I love talking to the people behind my favorite cartoon voices. I got John Kricfalusi to insult me as Ren, Billy West demonstrated how easily he can slip into Dr. Zoidberg and now I've gotten Harry Shearer to throw some Ned Flanders at me. I was lucky enough to sit down with Harry Shearer, the man behind some of the greatest characters in popular culture from Principal Seymour Skinner, to Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap, to the classic synchronized swimmer of Saturday Night Live. But now Shearer is adding a new face and voice to his canon, that of Victor Allan Miller in the new Christopher Guest film, For Your Consideration. Miller is an aging actor who after landing a choice part in a new movie, gets caught up in the Oscar hype.
Check out the official website of For Your Consideration
Daniel Robert Epstein: I was surprised to find that For Your Consideration is not a mockumentary.
Harry Shearer: Its not shot in that style although were still improvising the vast majority of the dialogue.
DRE: I suppose it is because theres a lot of mockumentary out there now.
HS: And [director] Chris [Guest] had done three before so the time had come to move the thing along a little bit and I think we were all interested in a different take.
DRE: With past movies, when you guys were being interviewed on camera. You guys often went, Uh. I thought it was because you guys were thinking of something. But in For Your Consideration all the dialogue flowed. There was no stopping. So I guess those little pauses were part of the characters?
HS: I think when youre talking about yourself to camera unless youre a trained public performer like we are, your character tends to uh, sort of spontaneously and organically whereas when youre in a scene you are people in real life. People in real life dont tend to uh that much unless theyre put on the spot and asked a question and have to think about it. I cant speak for anybody else but I dont think it was deliberate whenever I did it if I did.
DRE: I got to speak to Michael McKean earlier this year and I asked him How natural is improvisation to you? He said, Well this conversation is improvisation but its not very funny. How natural is it for you?
HS: When we started the process of doing Spinal Tap, we werent really planning to do it improvised. It was something we stumbled on after about three days of trying to write a script. We looked at each other and said, Nobodys going to understand this if they read it in a script. We should just make it look like a documentary and improvise it. Michael and I had been in a comedy group where all the material was written. We would take an evening every once in a while and explore what else was in the sketch but we always wrote stuff before it went on stage. So improvisation wasnt a choice based on it being our comfort zone or being trained that way. I think it was a choice based on the best way to tell that story. Now with four movies under our belt doing it this way it feels almost comfortable. Its still really scary when each one starts out. This was the first time Id done scenes with Catherine [O'Hara] and I was delighted to find out she was at least as nervous as I was. So it is nerve-wracking starting out but then you look around and you see all these really good people in a scene with you and you can relax because you dont have to talk if theres nothing there.
DRE: How was it to finally work with Catherine?
HS: So wonderful. So great. Ive been in awe of her since SCTV. I think shes easily the funniest comic actress on this continent. Jennifer Saunders would be the only other person in the running. Everybody in these movies shares a certain sensibility but were all coming from an incredibly different place. So Im trying to get an idea of where Catherine is coming from and how she does her work. Its all very mysterious but just to get a glimpse of that is wonderful and shes such a generous colleague.
DRE: Ive seen Christopher Guest interviewed a number of times and he is always very serious. Is there anyone more serious about being funny than he is?
HS: Well, hes serious but thats one side of him. You never see the giggling Christopher Guest. We were at dinner in London last Tuesday night and it was the giggling Christopher Guest on display. Eugene [Levy] talks about when they were in the writing process of this movie and how he could say something that will reduce Christopher to giggles for 20 minutes at a stretch. I think comedy people tend to have a fairly serious side and Christopher puts that on display a lot.
DRE: I remember reading about how Christopher always tries to get all the actors a writing credit on these instead of just him and Eugene.
HS: We went through that with Spinal Tap. We went to the Writers Guild and appealed. We wanted everybody in the cast to get credit for writing dialogue and they voted against us 15 to nothing. I think Chris has gone back with each movie to try and change it but the Writers Guild regards it as anti-writer to acknowledge that actors contributed to dialogue. You might consider them a little insecure at this point.
DRE: Writers insecure, never.
How much was on the page about Victor Allan Miller?
HS: His resume and that was pretty much it. I made up a backstory about his personal life, which doesnt really get into the movie, but its what I had to know to play the guy.
DRE: Every actor has to do something they dont want to for money at one point. Could you relate to him on the level that he wants to be a serious actor but he has to be the mascot Irv the Footlong Wiener?
HS: Ive been really lucky. Ive never found myself quite that profoundly humiliated as Victor.
DRE: [laughs] We should look at your resume.
