The Incomparable David Wain Previews Season Four Of WAINY DAYS For Mr. Beaks!

Now that David Wain is a big-time director of blockbuster studio comedies (ROLE MODELS has grossed close to $800 million worldwide), you might be concerned that he'll no longer have time for the zanier, less mainstream fare that transformed him into the filmmaking force of nature he is today. Well, fear not. Though Wain is definitely on the studios' radar after enjoying what he calls his "first ever financially successful venture" (because the universe sucks, WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER did not do DARK KNIGHT dollars), he has no intention of watering down his sensibility for a quick commercial payday. And to prove this, he's returned with the fourth season of his award-winning internet series WAINY DAYS!! Centered on the dating misfortunes of the fictional David (who inexplicably toils at a sweatshop with pals A.D. Miles and Zandy Hartig), the show is - at around six-minutes-per-episode - basically an excuse for Wain to humiliate himself as a romantic lead while still making out with some of the most attractive actresses working today (e.g. Elizabeth Banks, Saffron Burrows, Sarah Clarke, Rashida Jones and Elizabeth Reaser). To understand how this works, just click over to MyDamnChannel and select any show from the first three seasons. You won't regret it. Or, better yet, take a gander at this exclusive preview from the Season Four premiere, "Jill", starring Amanda Peet! To see how David's perversely appealing deficiencies work against him, click over to MyDamnChannel on Thursday, May 7th. Rosemarie DeWitt and Lake Bell will also be appearing during this tantalizingly brief four-episode run - which could be the prelude to an expansion of the series. As for whether Wain keeps the show on the web or takes it to television, that's still up in the air. What's clear, though, is that Wain is absolutely inventive enough to make this work at a standard sitcom length. Seeing as how WAINY DAYS is already one of the most reliably hilarious shows out there (it makes me laugh as consistently as HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN), I'd love to see it make the leap. Now, if you are a fan of THE STATE, you probably know that we are getting THE STATE on DVD this July 14th. Finally. But what about the infamous CBS Halloween special? According to Wain, that might actually be a little easier to get out on DVD than the MTV show. To find out why, you'll just have to read the below interview - which is stunningly coherent despite the fact that Wain called me a full twenty minutes early. Being that I'm an inveterate procrastinator, this could've been a disaster. Fortunately, I'm a awkward interviewer no matter when you call, so I'm sure he couldn't tell the difference.

Beaks: How closely do the events of this show mirror your own dating experiences?

David Wain: (Laughs) It's closer than you would think. The whole idea of this show was inspired by the fact that I have had, in the many single years of my twenties and thirties, so many... I wouldn't even dignify it to call them relationships... with so many different women. I definitely met many different kinds of people, and screwed up with each of them - in retrospect - in many funny ways. Many of the episodes are, to a greater or lesser extent, inspired by real experiences that I had. Or not. Some of them I didn't even write. During the thick of the production of ROLE MODELS, I farmed out a lot of the writing to friends of mine. I had no time. So, you know, some of them are a little more fanciful or absurd or crazy, but a lot of it is either totally "inspired by"; there are certainly lines and moments taken directly from my experiences.

Beaks: So it's kind of an amplification of your bad dating experiences?

Wain: Yes. I would say that about my whole career, but sure.

Beaks: (Laughs) But you can't say that anymore!

Wain: Right.

Beaks: And you shouldn't have said it then. But that's interesting that your actual experiences have informed [WAINY DAYS]. I think a lot of people watch this and just think it's just some zany show filled with the craziest ideas you can conjure up.

Wain: A lot of it is just remembering different scenes. "Oh, I remember that one day when this happened," and you take that and turn it into a five-minute sketch. And add things. There is some creative part of it, too.

Beaks: Do you have a WAINY DAYS notebook dedicated solely to ideas for the show?

Wain: It's funny, but no. Every time it's time to write one, I'm like, "Ugh, I don't know." It's just that I've used every idea I can think of up until now, so when it's time to write more, I then have to think of more. But I'll be walking around or in conversations with friends, and I'll come up with something that might be an idea for it - and I guess I do write that down. But mostly I don't think about it that much until I'm sitting down writing it.

Beaks: How tightly scripted is the show? Are you coming up with ideas while you're shooting, or riffing a bit?

Wain: A little bit, but we shoot them so quickly. We usually shoot two a day, so we don't have a lot of time to go long and improv. But we certainly keep it loose, and we're always open to another idea or screwing around with it. Depending on what it is, we basically shoot the script.

Beaks: When it comes to recruiting guest stars for the show, how far in advance do you get people to commit to doing it?

Wain: Sometimes it's the night before, sometimes it's the day of, sometimes it's the week before. I procrastinate even writing the script, and then suddenly we have it and I have to call somebody. But that's really the fun part: getting to have all of these great actors come and [be on the show]. What's nice is that most actors couldn't commit to something that far in advance anyway, because they're not going to cancel a real booking to do this. The whole thing comes together in the week before we shoot, and that's the fun part of it. It's like, "Oh, this person happens to be in New York just today." That's how we got Amanda Peet. She happened to be in New York for a couple of days, so I got in touch with her and I was like, "Come do this thing, it'll take you an hour."

Beaks: Mostly, it seems like people who you are already familiar with, but is there any cold-calling of people you'd just like to work with?

