre ever going to not pick up the show. I think what they may do is wait and see how well the DVD does. Theyre going to put a decent amount of money and marketing behind that. If the DVD sells well, a year and a half from now, you might see Stella back on Comedy Central. Thats kind of how they do it.
DRE: They really pushed Stella with ads and commercials, were you surprised when it didnt good ratings?
MS: Honestly, I was. What I learned this year, having had both Stella and The Baxter hit the marketplace in a pretty short period of time and have both projects not get the response that I had hoped for, is that I cant blame other people for not pushing this stuff. Its just something that a mainstream audience just may never get. I just have to look at it and be like, This is something that a small group of people really love and they understand it and they get it and it has real meaning for them. I think Comedy Central felt like they really had something because its quality. Theyve got other stuff thats just farting and shitting but I also cant blame the audience because they just dont get it. Theres nothing else to say. People watch Stella and they dont understand why its funny. I think part of the problem is that nobody knows if comedy is an art form or not. If they do, they dont want to say it. Theres no critical level that is guiding an audience toward whats good and putting it into context. With music and other mediums theres critics, theres websites, theres magazines. Theres an entire media devoted to whatever that art form is telling the consumer whats out there and why its good. So when something like Stella comes out, the audience is hanging in the wind. The consumer just is left totally to their own devices to figure it out on their own and theres a lot to figure out. Also its about timing because the audience for Stella is in college and high school. Stella came out in the summer when school wasnt in session. There was no word of mouth.
DRE: Chris Elliott told me that he really liked Stella. I thought that was cool.
MS: Ive encountered a lot of high profile people like that who like the show. Rob Burnett, who is the executive producer of David Lettermans show, loves it. He thinks its the best show on TV.
DRE: Wow. So wheres the development deal?
MS: Thats the thing. They love it, but its too avant garde.
DRE: I read that youre teaching a screenwriting class at the Peoples Improv Theatr.
MS: I am indeed. Im really excited about it.
DRE: How did that come to you?
MS: We came to each other mutually. Ive wanted to have a steady gig like that and Im friendly with Ali Farahnakian, who runs the PIT. He and I got into a conversation one day and he followed up on it.
DRE: What else are you doing?
MS: Im going to be doing a fair amount of performing in the next couple of months. Im going to be going on tour with Eugene Mirman in May. He and I and a third guy are going to go on tour doing clubs.
DRE: Are you going to be doing standup?
MS: Its not really standup. Its alternative standup, which is a completely different animal all together. We basically go on tour and we do our comedy at a music venue. Im also going to continue to do acting jobs. Im doing a cartoon voice for a show called Ghost Foot. Its going to be on Comedy Central.
DRE: I read that everyone from The State is in scene together in the Reno 911 movie.
MS: Yeah, that was amazing. It was the whole group. I dont think weve all been together since the mid-90s so it was a true reunion. We had a blast being together. It was just like old times. It was really cool.
DRE: Would you guys ever consider doing something together again as a real group?
MS: The answer is definitely yes. The question is what, when and how. Theres so many of us and people are busy and all this stuff. But I think theres a genuine desire on everyones part to do something. We just have to figure out what?
DRE: Would you guys do it as The State or something new?
MS: I think we would do it as the State. Personally, I would love to do an annual special on Comedy Central.
DRE: Last question and its one youve heard before, whats up with The State DVDs?
MS: The latest words are that theres been some movement there but there have been five different regime changes at MTV since this conversation came up and every single one of them starts by saying theyre going to make a State DVD and it never happens. I really dont understand why its such a big deal.
DRE: With everyone doing so well youd think it would be an easy decision.
MS: I know. Also, why dont they rerun it? Why doesnt Comedy Central rerun the show? It makes no sense.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 19 of 19 COMMENTS
i love everything this guys in!
my ex totally has a HUGE man crush on him too