HS: Well if you go to IMDB there are so many things there that I didnt actually do. I keep getting asked. What were you in Spaceballs? I have to say, I was never in Spaceballs. I wondered why people would be asking me that and I looked at IMDB and I am listed in Spaceballs. But my approach with Victor was just to take everything I like about myself and strip that away and what was left was Victor. Just the lack of coping mechanisms and the pure desperation and flailing to stay above water and every rejection still being instant and accessible and all the frustration and all the yearning naked and unmediated.
DRE: The Ricky Gervais episode of The Simpsons was just on last night.
HS: No, last night was the Halloween episode.
DRE: They showed the rerun before the new episode.
HS: It is almost as if Fox doesnt have anything else to draw an audience.
DRE: How was it working with Ricky Gervais on The Simpsons then on For Your Consideration?
HS: Ricky is great. Ricky is one of the really great comics and happens to also be a really nice guy. Part of it is that he was so in awe of Spinal Tap and also of The Simpsons that we greeted each other as mutual fans. Im in awe of [the UK version of] The Office and of the little Ive seen of Extras so he fit right in. The big surprise to us was that The Office was all scripted even though it seemed like it had an improvisational feel to it. But he walked right into this and has just been a part of the group. He really knows his stuff and everybody knows what a great performer he is and what a great comic mind he is. The Simpsons was the same. Hes really good at what he does and he doesnt have a lot of attitude. What an incredible combination that is.
DRE: We actually spoke back in 2002 when [Shearers feature directorial debut] Teddy Bears Picnic came out. I asked you about George W. Bush and you said he was a work in progress. Now its the end of 2006. What do you think?
HS: [in perfect George W. Bush voice] It was hard work, hard work, no progress.
He is probably the worst president in our history but I dont know about the other really bad ones. Maybe the probably doesnt belong there. But the idea of taking this moral stance both at home and abroad and having nothing to back it up is pretty appalling especially when people are dying for that. I think that what were going to end up with is irony because whats been fascinating about his presidency is that weve been forced to live through this family drama. He wasnt the favorite son. He wasnt the one that was supposed to be president, Jeb was. Issues with that that might have resulted in some drug and alcohol use and then he gets to the office and his project is really to repudiate everything his Dad did. The irony is that hes going to end up repeating his Dads great failure which is that his Dad encouraged the Shiites and Kurds to revolt against Saddam and then walked away and got them all killed. This war is going to end badly and were going to walk away from it one way or another and a lot of people who believed in the high ideals of these guys are going to end up getting killed. Nice work.
DRE: Nearly every Simpsons character has had their own episode at one point. Are there any characters that you do that you would like to see get their episode?
HS: Theres been a little bit about Kent Brockman. Of course that world of local television news been covered by so many other people that maybe everything has been said about the vapidity of it, but we can try. We know his real name is Kenny Brockelstein but thats about it.
DRE: Michael [McKean] has said that you guys dont have time to do another Spinal Tap tour.
HS: Were not people who like to repeat ourselves. So weve done an American tour, weve played Royal Albert Hall in England. Its like What? Now were going to go do Birmingham and Manchester? There was some talk and I am interested in maybe doing a tour of Australia and New Zealand. That would be interesting. We havent done that.
DRE: Conan OBrien has said that when he goes home he doesnt want to watch anything funny. He watches The History Channel to relax. How about you?
HS: Well, if there was more funny stuff on American television I might watch some of it. My wife is a Brit, so we see a lot of British comedy like Father Ted and The Alan Partridge series with Steve Coogan so well watch some of that on occasion. I love watching The Office. But I watch news although theres less of that on those channels everyday and Im a basketball fan so I try to watch some hoops but I dont watch a lot of comedy.
DRE: Are you working on another movie to direct?
HS: I have a couple of movies I want to direct and were trying to get funding for them. But theres also a musical comedy for the stage called J. Edgar! The Musical. I think were going to have it hit the stage in London because we may have found some producers who are interested in doing it over there.
DRE: Would you play J. Edgar Hoover?
HS: No. Weve done a couple productions so far, one for NPR and one at the Aspen comedy festival both with Kelsey Grammer as J. Edgar Hoover and John Goodman as his lifetime assistant. I play Walter Winchell.
DRE: Can you get as excited about The Simpsons movie as the fans are?
HS: We are working on the movie every week. It is really an endless process at this point and its amusing to see how much work is going into that picture. Theres so much secrecy that surrounds it that its hard for us to know really what shape its in at this moment but I would assume that its going to be a great big thing.
DRE: I know you cant talk very much about it.
HS: I cant say anything about it. But let me tell you how much I cant say. I was in New York a couple weeks ago doing a recording session for the movie. At the end of the session I said to the guy who was running the session Are you going to shred the script pages now? He said, No. I said, Really? He said, No, I have to send them back to LA to shred them. They dont trust me.
