PD.net's Exclusive Interview with Paul Dinello
by Caitlin Gibson
May 15th, 2007
Paul was kind enough to sit down with me over lunch in a charming little deli to do an interview for the site, and here's the result. Enjoy!
Caitlin: A lot of people were wondering about the John Leguizamo project.
Paul: How Many?
A lot more than I would have thought.
Thank you for your vote of confidence.
Yeah I didn't realize there were so many John fans out there.
He's a funny guy. And we oddly have a lot in common. We're are trying to set up a movie for next fall. It's based on his show Sexaholic. He wrote a script, and I've been helping him refine it. I'm directing. We're trying to find a female lead. If only I were prettier.
I don't know that much about Sexaholic.
It’s an autobiographical one-man show. I've been a fan of his for a long time and when he called me and we talked and I was thrilled to work with him. Hopefully it will come to fruition.
People were also wondering about Pioneer Town, and when it's going to happen.
Oh, That's gonna happen, just try and stop me. We’re planning to shoot in Sept.
Is it a feature?
Yeah, it's an old script that Stephen and I wrote.
Is it Trifecta?
Okay, you have way too much information. Stephen and I wrote a script with my friend David Pasquesi, and Stephen and myself... did I put me in there twice?
[laughing] That's okay.
We wrote a script called Trifecta. It was going to star me, Stephen, and my friend Dave, who plays Stew the meat man. It was about guys who steal an ATM machine and after they do, they find they can't get it open. So we were pitching that around and then I decided I didn't like it. So I quickly wrote another script, based on an idea about a job that one of the characters in Trifecta mentions briefly. She says she works at Pioneer Town. I loved the idea of working at Pioneer Town that I wrote a whole script based on that idea.
They're not really the same characters. But to be fair, Trifecta has a lot of funny stuff in it.
Is Dave Pasquesi going to be in Pioneer Town?
Yeah in some capacity. I think he's great.
Yeah me too, he has a lot of fans.
More than me? I mean, this isn’t a competition, but I hope I’m winning. Dave does an improv show here [in New York City]. Once a month, one weekend out of the month at the Barrow St. Theater with TJ Jagodowski. It’s the best Improv Show period.
I was wondering about your early career. Not that much is known about it, like the Yardstick Boys and so on.
There is a reason I keep it a secret, but the reason is secret too. I took an improv class when I got out of college. The first person I met in it was Greg Holliman, who plays Principal Blackman, so he and I along with Rich Kasper and Tony Dicossola started an improv group. We played around Chicago for beer Money. We were a little rough, around the edges and rough in the middle too. The very first class I was in, they had us come in-- and I'd never taken an acting class or anything so I didn't know what to expect. So they told everybody “Close your eyes and move around the space, feel the space. Find a partner.” So then you grab somebody in the dark.
That sounds slightly awkward.
It was hugely awkward, and then we were told, “Get to know your partner, rub noses.” We were rubbing noses and I open my eyes and it's Greg-- you know he's a six-foot-six bald black man. And I was like “Aah I'm quittin.” After that things got better.
[laughing] I hope so.
It wasn’t so much about rubbing noses with strange men, my frustration was that I wanted to perform, not play theater games.
How did you really first get started at Second City? What was the process there?
I just went to a show there and I thought it was funny, so I thought I'd take classes. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I wanted to pick the things I liked and I'd take classes. I started taking guitar, since I liked playing guitar, and then I started taking classes at Second City and then they asked me to audition. I never thought that I'd get hired. That was it. I got hired and they started paying me for being a fuck-up. So there was no going back. Incidentally, the guitar lessons lead nowhere.
What was your major in college?
Communications and English. I went to film school too for a little bit.
Communications is such a broad subject to major in.
That’s right introduces you to everything, but prepares you for nothing.
Did you not enjoy it?
Not particularly. I knew that I was learning stuff I didn't have any interest in. It was good I'd say for winnowing out the things that I didn't want to do. It made it abundantly clear that I didn't want to have anything to do with Communications.
What were you like in high school? Did it form what Flatpoint High was like to any degree?
