Hey folks, Harry here.... Though Quint and the Austin crew be stuck in Austin during SUNDANCE.... that should be no reason why we shouldn't... ya know conduct sit down interviews with folks that have films premiering at SUNDANCE.... And SERIES 7: THE CONTENDER has been taking their people on the road to various cities for interviews and screenings of their film leading up to SUNDANCE.... Sort of like a publicity warm up in advance of the marathon that is Sundance. I've seen this movie and liked it quite a bit... though I felt that personally... it would have been more powerful and a superior work of satire had I seen it for the first time on Television as opposed to watching it on the big screen. Being in a movie theater watching this.... sort of felt like... a movie theater, and everything else about SERIES 7: THE CONTENDER feels exactly TV... including the aspect ratio and even the bumpers. But enough of me... onto Quint and his interview with the director and star of SERIES 7: THE CONTENDER....
Ahoy squirts! Aye, it's the indubitably crusty seaman, Quint, here once more. This time I got a peek at some scar sharin' I did with Dan Minahan and Brooke Smith, the director and star of one of Sundance's big flicks, Series 7: The Contender. Series 7 is a satire of reality TV shows like Cops, The Real World or those Fox Car Chase/Shoot-out/killer animals/deadly babies/"when butterflies attack" specials. You'll get more detail below. Be forewarned, for those of you spoiler-squemish watch out. This interview's full of 'em. Also take note, Brooke and Dan talked over each other a lot. Sometimes I couldn't decipher what they both were saying, so you'll see a few trade offs during the interview when one interrupts the other.
The interview was conducted at the Driskel Hotel in Austin, a hotel
notorious for being infested with ghosts. We touch upon that and a great
many other things during the course of this talk. I'm warning you guys in
advance, this interview goes alllllll over the place. From Series 7 to
Silence of the Lambs to ghosts making noises in the night to Willy Freaking
Wonka. It's a lot of fun, but don't say I didn't warn ya'.
QUINT: I KNOW THAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING THESE INTERVIEWS FOR A WHILE, PROMOTING SERIES 7. I WAS TOLD THAT YOU'VE BEEN DOING THIS SINCE...
BROOKE SMITH: Oh, did they warn you? Did they say, "If they're a little crazy..." (laughs)
Q: NO, NO. I WAS JUST HOPING I WOULDN'T BE ASKING TOO MANY QUESTIONS YOU'VE ALREADY ANSWERED A BILLION TIMES.
BS: Don't worry. That's why we're here, right.
Q: COOL. EITHER ONE OF YOU CAN ANSWER THIS FIRST QUESTION... SO, WHOEVER WANTS TO GIVE OUR READERS A RUNDOWN OF SERIES 7, GO ON AHEAD.
DAN MINAHAN: You mean describe the set-up?
BS: Can I go to the (bathroom) while you do that?
DM: Yeah.
Q: (LAUGHS)
DM: Series 7 is a movie that pretends to be a TV show, pretends to be a reality TV show where 6 people are randomly selected in a lottery, they're assigned a camera man and a gun and the last one left standing wins. Brooke's character, Dawn Lagarto is the reigning contender, the reigning champion. She comes back to her home town for her last tour on the show. She gets out of this one she's free.
To complicate things, she's 8 and three quarters months pregnant, she could have the baby at any moment. She gets to her home town, she tries to make amends with her family, asks them to take the baby if anything happens to her. Her family rejects her, she's totally on her own and to make matters worse, one of the people that's been selected to battle against her is her high school sweetheart who she has a lot of unfinished business with.
So, that's the set up. It's a total, you know, soap opera/real world, you know, crazy set up, but that was my intention.
Q: OF COURSE. AND YOU GOT MR. VOICE TO NARRATE IT WHICH WAS REALLY COOL.
BS: Mr. Voice! (laughs)
Q: DAN, WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS OF THIS PROJECT?