DRE: [laughs] Could you say something as Ned Flanders for me?
HS: Okely-dokely Dan!
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official website of For Your Consideration
Daniel Robert Epstein: I was surprised to find that For Your Consideration is not a mockumentary.
Harry Shearer: Its not shot in that style although were still improvising the vast majority of the dialogue.
DRE: I suppose it is because theres a lot of mockumentary out there now.
HS: And [director] Chris [Guest] had done three before so the time had come to move the thing along a little bit and I think we were all interested in a different take.
DRE: With past movies, when you guys were being interviewed on camera. You guys often went, Uh. I thought it was because you guys were thinking of something. But in For Your Consideration all the dialogue flowed. There was no stopping. So I guess those little pauses were part of the characters?
HS: I think when youre talking about yourself to camera unless youre a trained public performer like we are, your character tends to uh, sort of spontaneously and organically whereas when youre in a scene you are people in real life. People in real life dont tend to uh that much unless theyre put on the spot and asked a question and have to think about it. I cant speak for anybody else but I dont think it was deliberate whenever I did it if I did.
DRE: I got to speak to Michael McKean earlier this year and I asked him How natural is improvisation to you? He said, Well this conversation is improvisation but its not very funny. How natural is it for you?
HS: When we started the process of doing Spinal Tap, we werent really planning to do it improvised. It was something we stumbled on after about three days of trying to write a script. We looked at each other and said, Nobodys going to understand this if they read it in a script. We should just make it look like a documentary and improvise it. Michael and I had been in a comedy group where all the material was written. We would take an evening every once in a while and explore what else was in the sketch but we always wrote stuff before it went on stage. So improvisation wasnt a choice based on it being our comfort zone or being trained that way. I think it was a choice based on the best way to tell that story. Now with four movies under our belt doing it this way it feels almost comfortable. Its still really scary when each one starts out. This was the first time Id done scenes with Catherine [O'Hara] and I was delighted to find out she was at least as nervous as I was. So it is nerve-wracking starting out but then you look around and you see all these really good people in a scene with you and you can relax because you dont have to talk if theres nothing there.
DRE: How was it to finally work with Catherine?
HS: So wonderful. So great. Ive been in awe of her since SCTV. I think shes easily the funniest comic actress on this continent. Jennifer Saunders would be the only other person in the running. Everybody in these movies shares a certain sensibility but were all coming from an incredibly different place. So Im trying to get an idea of where Catherine is coming from and how she does her work. Its all very mysterious but just to get a glimpse of that is wonderful and shes such a generous colleague.
DRE: Ive seen Christopher Guest interviewed a number of times and he is always very serious. Is there anyone more serious about being funny than he is?
HS: Well, hes serious but thats one side of him. You never see the giggling Christopher Guest. We were at dinner in London last Tuesday night and it was the giggling Christopher Guest on display. Eugene [Levy] talks about when they were in the writing process of this movie and how he could say something that will reduce Christopher to giggles for 20 minutes at a stretch. I think comedy people tend to have a fairly serious side and Christopher puts that on display a lot.
DRE: I remember reading about how Christopher always tries to get all the actors a writing credit on these instead of just him and Eugene.
HS: We went through that with Spinal Tap. We went to the Writers Guild and appealed. We wanted everybody in the cast to get credit for writing dialogue and they voted against us 15 to nothing. I think Chris has gone back with each movie to try and change it but the Writers Guild regards it as anti-writer to acknowledge that actors contributed to dialogue. You might consider them a little insecure at this point.
DRE: Writers insecure, never.
How much was on the page about Victor Allan Miller?
HS: His resume and that was pretty much it. I made up a backstory about his personal life, which doesnt really get into the movie, but its what I had to know to play the guy.
DRE: Every actor has to do something they dont want to for money at one point. Could you relate to him on the level that he wants to be a serious actor but he has to be the mascot Irv the Footlong Wiener?
HS: Ive been really lucky. Ive never found myself quite that profoundly humiliated as Victor.
DRE: [laughs] We should look at your resume.
HS: Well if you go to IMDB there are so many things there that I didnt actually do. I keep getting asked. What were you in Spaceballs? I have to say, I was never in Spaceballs. I wondered why people would be asking me that and I looked at IMDB and I am listed in Spaceballs. But my approach with Victor was just to take everything I like about myself and strip that away and what was left was Victor. Just the lack of coping mechanisms and the pure desperation and flailing to stay above water and every rejection still being instant and accessible and all the frustration and all the yearning naked and unmediated.
DRE: The Ricky Gervais episode of The Simpsons was just on last night.