Bits and pieces. I was a bit of a fuck-up. I got in trouble a lot. I didn't do things to be mean, I did things to amuse people and they turned out to be rotten. I blew up fire works in the student center-- stupid stuff. I wasn't particularly good at sports, and it was a really sort of an athletic high school.
I always felt like an outcast. So in that respect, it’s similar, Jerri's an outcast. That's what all of us [were like]-- Stephen [Colbert], Stephen was a huge outcast, he was playing Dungeons and Dragons with the eggheads, and Amy [Sedaris] was a girl scout until she was a senior in high school. So we were all really sort of losers, and by sort of I mean -- especially those two.
To me-- what's that show called? Strangers With Candy-- is more about the teachers being hypocrites more than the high school experience. It comes off like a show about high school but really it's about the teachers and how selfish they are. And Jerri of course.
Do you have a favorite Strangers With Candy episode?
I have ones that were favorites to write, and then there were ones that were my favorites [to watch]. I like different ones for different reasons. Like “Is My Daddy Crazy?” [episode 3-05], that one makes me laugh. It was a hard show to write, because we'd be shooting one episode and Stephen and I would be on set with our laptops writing the next one. Then we'd go and see them in the editing room and that was it. Sometimes I watch them with friends. Some of them hold up. The Indian episode [3-03: “Trail of Tears”] was really fun to write, but when I watched it, it didn't hold together. I didn't have any sort of recollection of anything special about “Is My Daddy Crazy?”, but when I watched that it really made me laugh.
I like that one a lot, I love Stew, he cracks me up in that episode.
Stew's really funny, and you can’t go wrong with Colbert getting hit with a pizza.
I love that he showed that clip on The Colbert Report.
Oh that's right, he did. I’ll expect a royalty.
The Strangers With Candy fans freak out whenever there is a reference on the show.
Bless them.
I like the scene where Gregory [the dead woodpecker that is Jerri's pet] attacks Noblet.
It pecks Colbert in the face. Colbert's face got attacked a lot. Hitting Colbert’s face equals funny. In the first season we tried to have a pet in every episode and then we got bored with thinking up animal bits and we dropped it.
I think Clawson [1-04 “Who Wants Cake?”] the lobster might be my favorite.
Yeah he's a good one. Suki [the chicken from 1-07 “Feather in a Storm”] was a pretty good one. Because that fowl, there's a reason fowl is called “fowl”, that thing was covered with insects. Amy would hold it and there'd be bugs on her arm. Amy was fearless, she'd hold a lobster, she'll hold the chicken, pick up snakes. But we did a bit where she had to take the mouse and hold it-- that's not her hand, she wouldn’t do it. I was shocked.
It's weird, comedy is generally sort of like a boys' club and comedy writers have a pretty thick skin, they're a rough bunch. You have to say more and more outlandish things. But Amy, we always thought of her as one of the guys. So I would have no qualms going “here hold this snake”; I was shocked when she wouldn't hold that mouse. She said it moved too fast; it freaked her out.
How did you become interested in the work's of Buster Keaton?
As a kid, my mom turned me onto a lot of old comedy, like Ernie Kovacs. They played all his shows on PBS when I was a little kid my mom said “you should watch these.” I was aware that Chaplin was considered a genius, but I didn't like that sad clown sort of act he did. It seemed too desperate for laughs. I felt like something was wrong with me, I felt like I should like Chaplin because I knew that he was considered a comedy genius. Then I found Keaton. Maybe my uncle, who teaches film school in Chicago, Dan Dinello, turned me onto [Keaton]. For one thing he's an amazing filmmaker. The tone that he achieves doesn't seem desperate [for laughs]. He seems more detached in a way, detached in a very modern way but his stuff is heartfelt too.
I had never seen any of his movies before and I rented The General.
Oh that's great.
I loved it.
Oh you did?
I thought it was amazing, I was impressed with it on every level. The stuff with the trains, I wondered if it was real because it looks so complex.
Yeah it's all real and he did all his own stunts mostly.
I find his physical comedy very impressive.
That's a really good one to watch, the relationship that he has with the woman in it, is both heartfelt and full of great physical comedy and the whole film is beautifully cinematic.