DM: I use to be a TV producer. I never worked on a reality TV show. I actually worked on news magazine shows, tabloidy stuff. I worked for MTV, I worked for BBC and finally I worked the longest stint at Fox on some of their tabloidy shows. I was trained as a documentary filmmaker and at a certain point I got really interested in reality TV because it was like documentary only it was way jacked up and really exploitive and outrageous... I couldn't stop watching, I just had to see how far they'd take it. I was a big freak for Cops and The Real World and Rescue 911 and all these shows.
That's really what inspired it... then all my favorite movies growing up like The Stepford Wives, Rollerball and Soylent Green, these kind of slightly sci-fi, slightly cautionary tales. So, I kinda put that all in a blender and came up with Series 7.
Q: ROLLERBALL IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES.
BS: They just remade it!
DM: Why?
Q: I KNOW AND IT'S GONNA SUCK.
DM: It's gonna bite, right?
Q: ALL SIGNS CURRENTLY POINT TO YES. FROM WHAT I'VE HEARD IT STARTED OFF WITH A TERRIFIC SCRIPT WHICH GOT THROWN OUT AFTER IT WAS GREENLIT AND THE CURRENT SCRIPT SUCKS. BUT EARLY ON THERE WERE ALL THESE COOL RUMORS, LIKE HOW THEY WANTED CHOW YUN FAT TO PLAY JONATHAN.
BS: Ahhhh! (FAST INTAKE OF AIR)
DM: Wow!
BS: And can I say, just for the record, am I gonna get in trouble here? I heard they were doing a remake of Rollerball and I called and I was like, "I want to be in this," and you know what they said to me? "We don't believe you as a Russian." I was like, "What?"
DM: Russians?
BS: Yeah because the only women were like bad Russians, meanwhile I'm married to a Russian if you must know and I got really pissed. I was like, "What do you mean?" Then I saw the preview and all the little...
DM:... instead of a corporate thing. The corporate thing's a little too close to the truth, maybe.
BS: Yeah, but it's time we stop blaming everything on the Russians, don't you think! Anyway... I know. Bummer. The original was amazing... well, we don't know. Maybe it's amazing, we haven't seen it.
Q: TRUE, BUT CHRIS KLEIN IS NO JAMES CAAN.
DM: He was great.
(SOMETHING RUMBLES IN THE CABINET HOLDING THE TV)
BS: Oh... That's the ghost knocking. We were haunted last night.
Q: REALLY?
BS: Yeah. Do you live in Austin?
Q: YEAH, I'VE HEARD ABOUT THE DRISKEL'S GHOSTS...
DM: We got so creeped out the first night in my room. We were like, "What's going on here?" Then the next day, it was like, "Oh, yeah. There are ghosts here."
BS: We kept asking people.
DM: Then we found out someone committed suicide in the room next to mine.
BS: It was like, "Now you tell us!" Now when we couldn't sleep all night." The phone kept ringing and no one was there. I mean, don't get me started.
DM: Someone drank half of a Diet Coke...
BS: (laughs and claps her hands)
DM:... and put it back in my minibar.
BS: And it wasn't me. It wasn't me! You think it was, but it wasn't. All right. Enough of that. Series 7.
Q: YEAH, MAYBE WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT THE MOVIE...
BS: I'm saying it to myself, otherwise I'll spin off into God knows where.
DM: I know where.
BS: You know where? Oh no. (laughs)
Q: I'LL HELP YA' OUT. WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO THE MOVIE IN THE FIRST PLACE, BROOKE?
BS: Um...
DM: The huge paycheck.
BS: Oh yeah, it was definitely the money.
(EVERYBODY LAUGHS)
BS: That's why I did it. Oh my God! Now I can't even think. I'm just going to think about all the bills I have waiting for me when I get home. Um... I thought... First of all, satire. Wow. Haven't seen that in a while. I was just waiting for somebody, basically, and I didn't realize at the time it was Dan, to come along and come up with something that sort of says exactly where we're at. You know what I mean?
Originally, we went to the... I don't know if he told you when I was in the bathroom... went to the filmmaker's workshop at Sundance where we workshoped it.
DM: We were invited there to put up scenes. You take your script there and you basically shoot about 5 scenes. You spend a month there, bring free actors and shoot on videotape and get a dry run of your script. That's how we met. I wrote this with Brooke in mind, so when I got invited there I brought her.
BS: Without even knowing me. Pretty cool, right? So, we went there and worked on it and at that point there was this sort of behind the scenes thing, which made it much easier for me to make the character three dimensional and sort of show her humanity. So, then he was like, "All right. It's all gonna be the show." I was like, "Oh, God!" because it was so much more challenging to try to be this real person...
Everything was very tightly scripted except for the interviews, the before and after scenes. The Real World kind of thing. I remember once saying to Dan/the producer...
DM: At first I was just going to take on the role of the producer, so she was like really defiant.
BS: Yeah.
DM: And I was really pressing her in interviews...
BS: 'Cause I kept feeling like I was being shoved into this soundbite, you know. I kept feeling that exploitation, which I see all the time and I don't really see people fighting back, so...
DM: She was like, "I don't know why I'm telling you this anyway, 'cause you're not gonna put this in the show. You're just going to do whatever you want to do anyway." The point is, yeah, after watching those shows you realize how easy it is to misrepresent someone and how exploited they are.
BS: And how the deck gets so stacked against you. What I think what's
different about Series 7, as opposed to Series 6 and Series 5 (laughs),
is... Oh, I'm so confused already... is that Jeff comes along. She's on a
mission, she's gotta do what she's gotta do and then it's like...
DM: She's not really thinking about it.
BS:... this person that means a lot to her comes along and it's like, "Urgh. I'm forced to play this out in this world?" Very icky. So, I think, to answer the question...
DM: (laughs)
BS: I just like that she was totally nonconformist. Very alive and real...
DM: Bumps and all.
BS:... and honest. Bumps and all. Dan likes to say that. Bumps and all. I'll go to sleep now. (lays down on the couch)
(EVERYBODY LAUGHS)
Q: WELL, LIKE I MENTIONED EARLIER, WATCHING IT... IT REALLY CAME ACROSS... DID I MENTION THIS TO YOU? (PAUSE) YEAH I DID... I'M CONFUSED, TOO.
BS: See! It happens at the Driskel! It's the Driskel! It is.
Q: YEAH, IT'S THE GHOSTS' INFLUENCE. THEY'RE MESSING AROUND WITH MY HEAD.
BS: Just don't start talking in tongues because it's gonna really freak me out. Imagine if he's like "ararahahahrra." (laughs)
Q: WELL, THE MOVIE COMES ACROSS NOT LIKE A MOVIE, BUT LIKE 3 TV SHOWS BACK TO BACK. I WAS JUST WONDERING WHAT STEPS YOU TOOK TO MAKE SURE IT DIDN'T FEEL LIKE SOMEBODY MAKING A MOVIE ABOUT REALITY TV BUT LIKE AN ACTUAL REALITY SHOW.
DM: It's a movie! (everybody laughs) No, it really is. It's like a slight of hand. As much as this looks like a TV show and smells like a TV show there's real movie craft in there and I think it's so good that you don't realize. (laughs) Originally, when I wrote it it had a three act structure and there was three half hour episodes and when we got into the editing room, we kinda cut it together like it was a marathon.
But it's actually a very classical movie structure and it really does all the things that a movie is supposed to do except I set the limitation on myself that I would only use story telling devices that you'd use in TV. Like dramatic recreation, confessional interviews...
BS: Sappy music.
DM: Yeah... Not sappy! Wonderful music!
BS: Oh yeah. OK.
DM: The whole thing is like, "Do I laugh or is this really bad?" or "Do I laugh or cry?" or "Is it OK to laugh at this?" So, I tried to keep the tone really, really straight and make the point through exaggeration. When we had behind the scenes, you could make the point by showing the hypocrisy of what happened on TV and what happened backstage. I think it's much more radical (the way the movie is now) because if you want to make something that's critical of television you should use the same language they use on TV.
BS: It took me a while to agree with him on that because I think I was feeling the exploitation that Dawn felt because it was obviously a lot harder for me. I like the fact, I feel like I'm repeating myself now and I might be, but I don't really watch TV at all and Dan gave me these tapes of Real World and Cops and I was like, "Urgh! Please! Here we go!" Then it was like I could not stop watching it.
DM: She'd be watching these shows and she would call me up in the middle of the night like, "Oh my God! Are you watching this?!?!?" I was like, "No."
BS: "I was sleeping." But I think that's far more honest than standing apart and sort of pointing fingers. You know what I mean? It's like...
DM: People keep trying to get me to say reality TV is bad and I'm like, "I can't say it's bad. I love it! I watch it!" (laughs)
BS: I'm not really into it, but I'm into the pure cops like Real World and Cops...
DM: They're for purists. (laughs)
BS: I don't like Survivor. I don't like the mean spirited shows where they vote you off or they try to steal your boyfriend...
DM: Yeah, that's too much like real life.
BS: The million dollars would be nice, but of course we already know that's exactly what I made on this picture.
(EVERYBODY LAUGHS)
Q: WELL, YOU GOT YOUR OWN TRADING CARD...
BS: I did!!
DM: Isn't that awesome?
Q: YEAH, THE PUBLICIST LADY GAVE ME SOME BEFORE I CAME IN.
BS: No gum, though. I thought there'd be gum.
DM: Did you get the whole set?
Q: I GOT THE PACK OF SIX.
DM: Oh, good.
BS: We got stickers, too!!! Where's our stickers?
DM: Goddamn it! Let me get you a sticker before you go. It's in my room.
BS: It has the webpage on it (Series7Movie.Com). Do those (my cards) have the webpage on them?
DM: Yes.
BS: Merchandise.
DM: Merchandise... hehe. Collect all six!
Q: THE PUBLICITY PEOPLE AND I WERE TALKING DOWNSTAIRS AND DECIDED THAT THERE SHOULD BE A SEVENTH CARD IN ONE PACK THAT YOU HAND OUT AT PROMOS AND IF YOU FIND IT YOU GET TO BECOME A CONTENDER.
DM: Well, there is a seventh card.
BS: Willy Wonka!!!
DM: The seventh card is the lady that pulls the balls (QUINT NOTE: LIKE A LOTTERY, YOU FILTHY MINDED PEOPLE!).
BS: (Singing) I've got a Golden Ticket... I love that movie.
DM: There's definitely a Willy Wonka aspect to it.
BS: I LOVE that movie.
DM: It's so mean to children. I love that movie.
BS: Dude, do I get to be Gene Wilder? Is that who Dawn is? (laughs) Not quite.
Q: I HEARD A SUPER SPECIAL WILLY WONKA DVD IS IN THE WORKS THAT HAS A COMMENTARY TRACK WITH ALL FIVE OF THE GOLDEN TICKET WINNERS.
BS: Really?
DM: Is Gene Wilder still alive?
Q: YES.
BS: Of course!
Q: YEAH AND I THINK I HEARD THEY DID AN INTERVIEW WITH HIM ABOUT WILLY WONKA FOR THE DVD, WHICH WOULD BE AMAZING SINCE HE NEVER REALLY TALKS ABOUT WILLY WONKA.
DM: Why?
Q: I'M NOT SURE. PEOPLE THINK HE DIDN'T LIKE THE FILM OR THE EXPERIENCE MAKING IT, BUT I THINK HE WAS A LITTLE HURT BY THE FAILURE OF THE MOVIE UPON ITS ORIGINAL RELEASE.
DM: What?
Q: IT DID POORLY AT THE BOX OFFICE.
DM AND BS TOGETHER: IT DID!!!!!
BS: Oh, my God. It's one of my favorite movies.
DM: I had the soundtrack album.
Q: I LOVE THE MOVIE, TOO. YOU KNOW, I MET MIKE TEEVEE AT THE SAN DIEGO COMIC CON LAST YEAR.
DM: You what? You met Mike TeeVee?
BS: Who's Mike Tee... OH NO!!!! You did?!?! What's he do now?
DM: Is he really old now?
Q: HE REALLY DOESN'T LOOK A THING LIKE HE DID IN THE FILM, BUT WHEN YOU LOOK AT HIM STRAIGHT ON AND SEE HIS EYES AND HEAR HIM TALK... YOU JUST GO, "MY GOD! THERE'S ADULT MIKE TEEVEE!"
DM: I want to meet Augustus Gloop.
BS: Adult Mike TeeVee! (laughs)
DM: Adult TeeVee Mike, like adult TV.
BS: We've gotta get out of this hotel! (Pause) For adults only! (laughs) Oh man. So, I gotta get a DVD player then.
DM: They're awesome!
BS: I'm a little on the last... I don't have a cell phone or anything. It's a choice I made, dammit.
Q: DVD'S THE WAY TO GO IF YOU'RE A MOVIE FAN.
BS: If they're going to have Willy Wonka, I'll do it. I just did the 10 year anniversary DVD interview for Silence of the Lambs. 10 YEARS!!!
DM: She was like, "What? Great..."
BS: I can't hardly remember it. Literally, I was like, "Oh, right. Jodie Foster..." Anyway, enough about me.
Q: IN THE WRAP-UP OF YOUR CHARACTER IN SERIES 7, WE SEE YOU KILL A BUNCH OF PEOPLE FROM PREVIOUS EPISODES. WHICH MURDER DID YOU ENJOY ENACTING THE MOST?
BS: Favorite?
DM: You know which one.
BS: You mean the elevator?
DM: You loved that? I thought you loved Christine in the toilet.
BS: Oh, that was fun. The girl who I shove her head in the toilet, she's the costume designer. She's sort of a method costume designer... she got me this big, hunkin' 15 pound maternity thing and so it was like time for revenge. "You're gonna make me wear this thing everyday? In there!!!!"
DM: She would have liked to kill the make-up artist, too.
BS: No, I was going to say there was something about that... You know, I have to say, honestly, it wasn't fun to shoot this movie. I mean, it's great now to look at it, but it didn't feel fun at the time.
DM: She was really there, really doin' it.
BS: I was really doing it and I kinda really...
DM: Actually killed one person...
BS: Yeah... Shhhhhh... Anyway, that first kill in the movie, not in the montage, that was our gun wrangler Moe Defino and I got physically ill afterwards because I believed it. You know what I mean? Because you take a gun, you walk in, you shoot someone that close and he falls and you're just like...
DM: That was the thing that was so shocking about it when we shot the stuff. It's one thing to write it on the page and imagine it, but when the actors start doing it...
BS: If you really do it. Of course it's acting...
DM: To do a violent scene is really scare. I keep thinking of the scene where Connie and Jeff do battle in the hospital room...
BS: And they fall on the floor!!!
DM: That wasn't scripted. It was all supposed to happen on the bed because she's, you know (QUINT NOTE: SHE'S OLD!). Then she just got it in her head when he fell over there instead of falling on the bed, she dove off the bed and landed on him. She stood up and we all went, "Oh my God!!!"
BS: Everyone really threw themselves into it, I guess.
DM: Everyone really went for it. We really committed ourselves early on to play it really straight...
BS: Because the one in the elevator, to get back to that, because (to Dan) Go to Sleep! Dan was sort of like, "OK. It's a montage of killing." I was like, "Is this the first time I've killed somebody? Is this self defense? What is this? Did this person come after me?" And you're like, "Whatever, Brooke. I'm going to go set up the shot." I remember that one. See, I loved it. I started crying after I killed that lady 'cause she fell on the ground and there was blood everywhere. I thought as an actress, "Oh, this is so great, they're going to use this!" No. It was so sad, so I cried, but of course they didn't put that in.
DM: Because the show would portray her as a cold hearted killer.
BS: It's interesting... In Silence of the Lambs it was the same kinda thing. If I threw myself into it and really screamed my ass off and really went there, I was so relaxed after. I'd come out to lunch, I'd be like, "Yeahhhh..." and everybody was like totally freaked out. So, I can see now why you guys were like really tense.
Q: THIS ONE GOES TO BOTH OF YOU, SO WHOEVER WANTS TO ANSWER FIRST.
BS: Uh-oh. This one goes out to...
Q: WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE SCENE IN THE MOVIE?
DM: I like them all.
BS: I have to see it again. I only saw it once. (Pause) I love Lindsey. I
love that little girl. I love when that guy says to her...
DM: "Fuck all virgins."
BS: "Fuck all virgins." I love her reaction. She's so real.
DM: She was really in the moment.
BS: It's just incredible to me. She's amazing.
DM: My favorite scene, I'd have to say, is the first scene that we shot which was the scene in the garage where she steals her sister's car.
BS: SUV. Can you believe it? I had to, right? I had to take her SUV. She didn't learn anything, did she, that sister of mine? Yeah, I don't know. There are some good ones in there. I have to see it again.
DM: What's your favorite scene?
Q: OH, TURNING THE TABLES ARE WE? I'D HAVE TO SAY (QUINT NOTE: AT THIS POINT DAN LEANS OVER AND LOOKS AT MY TAPE RECORDER) MAKING SURE IT'S STILL GOING?
DM: Yeah.
BS: He use to do this, clearly.
DM: I use to interview people.
Q: I'D HAVE TO SAY MY FAVORITE SCENE IS THE FIRST TIME THE NURSE
KILLS. SHE BECAME ALMOST THE VILLAIN OF THE MOVIE AT THAT POINT.
BS: She's scary.
DM: She's afraid of herself!
BS: She's really scary. I'm gonna see her at Sundance. I'm want to go skiing with her, that's my goal, but I don't want it to turn into a James Bond movie, you know? She's really good. She scares me, I gotta say. Don't you think?
DM: Brooke goes into the show the reigning contender and she doesn't get to take out anybody.
BS: I don't get to kill anybody!
DM: Connie does all the work. I do love the thing we improved when we were doing ADR, recording voices. Connie gets a shot of in the mall and Dawn shoots at her and then she runs up the escalator and goes, "That Bitch!" (laughs) Stealing your thunder!
BS: But she's not the villain! The villain is the show, not Connie. Not that we're giving anything away! It's gotta be hard. How do you write about something without giving it away?
DM: You give it away. (laughs)
BS: I never read reviews for that very reason. It use to be they never gave it away.
DM: Now they give it away.
BS: They always give it away!
DM: They give it away in the trailer now.
BS: Yeah, they give it away in the trailer now, too.
Q: ALL RIGHT. THIS NEXT ONE'S FOR YOU, BROOKE.
BS: Uh-oh.
Q: UH-HUH. YOU KINDA TOUCHED ON THIS EARLIER, BUT MOST OF OUR READERS WILL KNOW YOU AS THE GIRL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL IN SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
BS: Yeah.
Q: WHAT WAS IT LIKE DOING THAT FILM?
BS: Um... well, it was ten years ago. In a lot of ways it was actually similar to this, I'm realizing now 'cause I just threw myself in there. It was very intense. You know, these people knew what they were doing! It was like Jonathan Demme and Jodie Foster, it had a great script. I remember calling my agent, Frank then... he's not my agent now, but he is my friend, and saying, "Oh, I'm terrible! It's not working. I'm so bad!" I don't know. I was younger. I wasn't as confident. It was my first, you know, thing. I remember Frank saying, "Oh, I'm sure they're just humoring you. It's a $30 million movie. They don't want to hurt your feelings." I was like, "Oh... right." It was like this. Almost primal and all encompassing. It just consumed you. It's not like the kinda thing where you can go, "OK, great! I'm gonna go to Craft Service, I'll be back in a little while." It was very, like, in there. Maybe it was that survivor kind of thing. I don't know. Is that a good answer?
DM: Survivor- not the TV show, like survival...
BS: Yeah, you know what I mean. But it was really fun, that's the answer. It was good. I learned a lot by watching Jonathan because I also am a filmmaker. He treated every single person like they were the best person for their job, literally. That everyone was equal from Craft Service to Jodie Foster, literally. That was one thing I learned. The other thing was... well, just stuff like Tak Fujimoto who shot it...
Q: HE'S GREAT!
BS: He's amazing, right?
Q: OF COURSE. HE SHOT DEATHRACE 2000.
BS: He did what?
Q: DEATHRACE 2000.
DM: And unfortunately he wasn't available to do Series 7. (laughs)
BS: He taught me a lot about the camera. I know I'm really boring now, but and dailies and stuff. "Don't move a lot, we're in really tight."
Q: WHAT'S NEXT FOR BOTH OF YOU?
DM: We're trying to find another project to do together.
Q: SERIES 8?
DM: Series 8! I would have pitched Series 8 as a miniseries... You know, going further... the sky's the limit for Brooke.
BS: I want to act a lot. I don't think I realized that before because I was so frustrated I think. I guess I'm picky. I was directing, trying to make my own work, now I really want to act. I want to do stuff that I think I can't do. I want to play someone really sexual.
DM: She's gonna be on a TV show!
BS: I just got a job! I just got a job last week. I'm on this show called Big Apple and that'll be good. Did you see Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire?
Q: OH YEAH.
BS: I kept thinking, "I want to do something like that." Really physical, sorta out there and then here you go! I'm playing a girl in a wheelchair. Paralyzed! It's a good show, though. We just watched the first episode.
DM: It's Ed O'Neill from Married with Children.
BS: He plays my brother! He's so brilliant. He's really good.
DM: He's a really good actor.
BS: It's a drama. It's the guy that did NYPD Blue, David Milsh. In New York City! It shoots in New York City, it's called The Big Apple, I'm in a wheelchair in New York. What more do you want? Good times.
Q: MY LAST QUESTION IS FOR YOU BOTH. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DIRTY JOKE?
DM AND BS: (together) Oh!!!!!
DM: I got one! Chicken and an egg are laying in bed together. They just had sex. The chicken rolls over and says, "I guess that answers that question." (laughs)
BS: All right. Should I just go for it? OK, I'm a really bad joke teller, but I was just with my friend Carla in San Francisco and she told me a joke about lesbians. Can I do that? Am I going to get into trouble?
DM: Maybe.
BS: Do you think? Oh, come on! Who cares? Gay, straight... Here's the joke: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Q: HOW MANY?
BS: Two. One to screw in the lightbulb and one to suck my dick! (laughs)
DM: That's so bad!
BS: I'll never work again!
DM: That's so bad!
BS: I'm just repeating what Carla told me! There is another joke, but you said dirty joke. That was dirty, right? The other joke was... he's (Dan) scared now. He's like, "What's she gonna say?" Because people get offended by that stuff, but if I were a lesbian I would be fine with it.
DM: I wouldn't.
BS: You wouldn't? Is that politically incorrect?
Q: YES, BUT WHO CARES?
BS: Enough of that stuff, you know? Boring. Here's the other joke. Last joke. Hold on... But how does it go? It's not dirty, but it's gonna make everyone hate me. I did not make up this joke,will you put that under both of them? My friend Carla who lives in San Francisco... here it is: What did the Deadhead say when he came down off the acid? This band sucks!
DM: Here's the only other joke I know. What's this? (put's the back of his hand on the table, palm up with all his fingers sticking up in the air). A dead one of these (put's his hand palm down, standing on the fingers:: think Thing from Addams Family::)
BS: That doesn't translate. He's playin' it safe, you know what I'm saying. (Pause) Arrrrrr!!! I can't believe I told the lesbian joke! Actually, I think Dan and I should have our own standup show, don't you think? On HBO or something.
DM: We're only funny to each other.
Q: (laughs)
BS: No! Look, you're laughing! I'm serious.
THERE YOU HAVE IT, MY FINE SQUIRTS! THUS ENDED ANOTHER ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION. MANY SCARS WERE SHARED, MANY NEW ONES INFLICTED AND EVEN DOUBLE JOKES FOR ALL YOU LAND LOVERS OUT THERE. KEEP YER EYES ON THE HORIZON 'CAUSE OL' QUINT HAS ANOTHER INTERVIEW COMIN' AT YA' IN A FEW DAYS TIME. IT'S A NICE LONG CHAT WITH THE SCREENWRITER ON ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED FILMS OF THIS YEAR. IT'S A GOOD ONE. 'TILL THEN, SQUIRTS, THIS IS THE CRUSTY SEAMAN BIDDING YOU ADIEU.
-Quint