HS: No, last night was the Halloween episode.
DRE: They showed the rerun before the new episode.
HS: It is almost as if Fox doesnt have anything else to draw an audience.
DRE: How was it working with Ricky Gervais on The Simpsons then on For Your Consideration?
HS: Ricky is great. Ricky is one of the really great comics and happens to also be a really nice guy. Part of it is that he was so in awe of Spinal Tap and also of The Simpsons that we greeted each other as mutual fans. Im in awe of [the UK version of] The Office and of the little Ive seen of Extras so he fit right in. The big surprise to us was that The Office was all scripted even though it seemed like it had an improvisational feel to it. But he walked right into this and has just been a part of the group. He really knows his stuff and everybody knows what a great performer he is and what a great comic mind he is. The Simpsons was the same. Hes really good at what he does and he doesnt have a lot of attitude. What an incredible combination that is.
DRE: We actually spoke back in 2002 when [Shearers feature directorial debut] Teddy Bears Picnic came out. I asked you about George W. Bush and you said he was a work in progress. Now its the end of 2006. What do you think?
HS: [in perfect George W. Bush voice] It was hard work, hard work, no progress.
He is probably the worst president in our history but I dont know about the other really bad ones. Maybe the probably doesnt belong there. But the idea of taking this moral stance both at home and abroad and having nothing to back it up is pretty appalling especially when people are dying for that. I think that what were going to end up with is irony because whats been fascinating about his presidency is that weve been forced to live through this family drama. He wasnt the favorite son. He wasnt the one that was supposed to be president, Jeb was. Issues with that that might have resulted in some drug and alcohol use and then he gets to the office and his project is really to repudiate everything his Dad did. The irony is that hes going to end up repeating his Dads great failure which is that his Dad encouraged the Shiites and Kurds to revolt against Saddam and then walked away and got them all killed. This war is going to end badly and were going to walk away from it one way or another and a lot of people who believed in the high ideals of these guys are going to end up getting killed. Nice work.
DRE: Nearly every Simpsons character has had their own episode at one point. Are there any characters that you do that you would like to see get their episode?
HS: Theres been a little bit about Kent Brockman. Of course that world of local television news been covered by so many other people that maybe everything has been said about the vapidity of it, but we can try. We know his real name is Kenny Brockelstein but thats about it.
DRE: Michael [McKean] has said that you guys dont have time to do another Spinal Tap tour.
HS: Were not people who like to repeat ourselves. So weve done an American tour, weve played Royal Albert Hall in England. Its like What? Now were going to go do Birmingham and Manchester? There was some talk and I am interested in maybe doing a tour of Australia and New Zealand. That would be interesting. We havent done that.
DRE: Conan OBrien has said that when he goes home he doesnt want to watch anything funny. He watches The History Channel to relax. How about you?
HS: Well, if there was more funny stuff on American television I might watch some of it. My wife is a Brit, so we see a lot of British comedy like Father Ted and The Alan Partridge series with Steve Coogan so well watch some of that on occasion. I love watching The Office. But I watch news although theres less of that on those channels everyday and Im a basketball fan so I try to watch some hoops but I dont watch a lot of comedy.
DRE: Are you working on another movie to direct?
HS: I have a couple of movies I want to direct and were trying to get funding for them. But theres also a musical comedy for the stage called J. Edgar! The Musical. I think were going to have it hit the stage in London because we may have found some producers who are interested in doing it over there.
DRE: Would you play J. Edgar Hoover?
HS: No. Weve done a couple productions so far, one for NPR and one at the Aspen comedy festival both with Kelsey Grammer as J. Edgar Hoover and John Goodman as his lifetime assistant. I play Walter Winchell.
DRE: Can you get as excited about The Simpsons movie as the fans are?
HS: We are working on the movie every week. It is really an endless process at this point and its amusing to see how much work is going into that picture. Theres so much secrecy that surrounds it that its hard for us to know really what shape its in at this moment but I would assume that its going to be a great big thing.
DRE: I know you cant talk very much about it.
HS: I cant say anything about it. But let me tell you how much I cant say. I was in New York a couple weeks ago doing a recording session for the movie. At the end of the session I said to the guy who was running the session Are you going to shred the script pages now? He said, No. I said, Really? He said, No, I have to send them back to LA to shred them. They dont trust me.
DRE: [laughs] Could you say something as Ned Flanders for me?
HS: Okely-dokely Dan!
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
sperkins said:
I would rate this a 11 out of 10. tired refrence, i'm sure but damn that was a funny volume knob.
-sperkins@aol.com
*EX~cellent!!!*
"Up and AT them!"
"Dental Plan!!!"