I was impressed with how pretty it was.
You should rent Sherlock, Jr. too.
I watched that one also.
You did? Those are on both sides of the spectrum. In one fell swoop you saw why he was one of the greatest filmmakers.
I'm glad I checked it out, it's interesting to see how he pops up in a lot of pop culture things. I like the part where the civil war goes on behind him.
And when he's sitting on the bar between the wheels of the train, going up and down, great stuff.
Some of that stuff looks incredibly dangerous.
He broke his neck in a scene where, I'm pretty sure it's in The General, there's a water pipe and he jumps on the chain. He stayed conscious long enough, to get up and stumbled out of frame and then he collapsed. They had to shut down production.
That's crazy! It seems like doing all that physical comedy, it would be hard not to be injured in some capacity.
He started out with his parents in Vaudeville. The whole act was pretty much throwing him around the stage and he learned how to take a fall. They used to have truant officers follow them because he was never in school. At one point his parents would dress [Buster] up like a little man, put a mustache on him and said he was a midget. So they could avoid putting him in school because he was the best part of the act.
His Dad had a small role in pretty much all his films, Joe Keaton.
What's your part in Be Kind Rewind?
Sigourney Weaver and I play lawyers who bust Jack Black and Mos Def.
I've heard the premise about how he erases the videotapes with his mind because he becomes magnetized.
Yeah he becomes magnetized. Jack erases all the videotapes in his friend's video store so they re-shoot their own versions of Ghost Busters [and other classic movies] and their versions become more popular than the original versions. So Sigourney Weaver and I come to destroy all the tapes. Copyright infringement. Michel Gondry called me and said would I do it. I came running. I think he's amazing.
How big was your role?
It's small, it's one scene. I shot two or three days.
There's been a lot of buzz about it online. He's a really popular director.
He should be.
And Jack Black is so popular now.
Jack was a lot of fun to hang out with.
I rented the first season of Mr. Show and I had no idea that he was in it.
Bob and Dave produced the Tenacious D show. They had a deal with HBO and they helped Jack get that deal. Of course now he doesn’t need help getting things made.
Yeah it's interesting how that works.
Can you talk about your pilot [Me & Lee?]?
I will not.
[laughs] Are you not allowed?
Lee Majors is great. It's really out there. I have my doubts as to whether it will ever see the light of day, on Fox at least.
Why is that?
The language in it. I don't know what you can say anymore on TV, I'm so out of touch because I don't watch network television. You can't say prick, can you?
[laughs] It might be after a certain time of day.
We'll put it on at 4 o' clock in the morning then.
It was really fun to shoot. And Lee Majors, has a good sense of humor, he's really dry. He's an old pro. He knew his lines, knew his mark, he knows how to find the camera. He's just a pro. He was great to work with. He does the takes the same every time. I could never get over when he would call me and I would pick it up my phone and see Lee Majors and think “Lee Majors is calling me,” I could never get used to it.
When would you hear if they're going to pick it up?
I already heard they were picking up three comedies and we were the fourth one, they might pick it up for mid season.
I was curious about your zucchini fritters recipe, do you like to cook?
I do, but I'm not good. I wrote that as a humor piece, but that's pretty much how I cook. I'll measure something by a fist full. I don't use any of the instruments of the trade. I have a garden upstate and I don't know anything about gardening. I grew up in the city in Chicago and then I moved to New York, I've always lived in cities. So I grew zucchini and the thing about zucchini is they don't stop coming. They're like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, they're these pods that grow. If you don't pick them, they'll grow to like five feet long. They're crazy. So you can just keep picking them and more will grow, so I had like 50 zucchinis. So then I realized, I don't even really like zucchini that much. I don't even know what I would do with zucchini.
So I started making those fritters, I had to come up with something. So anything fried...
Is going to taste delicious.
The thing with zucchinis, you gotta pick them when they're small. That's a little tip, a tip for your readers.
Do they not taste as good when they get bigger?
They don't taste as good and you'll never be able to use them and you'll feel guilty. It's like a 12 pound packing peanut. Nobody wants that much zucchini.
