|
|
 |
   
GP: Lately, you've been writing TV movies like BARBARIANS
AT THE GATE and WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION. Is that a medium you
really enjoy?
LG: I enjoy working at HBO because they give you such a wide berth. They encourage ideas, they want you do something different -- they want you to attack, rather than obey. There are very few "don'ts" up there.
GP: Do you like their shows like OZ and THE SOPRANOS?
LG: I never watched OZ. I loved the first year of THE SOPRANOS, I thought the second year was a little weaker; I'm looking forward to the third. I don't watch a lot of drama, because I think most of it's pretty fraudulent. I don't think cop shows and doctor shows are really drama, I think they're a lot of blue lights going around. Not that they can't be well done, but I don't really think that's drama. I mean, there was drama in the early days of television. We had shows actually devoted to drama: we had STUDIO ONE, PLAYHOUSE 90, and really, they were about people, not about criminals or trauma.
GP: Do you think those kinds of shows could ever come back?
LG: I don't think so. I don't think we care much about each other the way we used to.
GP: Do you think that television has played a part in that?
LG: Yup.
GP: So it's the monster that eats its young.
LG: And old!
GP: Do you think the recent election was influenced at all by the comedy "coverage" around it?
LG: You can hurt a candidate if you make him an object of derision and pound away at him too much, but I don't think that happened, and I don't think that's likely to happen. Unless the candidate himself or the man in office gives you such fodder that you just add on to the public's perception of that person, whatever he's portrayed as -- inept or corrupt or whatever. But I don't think there was one vote cast, one way or another, as a result of anybody hearing a joke about anything.
GP: On THE COLLEGE OF COMEDY III, Bill Maher says he makes
fun of George W. Bush every day.
LG: He would have done the same thing with Gore! But you're inclined to make jokes, because it's the ultimate denial that that person's as powerful as he's become, that your enemy is immune to your quips. Bush is a little easier; all you have to do is dust off some of the Quayle jokes and drop "vice-president" from the straight line.
GP: What made you decide to be part of THE COLLEGE OF COMEDY
III?
LG: Well, I like Alan; I like his work very much. He's a
real thinking comedian, and a really fine actor. I was complimented
to be asked; most writers are. [But] I wasn't crazy about putting
on a cap and gown, because I don't usually work in costume!
GP: On the program, Rita Rudner says she made herself a student of comedy. Do you think that's possible -- can you teach yourself to be funny?
LG: No. You can teach yourself to do those jokes. But I think the audience will tell you whether or not you've taught yourself to do it in a way that they're going to laugh.
GP: Do you feel that comedy is what you were meant to do, that this is really what you were born to be?
LG: Well, it better be! It's a little late for regrets. I think everybody winds up where they're meant to be. Well, if that person is working in a garbage dump, it doesn't really apply.
GP: One last question. If you could gather your favorite group of funny people in a room for a bridge game, who would they be?
LG: For a bridge game? I ask that specifically, because George Burns was a marvelous bridge player. Here's a story. One day George, when he was almost 100, was playing bridge at the Hillcrest Country Club, which he did every day of his life, and he was given a partner that he'd never played with before, and the guy was very rude to Mr. Burns. He was criticizing his bidding, and he was being a real pain. And the guy says, "I'm never playing bridge with you again, and I'm not talking to you." And he left the table and Burns followed him to the door, and Burns says, "Wait a minute. You don't know me well enough not to talk to me again."
Anyway, Groucho would be one of the people at that bridge table, because he was funny, really funny. And probably because he was such a sweet man, maybe George Burns. And the man everybody thought was the funniest man, celebrated at the round table of the Hillcrest Country Club out here, was George Jessel. So, maybe him for a couple of hands.
GP: Who would be the dummy?
LG: Well, I think I would!
Interview by Sarah Birnbaum for GREAT PERFORMANCES Online conducted in February 2001.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
