The first thing you should know is that Amy Sedaris is younger and much prettier than Jerri Blank, the 47-year-old former junkie whore that she plays in the TV-show-turned-movie "Strangers With Candy."
Of course, by having Sedaris play a less-than-attractive prostitute (á la Charlize Theron in "Monster"), isn't this just a bold-faced grab for an Oscar?
"Busted!" was the immediate response from co-star Stephen Colbert.
Colbert, Sedaris and director Paul Dinello gave a group interview to promote the film last year at Sundance.
Dinello, who also co-stars in the film, said he thinks they have a shot, but Sedaris disagreed.
"I'll quit the business if we don't get a nomination!" declared Colbert.
"We were even going to make her retarded, just to hedge our bets," said Dinello. It's a joke that would be offensive if not for the straight-faced delivery, which mirrored the humor in both the TV show and the movie.
"Strangers With Candy" is a parody of After School Specials. It takes the genre's preachy style and completely twists it into a surreal sort of humor.
"Anything that tries to teach morals really opens itself up to mockery," Dinello said. "You have to get up on a pedestal to teach people morals, and you've got to take yourself so serious."
Music also helps set the twisted tone for the movie.
"Tell him where the temp music came from," Sedaris insisted, which led Dinello to admit that the temporary music he used while editing was from "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Schindler's List."
"We knew we always wanted the music to be overly dramatic, to play against the ridiculousness of the situations," Dinello explained.
Sedaris jumped in: "And to manipulate feelings."
"Exactly," added Colbert. "To underscore the pathos of each moment."
"Strangers With Candy" premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival to great buzz.
According to Dinello, in a later interview in Seattle, "Warner Brothers picked it up in one of those infamous late-night wrangling sessions at 5 o'clock in the morning that's sort of famous for Sundance."
Based on audience feedback at Sundance, Dinello started cutting about 20 minutes out of the movie. Then Warner Bros. pulled the film from the release schedule, claiming there were "clearance issues." The issues were not with music (the usual culprit for independent films), but with posters and other items in the background of scenes.
"They wanted us to clear, like, a thousand things in the film, mostly artwork," Dinello says. "It just became impossible to deliver what they wanted."
Luckily, after about eight months of downtime, ThinkFilm bought the film, leading to its wildly successful gala screening at the Seattle International Film Festival (which Dinello attended), 17 months after its Sundance premiere.
"I could go to a screening every night," says Dinello. "I love to hear people laugh, and I love meeting the fans."
Dinello, Sedaris and Colbert have been working together off and on since they were all hired at Chicago's Second City in 1987 (the same year Chris Farley was hired). Now that the movie has finally been released, will they continue to collaborate on projects or are they going to split up?
Sedaris says, "We were never a team or a group in the first place, so we can't split up."
Then again, Sedaris (sister of author David Sedaris) is finishing up a book called "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence," and Dinello has been helping her with that. Meanwhile, Colbert's popular cable TV show, "The Colbert Report," has been finding bits for Dinello to be in, and rumor has it Sedaris will also appear on the show.
And Dinello is finishing up a script about two hotshot exorcists who have a falling-out, then must come back together to save the world. No doubt there will be parts for his two friends. Who knows? Maybe they'll all attend the Academy Awards for this simple story of a prostitute who goes back to high school.
Andy Spletzer: andyspletzer@gmail.com