[laughs] Only the vegetables that people don't like that much grow like that.
Yeah, I'd take a 12 pound tomato.
That would be a little bit hard to handle. [laugh]
Is the writing process working with Amy and Stephen on their books any different than working on Wigfield?
It's essentially the same. We all sort of have our roles. When Stephen and I write, usually I'll come up with some sort of frame and then we improvise the jokes. It's the same thing with Amy. We don't use a lot of improvisation for performance anymore, but we use it to write. That's the way we worked Strangers too. I'd say “We need a Principal Blackman scene where he threatens to throw Jerri out of school if she doesn't change her attitude” and then we’d all improvise until we had something funny.
We'd do Blackman's voice and all three of us would do Jerri and then the stuff that made us laugh [stayed in]. That’s pretty much the process, If I can be so bold and call that a process. It's a great thing to hang out with friends and laugh and get paid for it. Stephen and I try to come up with projects so it's a reason to hang out cause we're both so busy that it's hard to justify otherwise. When you don't have enough time to raise your children you can't really go “I want to go bowling with Paul,” the wife's not crazy about it. We find projects.
People are ridiculously excited about Stephen's book.
It's gonna be good.
It's gonna be number one for months, I can tell already. I saw some previews of the book and it looks like it will be awesome.
Great.
From what I saw, it seemed like a combination of Wigfield and America: The Book in a lot of ways.
That's not a bad way to describe it. It has elements of both, but it definitely feels like it’s own thing. I love his character. He's so opinionated and he's so wrong. I think it's going to be out in the fall, I think we're done in June.
Why don't you really take credit for your work in Amy and Stephen's projects?
Because I'm a saint. It depends on what it is. I mean, depending on the project, it goes both ways in that it only goes one way. No, it goes both ways. I've done stuff where I've run it by Stephen and he doesn’t get credit. With Amy's book, it was her thing. I was happy to help.
I guess the real reason is we're all such close friends and we've been working so long together that the last thing I think about is taking credit. Amy and I will come up with TV show ideas all day when we're hanging out, just for the hell of it. Our work and friendship now is really blurred. It seems natural for me to help work on her book. I never really thought “oh you gotta list me as a writer”.
Stephen and Amy and I always got together well because we have this same sort of mindset that the working process and product is more important than how much credit you get. I think Stephen got tired of that, so that's why he created a character where everything is all about Colbert. It's all about him. Maybe I'll have to do that one of these days.
All about Paul.
People wanted me to ask some fannish questions: Favorite books, favorite music, stuff like that.
Uh oh. That means I’ll have to come up with something cool. I'll just tell you what I read last, The Glass Castle [by Jeannette Walls], I really liked that. Web of Deceit by Barry Lando. That’s about how Britain and America have really fucked up Iraq. That was a lot of laughs. I read Sebastian Junger's latest book, A Death in Belmont. I thought that was really good. It was interesting. The guy who confessed to being the Boston strangler was doing housework for his mother. So it's pretty creepy.
I like the new Arcade Fire [Neon Bible], I liked the album before, Funeral I think it's called, I like that album better. I like Heavy Trash, that's Jon Spencer's new band.
I'm really tragically un-hip when it comes to music.
I'm not that hip either, I'm all over the place.
I like Flamenco music. I took bouzouki lessons so I was listening to all this rembetika, which is Greek folk music– it's like gypsy music-- but it's almost all about drugs. Their love of drugs and infidelity and stuff. The music is a really great sort of wailing so I was listening to a lot of that.
How did you get into playing bouzouki?
I played guitar and I like to learn new stuff, but my arm has to be twisted or I'll never do it. So I sign up for lessons, and that forces me to learn stuff, and in this case, bouzouki. My teacher wasn’t the greatest teacher, but I like hanging out with him. I learned some Greek songs, and got to hear about his exploits in a Greek wedding band. What more can you ask for? Bouzouki music is one of those things that can be really annoying unless you are the one playing it. I’m sure when people listen to me play it sounds like I’m strangling a goose. It's a little rough. It's essentially a stringed gourd. How pretty can that be? But they're gypsies, what do they know?
