One of the best times I've ever had making a movie. Kind of hard not to have fun with that crew. Anything Craig Robinson says makes me laugh. I think Channing Tatum is most like his character.
Question: I've always wondered how you managed to get so many big name guest stars on Robot Chicken. Was it all purely professional negotiation, or was there a lot of getting friends to spend an afternoon doing you a solid?
Answer: A little of both. I asked a lot of favors in our first season, but as the show became popular, we got approached by performers who wanted to play with us. We always ask, and are thrilled when people say yes. I think it's lots of fun, so I always present it to performers that way.
Christopher Walken was great, and he always had funny things to say. He worked on a movie called MOUSE TRAP and explained how it's different working with an actor dog than an actor mouse. It was one of the best conversations I've ever been involved with.
Being on Curb was the most fun I've ever had other than watching my twin boys clown around for me. It was like comedy fantasy camp. Larry David is another mega-hero for me. I auditioned and got cast as Yari, the vaguely foreign softball coach/mechanic. But I didn't know until I showed up for the shoot that they wanted me to do a speech to the team. So I asked Larry Charles, the director, if it's okay to curse. And he gave me the answer I wanted to hear. So I had about ten minutes to write a couple of things down that made me laugh. Then we shot it and Larry didn't know what was coming. I've heard he's an easy laugher but still, seeing him crack up felt like alley-ooping to Michael Jordan. I'...
Lots of fun working with Louis, man. Louis' a little nutty, so you never know what he's going to come up with. The fact he came up with POOTIE TANG alone... but he's a great director and a great writer.
Only worked with him that one day on Chappelle. I really loved Patrice. But he had complicated energy. I sort of diffused on chappelle by whispering to him, "I know you don't listening to people, but..." And he was like, "Nahh...Where'd you hear that?" Meanwhile, he hated listening to people. One things about Patrice: He's the only person in my entire life who ever called me on the phone out of the blue just to tell me he thought I was funny. Another thing: I wanted to act in a pilot I co-wrote and was directing with Dov Davidoff. This is in 2009. I call Patrice. I go, "Dude, I want you to be in this pilot. But are you gonna be a pain in the ass?" He's like, "Neal, how the fuck you gonna cal...
It was very fun. Amy is a joy to watch work. I learned a lot from seeing her on set. She is involved with every part of the shoot and she is extremely upbeat and charismatic at 5'oclock in the morning even if she didn't want to be because she knew it was important for everyone involved in the shoot.
Eric is extremely creative and driven and when he's on camera he wants to make it a moment. He's incredibly prepared and he's a smart dude.
The best part of working with him is that I really don't have to do anything but be myself and react.
It was amazing fun. I discovered Louie online and cast him in The Invention of Lying. We became great friends and he returned the favour by letting me work on his first series of Louie. He said I could ad lib , so what was I meant to do but insult the big, fat, sweaty, bald, ginger slob?
[I love him]
Farley offstage was everything you would expect him to be. Fun loving, reckless and often inappropriate. We had a thing -- If he was getting out of hand I would raise my eyebrows and he would respond with, "What? Take it down a notch?" Miss him.
One time Bob despised a sketch of mine so much at a readthru, he told me what was wrong with it for a full ten minutes before concluding, "So I guess I'm saying I hate this sketch and it's trying to kill me," as he dropped it on the ground.
I wouldn't want to ruin someone else's act. I have to say when I was on Lucky Louie I loved acting with Pamela Adlon. That was like being a comedy team. She had all the skills.
Well, I always felt especially bad that Charlie was disappointed by the show because he uprooted from LA and was definitely expected the show to be innovative and groundbreaking. Now, lots of people think it was, and if you check it out, there are plenty of sketches like Grandma the Clown, First Ladies as Dogs, Waiters Who Get Nauseated by Food, The Stupid Pranksters, and, yeah, the first Ace and Gary cartoon, and I'd say those and others were smart and original. We also had a legendary star performer who did amazing impressions and had beloved characters. So writing to the star's strengths, which included writing for his Regis, Perot etc. was always going to be an important ingredient. I ki...
I started doing comedy in 2002 and I had a VHS tape of one of my first few sets. I took it to my RA, Open Mike Eagle. He watched it and said you sound like this dude, he played some Hedberg for me. I thought it was amazing.
Mitch played Zanies in Chicago in 2005. I was brand new and I went up to his green room and asked for a spot. (This was really obnoxious but I was hungry and ambitious.) The next night he let and 3-4 other Chicago comedians that he never met perform on a sold out show of his fans. That's unheard of. Comedians just don't do that type of shit. I won't do that shit now. I can be in the greatest mood ever and I won't let a stranger on my show. It went well and he let me open...
That was on Louie ck's first short film called "Caesar's Salad" I played the part of "crazy pumpkin head" where I charged a group of people with a knife. Nick was one of them. We used a real knife and I dropped it on nick's foot in the scene. Went through his shoe and everything. He had to go the hospital. But he did get a bit out of it.
Bill Burr is as funny as you would imagine, but he is also a very serious actor who was not afraid to show a kind, sweet, vulnerable side in the film. I think people will be blown away by his performance.
Q: What was it like working with Jonathan Winters? I remember him being one of my father's favorite comedians and you were mine so we kind of bonded over Mork & Mindy in a slightly bizarre way.
A: It was a joy. I believe i said in the Academy Awards it was like dancing with Fred Astaire but it was even better than that, because being around him, he would perform for anybody. There was no audience too small. I think I once saw him do a cat for a beagle.
And I had the same experience watching the Tonight Show with my dad. Watching and laughing at Jonathan with my dad helped us become closer, very much so. My favorite Jonathan Winters one liner is "Have you ever undressed in front of a dog?"
Pendleton is exactly the way you would hope him to be if you're a fan of his work. Imagine being some kind of potion vendor in a fantasy world and one day a famous powerful wizard sends you a message that says "I enjoy your potions!" Then imagine that wizard invites you into his tower of sorcery and for a couple of years you get to help him and his sorcerer friends cast powerful spells that you sort of imagined were possible but had never witnessed yourself. Add two of the cutest pug-dogs on earth to the creatures living in the tower and That's what it's like working with Pendleton Ward.
Dino Stamatopoulos