Wain: Absolutely. It's not entirely people who I knew before. Alicia Witt is someone who I'd never met. I just really loved her, so we called her people, and, sure enough, she came. We do that with a lot of people.

Beaks: Now this is an award-winning series, and it's also very popular online. So I'm wondering if anyone's come calling to see if you'd be interested in expanding it? I guess it would be like how the LOOK AROUND YOU guys went from ten-minute shorts to a half-hour format.

Wain: Oh, my god, I love that show!

Beaks: Both iterations of it are incredible.

Wain: Incredible. But the answer is that I would love to evolve the format in some way. One of the obvious suggestions is make it a TV show. I'm also trying to think - because the web is expanding in so many different and interesting ways - of other iterations of it. Wherever it may end up, I'm definitely excited to evolve it.

Beaks: I was thinking Adult Swim could be a good home for it.

Wain: Sure!

Beaks: There probably isn't an answer to this, but why do you have them working in a sweatshop?

Wain: There's certainly no interesting, funny or great answer to that. I just thought that you have that classic scene in a romantic comedy where the guy is at work or talking to his friends, and I just thought, "Where's the least likely place I would work?"

Beaks: Now... (Pause) I'm trying to think...

Wain: It sounds like you didn't take enough time to prepare your questions.

Beaks: (Laughs) Well, I was in the middle of doing that when you called.

Wain: That was my reference to that.

Beaks: Oh, good. Well, fuck it, let's just do this: whenever I interview any member of The State, we always have to do the "When is the DVD coming out?" question. This is the first time where I can't ask that question.

Wain: It's kind of an amazing phenomenon. I feel like there's this real sense of loss. I can't imagine having an interview or interaction with a fan on the street without being asked that question. And now it can't be asked anymore.

Beaks: Well, hopefully the constant bombardment helped break down that dam a little. There was always a demand for the DVD.

Wain: It's so nice. We're very, very happy that it's coming out.

Beaks: Since our last interview, there was talk that you might direct LITTLE FOCKERS. Was there anything to that?

Wain: There was. I definitely met with a lot of the power [people] in that scene. (Laughs) But we both ultimately agreed that that wasn't quite the right match. I don't know that I would've done it under any circumstances, and I don't know if they would've ultimately gone with me. But I was on the list, and I did meet with everybody and talk about it.

Beaks: Obviously, it behooves you to be open to studio projects, and to do that one-for-me/one-for-them thing. But aren't you at least looking for a project where a little bit of your sensibility can be present?

Wain: Of course. And, honestly, I think ROLE MODELS is the example of the minimum of my sensibility; I would like to keep it at least that much. ROLE MODELS was a real combination of a mainstream studio, somewhat formulaic idea with my voice layered in as heavily as I would be able to. My intention and hope - and I think we did it - is that they're not competing against each other. I'd like to do something like that again if possible. If not, I don't have any intention of not making things like WAINY DAYS, THE TEN, STELLA or WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER. That's exactly why I probably wasn't going to do [LITTLE FOCKERS]. For that movie, to really layer in my voice probably wouldn't have been a good service to that franchise. It would've been disappointing to people who were expecting a certain kind of movie. But who knows what they're going to end up doing exactly. I know that John Hamburg is again writing, and Hamburg is hysterical; he's someone who has an overlapping sensibility with mine. Primarily, I'm interested in things I have a hand in writing and creating - from the inception of the idea. Again, having only done my first financially successful project, who knows what I'll be forced to do. But that would be my preference.

Beaks: I think you've probably bought yourself some time. Do you have any features you're developing now?

Wain: Yeah, I'm actually writing with Ken Marino. If all goes well, that will be the next film.

Beaks: It feels like THE STATE alums have been a little more versatile than folks from other sketch comedy troupes in their ability to get so many diverse projects going. You're more willing to push boundaries.

Wain: I sometimes step out of the picture frame, look back, and say, "Okay, there were these freshman friends at NYU who said, 'We're going to do this for a long time and work together our whole careers...'" I can't believe that, thus far, that's actually happened. It's a very lucky and amazing thing that happened. This group, in various ways, has stayed together since 1988. The State is very much like a family in every way: in the way that there are conflicts, in the way that there is love, in the way that we never really shed each other ultimately. (Laughs) I don't think we'll ever not be associated with each other - in the public eye or otherwise. And I'm quite proud of this.

Beaks: What's the possibility of us seeing the CBS show?

Wain: That's the one thing in the whole world that we actually control. We hope that we will be able to release that. Someone will just have to step up to the plate and want to release it. We have it. It's available. And the truth is that we would love for people to see it. Right now, there is this incredible convergence of State-related stuff coming out this summer. MICHAEL AND MICHAEL HAVE ISSUES will be on Comedy Central, A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 [written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant], RENO 911... it's amazing how many of us are doing things that are out now. Maybe that's an opportunity for people to go back and discover THE STATE - and maybe they'd be interested in that [CBS] special. I love that special. And I don't know if this is going anywhere, but people have expressed interest in rereleasing our book [STATE BY STATE WITH THE STATE].

WAINY DAYS premieres at MyDamnChannel this Thursday, May 7th. I can't recommend it highly enough. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks