Hey folks, Harry here at SXSW with my trusty crusty seaman friend Quint, who has sent in his first interview of the fest... with Jeffrey Tambor... YEAH Jeffrey "I am this cool" Tambor. I haven't seen NEVER AGAIN, due to appearing in a filming documentary... but as I waited in line for the film after this one... nearly everyone coming out insisted that I see this one... Quint saw it and got the interview... so read away!!!
Ahoy there, squirts. Quint here, once more, this time with some scar sharin' I did this morning with Jeffrey Tambor. That's right, dude. Hank Kingsley from The Larry Sanders Show, The Mayor of Whoville in The Grinch and the star of the awesome Never Again, which just premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival.
We did the interview in the lobby of his hotel and touch upon just about every part of his career. I had a lot of fun and I hope you do too... Oh, and Mr. Tambor broke the dirty joke rut! Woo-hoo! Without any further adieu... here's the interview.
QUINT: I READ THAT YOU ARE A TEACHER.
JEFFREY TAMBOR: Yeah, I use to teach. Yeah, I'm not teaching anymore, but I really enjoyed it. It was good. You know, when you teach, basically you go in to ask questions that you're really asking yourself. So, I found it very, very helpful.
Q: WHAT'D YOU TEACH?
JT: A scene study class. I really enjoyed it.
Q: COOL. I HEARD ABOUT SOMETHING YOU WORKED ON THAT COULD BE A FALSEHOOD, SO I'M GOING TO RUN IT BY YOU. DID YOU WORK ON RAY PARKER JR.'S MUSIC VIDEO FOR GHOSTBUSTERS?
JT: Yes, I did! I did! They came over... I was shooting... I think I was shooting a movie with... ah... I can't remember... I know Demi Moore was in it. I can't remember the name of it, but they came over and I went over to the thing at the studio and I went "Ghostbusters" about 3 times and I was catapulted to a new fame. Because to be on a music video... My daughter was carrying me through the house on her shoulders. It was like, "My God, my father's a music video star."
And I had no idea. It was, "Who you gonna call?" then they'd have celebrities go, "Ghostbusters." That was me. I was one of those guys. I was in bars, I'd walk in bars and I would see it and you know... it was great.
Q: AWESOME. I GREW UP WITH GHOSTBUSTERS. LET'S SEE. YOU'RE PROBABLY MOST WELL KNOWN FOR PLAYING HANK KINGSLEY ON THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW. WHAT EPISODES OR GUESTS STOOD OUT FOR YOU?
JT: Well, the episode that was my favorite... actually there were two favorites, but really... First of all, the seven year run was glorious 'cause I loved Hank Kingsley. He was a great character and he came along at just the right time in my life and we had fun together. There's an old adage in acting. It says, "You're stuck with a character, but the character is also stuck with you." We seemed to blend nicely.
I never thought he was a buffoon, I thought he was of superb intelligence and when people say he was an ass, I still do, I just go, "What do you mean?" I thought he was pretty smart in how he got his way by emotional tyranny and all that.
But my favorite episode, I think, is the one where I took over the show and had to go and do standup. He sort of turned evil, which I really liked. In television it's very hard to get dark tones. Very, very hard. Our show, we were able to go pretty dark sometimes.
The other one was when Hank had a religious conversion to Orthodox Judaism and insisted on wearing a yarmulke on camera and also tried to date the rabbi... or the female reformed rabbi. As soon as he got his first anti-Semitic hate mail, he dropped the whole thing. He just said, "I'm outta here." I liked it, I thought that was great. Those are my two favorite.
Q: HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET THE "HEY NOW" REQUESTED BY FANS?
JT: Less and less. And it's not always "Hey Now!" it's like "Hey there! Hey Who! Ha Ho! He-He!" It's different sounds, different guttural sounds that are emitted. You know, people are pretty wise about what actors do now. They know that that's a role only. It use to be that you were typecast into one thing, but that doesn't happen anymore because of all the backstage stuff now. The videos and bloopers and everything. There's no mystery about what we do anymore and I'm not quite sure that's great.
Audiences are savvy. They're savvy about film cuts, they're really techies now. You don't get caught in anything. But once in a while, "Hey Now!" "Hey there!"
Q: ALRIGHT... YOU HAVE GONE TOE TO TOE AND EYE TO EYE WITH KERMIT AND HIS GANG IN MUPPETS FROM SPACE...
JT: They offered me the role and I made some inquiries and said, "What's it like to work with the muppets?" and my friend, a really fine actor, said to me, "They are the best moment to moment actors going." So, I went down there and I did it. I had so much fun. They're still my good buddies. They were such good actors and the director was wonderful.
They have legions of people who make the costumes and do the work and everything like that. They're amazing. They're amazing. I would run to do another Muppet film. Again, that catapulted me to another legion: Children. People love the Muppets, it's almost sacred in our society. They're really talented.
Q: YOU'RE PREACHING TO THE CHOIR, BROTHER... LET'S SEE. YOU ALSO JUST PLAYED THE MAYOR OF WHOVILLE IN THE GRINCH. THAT MUST HAVE BEEN A REALLY FUN SET TO BE ON.
JT: It was great. It was SETS! Eleven soundstages! It was wonderful, wonderful. Ron Howard's terrific and we had a great time. It was a long shoot, six or seven months. Jim Carrey was great. It was delightful. Delightful. Except for getting up at four o'clock in the morning for that 3 hours of sitting in the make-up chair in the morning and the hour and a half after you got through. But delightful and people really loved it. It was a huge hit.
Q: WHAT WAS THE IMPRESSION YOU HAD OF RICK BAKER'S MAKE-UP?
JT: You want that sort of input. You want that sort of... He's a great stylist and a great inventor and he's sort of handing you a part of your character, you know, and you have to listen and sort of watch it and get in front of the mirror and see if that works for you and see if you can push it out a little more. It helps you. It's not a hindrance at all, in fact, as I say, in a way he's handing you various traits. There was a grimace to that character that I felt was a wonderful thing. He's very, very good. It's not just about effects, he gets into character. He's a real artist.
Q: YEAH, RICK BAKER'S VERY WELL RESPECTED IN THE GEEK COMMUNITY.
JT: Yeah. I don't know if they have tours, but everyone should go to his factory. It is amazing. What's so interesting on The Grinch, too, we would open this (door to the) soundstage and there would be rows and rows and rows of make-up artists and characters. I don't think there was another make-up artist in town! It was unbelievable. They were picking me up in a bus to take me to the soundstage every day. It was amazing. We had visitors everyday, wondering what was going on. High dignitaries... it was fabulous.
Q: I GUESS YOU'RE SHOPPING AROUND "NEVER AGAIN" RIGHT NOW, TRYING TO FIND IT DISTRIBUTION.
JT: Last night we had a standing ovation. It was amazing. I went to it, it was my fourth time seeing it, and last night I said to the audience, "Well, we don't need to show it again. This is the best audience we're ever going to have." They got the film totally, the way we sent it out, which is always a great, great acknowledgment for the film.
When Jill (Clayburgh) and I came out afterward, they stood and we were just blown out of the water. But they really loved it and they laughed and they were effected and I've been hearing all this morning and people have been talking to me about how it is ageless and it's not about a middle-age comedy. People young and old can relate to their lives. It's a very meaningful thing.
The whole notion of love and romance in the millennium is a very interesting question. Eric (Shaeffer, the writer/director of "Never Again") is not sentimental. He's modern. He's edgy. He's avant-garde. I think it's going to have a berth. B-E-R-T-H berth... or B-I-R-T-H birth. Berth birth. (laughs)
What's amazing is the whole title of Never Again. It just satirizes what fools we are when we draw these arbitrary lines in our lives saying, "You can't cross that line," or "I'm never going to fall in love again," those are preposterous! The bottom line about human beings: We're ridiculous. We are... and we're funny. That's why they invented humor, to make us all sane again.
Q: HOW ABOUT YOU GIVE THE READERS A LITTLE SYNOPSIS OF THE MOVIE.
JT: Sure. Two middle aged people in New York, who have sort of given up on romance, meet in a gay bar. He thinks that she is a man and the romance ensues from there in the most twisted, unorthodox journey imaginable in film. It is a real rollercoaster ride of laughter and tears... uh... hilarity! There's a scene that Jill does with a sexual... appendage I can only say, that defies imagination. I've never heard laughter like that. I went in and I said, "What is this? A Mel Brooks comedy?" It was unbelievable. People were in the lobby last night and they (heard and) were running in and were saying, "What the hell is going on?"
It's a great scene and she's (Jill Clayburgh) great in the film. I think, really, I think she's one of our great actresses. I think she gets better in the film every time I see it. She's a killer! There are those artists, you know, who are killers. After they worked, they don't leave anything. She's one of those.
Q: YEAH, I WAS AT THAT SCREENING, THE AUDIENCE...
JT: Did you like it?
Q: OH, YEAH!
JT: Great!
Q: LIKE I WAS MENTIONING A BIT LAST NIGHT, THE WRITE-UP ON NEVER AGAIN IN THE SCHEDULE BOOK...
JT: It doesn't quite do it justice, does it?
Q: IT MAKES IT SEEM LIKE A HEAVY HANDED ROMANCE DRAMA.
JT: I know. It's not heavy handed. It's very light and it's very modern. That's what I like about it. I had a friend, his relationship was breaking up and he saw the film, he's in his twenties, and they got together after the film. So, the film brought them together. They're twenty and they saw something in the film.
And comedy is a better device to real inspection, sometimes, than tragedy. Comedy... when you can laugh at it, you can laugh at yourself, there's health involved, you know. I believe in comedy, I really do, as an antidote to our woes.
There were people last night walking up the aisles, people in tears and laughing. They were still on the thing. You know... it's nice to make an effect. We have so much product that's just (sits back, face goes blank) "Oh, yeah, it's a this... it's a that." The duty of a filmmaker, really the duty of an artist is to disturb somebody. Shake 'em up! And that's what our film does.
Q: YOUR FILM ALSO CARRIES THE TORCH ON THE LONG LIVING COMIC TRADITION OF HAVING MIDGETS IN IT.
JT: Yeah.
Q: THAT'S ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MY STAPLES...
JT: Midgets?
Q: WELL, YEAH. IF THERE'S A MIDGET IN THE MOVIE, THAT USUALLY ADDS AT LEAST ONE STAR TO THE PICTURE.
JT: Really? Well, OK. (laughs)
Q: SO, ME AND MY LITTLE GROUP WERE EXCITED WHEN WE SAW YOU GUYS HAD A MIDGET IN THE FILM.
JT: What's amazing about that is when she meets Harry (the midget) you would think that he would not be good enough for her (starts laughing) but he turns her down and she's going downhill anyways... (still laughing) and it kills me! It kills me when he says, "I don't think it's right," and she goes, "No, no. I'm fine," and he goes, "No, no. It's not right for me." (laughing starts to let up) It kills me! Then the cut to the next scene where she's just been dumped again and it just get's shorter and shorter and shorter. Then the next question put her is me saying, "How big's your... your..." whatever. So, it's amazing.
That's Eric's sort of... he's pretty much an iconoclast in what he will do. It's quite courageous of him to put, as you said, a midget in and also have what happens in that film with him... He's unafraid and that's the mark of a good filmmaker.
Q: WHAT DREW YOU TO THE PROJECT IN THE FIRST PLACE?
JT: Well, Eric and I and Jill were doing a sitcom called Everything is Relative and we were standing over by the craft service and Eric came over and said, "You know, if this doesn't work out, I'm going to write a film for you two." We went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pass the guacamole, will you please?" "No, no. I really... would you guys..." "Yeah, yeah. Sure. No problem. The pretzels there, could you get that..." "No, but really. I'm going to write it..." "Yeah, yeah. Listen... but could you get away from the toaster, I want to..."
It didn't work out, we did about five or six shows, then ring-ring, ring-ring. "Hi, the first draft is ready." And we were off to the races and we did it. We did it in New York in the summer. It changed my life because that's what an actor really does. We were shooting by the seat of our pants. It wasn't an overabundant budget, but it was overabundant in terms of generosity and real talent on that set. I would fly to work with these people again.
Q: YEAH, ERIC SEEMS TO HAVE A REAL TALENT.
JT: I think... You know, I hate saying this because people say, "This is your best work," and things like that and you say, "Well, what about... Leer? What was that? A piece of shit?" But, I think this is his... it's certainly to me his richest work. Like all good artists and like wine, he gets better and better and better. I think he's going to be a major (hits table with his hand), major (hits table again) voice in filmmaking.
Q: YEAH, I HOPE HE GETS HIS BIG CHANCE.
JT: He will. I think this movie is going to do it for him. I really do. If the right people get on board and produce it and distribute it the way it should be distributed, he will be major, because he speaks to people. Just yesterday I was watching him on a panel. He doesn't BS! He doesn't softsoap. He tells you what it is. He has a big, big heart and he's very sensitive and very vulnerable. This is a very vulnerable movie.
Like last night... he may not like this, but last night I saw him in the lobby (of the Paramount Theater) and he had tears in his eyes. That's great.
Q: ALSO IN THE FILM IS MICHAEL MCKEAN... IN DRAG.
JT: Yes!
Q: THAT SCENE WAS THE FIRST SCENE WHERE I REALLY WENT, "OK. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THIS MOVIE."
JT: Great. I think it is our turning point where we start with this little thing and all of a sudden we go... "Uh-oh... somebody with a sense of humor is at the wheel. It's gonna change!" It's amazing. It does, I can see the audience go... it sort of cracks it and the audience goes, "OK, listen. OK. I'm going to go. I'm going to go on this!"
Q: LET'S SEE... OH! BILL DUKE!
JT: Bill Duke is a marvelous actor. Uh! What an actor! And a filmmaker. We were very fortunate with the casting. Bill was one of those things that just came up and Eric loved him and I loved him. Also the mother! The mother was a piece of genius... and Sandy (Duncan) and Caroline (Aaron). We were really lucky.
But I think the people flew to the project because of the writing. If the writing is good, the actors show up. Good actors show up.
Q: YOU WERE ALSO IN POLLACK. WHO DO YOU PLAY IN THE MOVIE?
JT: I play a guy named Clement Greenberg who was sort of a nemesis/mentor... I always call him Mentor Tormentor... to Ed Harris' Pollack. He's the sort of guy who sorta made him, brought him up and then when he was getting pretty big, he sort of wasn't too cool with him. Sorta turned into a... he went on to other people. This is a guy who could walk into a studio, we know this is true, and he could say, "Hey, more blue," or "These won't sell." He was rough, but apparently very articulate. He created the abstract expressionistic movement in New York... in the United States!
Q: ED HARRIS HIMSELF DIRECTED THE FILM, RIGHT?
JT: He was great! He did a great, great job. He's nominated for Best Actor and Marsha Gaye [Hardin] is nominated for a Supporting Actress. That's sort of the journey I'm on with those kind of films. I love that. I love that.
Q: YEAH, ESPECIALLY RECENTLY YOU SEEM TO BE PICKING THE LOWBUDGET, BUT EXTREMELY WELL WRITTEN MATERIAL.
JT: Yeah, I just did also, with a young director named Justin McCarthy, also low budget. That, to me, makes sense. And I like to do theater and I like to do big budget things as well. At this stage in my life, I really do believe in writing. Then it makes sense to me. If you're going to do a pilot, then this makes sense to me. Everything has a balance to it.
Q: SPEAKING OF PILOTS, YOU MENTIONED LAST NIGHT THAT YOU WERE WORKING ON ONE.
JT: I'm producing my own pilot for ABC TV called Man In the Kitchen about a TV chef with a food network who is having a midlife crisis and the comedy ensues. It's good. It was written by one of the creators of Friends and looks to be very good. We're casting right now, we're right in the middle of... To me it's a good life. I came off Pollack, I have this wonderful film, which is preeminent in my life right now, I'm 100% passionate about it. Then I go off to do a pilot. It all makes sense to me. It's fun.
These people, by the way, who created this thing are some of the most awesome people. We got Bob and we have Eric, we got Liza who does the publicity... this to me is like a burgeoning production company that's very powerful.
Q: THAT'S JUST ABOUT IT, BUT I HAVE ONE LAST QUESTION. I ALWAYS ASK THIS QUESTION WHEN I DO INTERVIEWS, BUT AS OF LATE I HAVEN'T BEEN GETTING MUCH RESPONSE ON IT, SO I'M HOPING YOU'RE GOING TO TURN THAT AROUND FOR ME. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DIRTY JOKE?
JT: Mr. Coen walks in the door. He's very ancient. Mrs. Coen's upstairs and goes, (old Jewish lady accent) "Herbie, come upstairs and fuck me." He says (old Jewish man accent), "I can't do both!" (everybody laughs)
Q: THANK YOU! YOU'VE BROKEN ME OUTTA THE RUT!
JT: Yes sir! I think the question is, "What's your favorite," and I think that's my only dirty joke. I love that joke! I just love it. You got really say it with the "Hoybe, com upstairs and fuck me." (even thicker accent) "I can't do both!" I love that one.
So, there you have it, squirts! One more round of scar sharin' for young salts out there. As soon as Harry's email gets fixed up, I'll be able to send him the big interview I did a couple weeks ago with the grooviest cabin visitor of all time. Some evil tech thing makes it so he will only receive the text I send him in its original form at his road runner account, which has been down for a while. As of now, all the "s are @s and all the 's are 1s. We'll get it to ya' shortly though. Keep yer eyes on the horizon, squirties. Until that day, this is Quint, bidding you all a fine farewell and adieu.
-Quint
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