Interview conducted by Josh Horowitz
April 9, 2004
A tender father figure role is not something you expect to see from the man who will forever be known for the seven dirty words you can't say on television. But that's just what George Carlin is up to in JERSEY GIRL. In his third collaboration with Kevin Smith, the 66 year old comic legend has earned the best reviews of his limited acting career.
Ironically Carlin always wanted to be an actor and one gets the sense it might be one of his few regrets that, in an otherwise stellar career, he has yet to make his mark in that aspect of the business. There's still plenty of time for Carlin. He shows no signs of slowing down as he jumps from one stand up gig to the next, prepares his next book, and plots a trip to Broadway.
I caught up with him on a recent publicity swing through New York.
George Carlin: Hi. It's George. How you doing?
Josh Horowitz: Hey. How's it going? So JERSEY GIRL in the end is a pretty optimistic feel good movie. Does it jibe with
your general world view?
George Carlin: No. Not my world view but my personal view. I'm a very optimistic person. I'm a positive person, thinking forward, positive, optimistic for myself and the people I know. But it doesn't take much of a brain to look around the world and say, "this is dumb." It's a freak show that's going to end. Thank goodness for the rest of the universe. Maybe it'll end before we get out and infect Mars and these places with our grotesque DNA.
JH: Kevin wrote this part specifically for you. Has that happened before less successfully where someone tried to get you down on the page, working off of your famous persona?
GC: No. Hollywood doesn't work on who you really are. Hollywood works off what the public thinks you are. They do what they think is expected. There are very few chance takers or risk takers making movies. Most of them are independent filmmakers. These big companies are businesses and they don't like to take big risks so they do what's half-way proven. "Oh there's a good movie. Let's do another one of those. Let's do a sequel. Let's remake this." It's a lot of imitation.
JH: A rare time where you were cast outside of that box was in THE PRINCE OF TIDES.
GC: For some reason I was mentioned to Barbra Streisand by the casting people or something as someone she may want to see. And she did. Maybe she wanted another minor name in the movie. But I went and I read for her at her apartment. I did a kind of a gay interview with her. I sort of assumed what we think of as gay characteristics. Stereotypes exist because there's a germ of truth to them. They don't get started from nothing so I did the interview and I just ad-libbed a scene with her after reading a bit, I just talked to her like a person. And suddenly I had the part. I've never had a thing I got this way because I hadn't pursued movies. And they don't call and when they do, it's dumb. It's usually teenage mindless stuff where you play the father who looks like a goof. It's just better to be human, show human emotions, show human sides to you. We all have different parts of our personality and people forget that because they start buying into images. But Kevin knew more about me and thought I could do this sweeter part.
JH: This character is probably one of the only fleshed out characters you've gotten to play.
GC: It's the only one. It's the first one. PRINCE OF TIDES were very emotional kinds of scenes. Eddie had lost his dearest friend from across the hall. There was a lot of acting stuff to do. But that's the only one I've had like that outside of a Hallmark miniseries. I did STREETS OF LAREDO and to me that qualifies as a movie. It was the real sequel to LONESOME DOVE. I had a fully fleshed out character there, Billy the scout, whose eyes are going bad. He was in love with this woman. That was fun because someone trusted me there to do other things. It's nice when they see you in a different light. That's what Kevin did. Maybe there will be a little more of that. I have a very full creative life with my stand-up and my books that spin off the stand-up. Besides that I have other impulses. I am a show off kid. You know, "hey mom, look at me." So acting fulfills a little of that.
JH: You are very much a master of your own domain, writing your books, your stand-up material, etc. You control your universe
yet with something like JERSEY GIRL, film is a collaborative art form.
GC: That's the other little muscle you get to exercise. Except for the wonderful love of my life, Sally Wade, I live in a kind of a loner world. I don't mix. I don't run around and stuff. I've never been comfortable in groups and I think most of what goes on in groups is banal and uninteresting to me. I think people in terms of their understanding of the world are just very superficial. They speak in these clichés. I enjoy standing off to the side of the whole circus and saying, "look at that. Look at that. Look at that!" So when I get a chance to do these other things that are collaborations, it satisfies another part of my personality that doesn't get a lot of exercise.
JH: As someone who usually stands to the side of the circus, are you comfortable being part of it for a change?
GC: Oh yeah sure. The nice thing is I know I can leave when I want.
JH: How far have you come acting-wise? It all started for you on Marlo Thomas's THAT GIRL, right?
GC: Yeah. I was horrifying when I first thought it was my turn. My plan as a kid was to be an actor as fast as I could. And I found out I had no right to even be thinking about that. I just didn't feel comfortable with it. I was completely lost. I had no technique to fall back on. I had no training. So I was afraid. I was frightened of it. I just had no way of tapping into something I couldn't count on. I stepped aside from it. I said, "well screw that." The answer to how far I've come maybe is, I'm older, I'm a more textured personality and perhaps my psyche has grown a little bit and I'm a little more accessible to myself. I can get in there and be a lot of different things.
JH: You had a brief run starring in your own sitcom for Fox. Did you enjoy that experience?
GC: I really didn't because you can't be yourself on commercial television. I didn't mix in that world. I'm not a
member of that club. It is a club. It's very closed. Fox never got behind the show. Warner Brothers didn't back me. And
when your show is number 65 you have no power to change things.
JH: Is your forthcoming book WHEN WILL JESUS BRING THE PORK CHOPS? a tie in perhaps to Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST?
GC: I had my title a year ago. I just liked the way it sounds and it does offend all three basic religions plus vegetarians so it's kind of nice.
JH: What do you make of that film and all the controversy surrounding it?
GC: Well religion is evil and full of shit. It will always cause trouble. It's very anti-human. It is very anti-man. It denies pleasure.
JH: Does it bother you when a film like this is so successful?
GC: No. The thing I like about it is, it's all violence. They're always talking about how we don't want any violence and we don't need violence and here they have it and it's this weird radical Catholic guy doing it. The culture is a screwy culture and this is just another nice sign of it.
JH: Are you asked to recite the seven dirty words every day?
GC: Well people mention it a lot and it's nice to have a familiar hook. It went to the supreme court and I'm perversely proud. It's a little footnote in legal history. It's the only comedy thing that ever got to the supreme court.
JH: Do you find people today are hipper to the way language can be used to manipulate and confuse by politicians for instance?
GC: If they are, they're not using the knowledge to resist the manipulation. They're as vulnerable and the tricks get more sophisticated. People say, "ahh, he's full of crap" and then they don't act on those things they say they feel. They seem to do what's expected of them. That's my take on America. People do what they're told and my thing is Americans deserve anything that happens to them. Anything that happens to them is just tough shit.
JH: What's your commentary on the FCC crackdowns on Janet's nipple at the Super Bowl and Howard Stern, etc.?
GC: More of the same over and over. It's just like being in the air force or the army where they come and inspect. For a month they get chicken shit and they get rigid and then it's over. There's lax discipline again in six to eight months and then a new Colonel comes in. I think the republicans are trying to find another wedge issue. They have their gay marriage now. Anything they can do to prove to their Christian base, the people that they can't afford to lose, they do it. This is the FCC, a politically appointed body and they just decided to pick a fight and show that they're doing their job, their Christian duty of holding off the barbarians at the gate. The culture belches like this every now and then.
JH: Dennis Miller admits to becoming much more conservative in the wake of 9/11 and his new show reflects that. What do you
make of his conversion?
GC: That's a classic neo-con move. The people who are driving this world domination by military force that we're engaged in now to impose our will militarily around the world, they are largely what are called neo-conservatives. They were once Stalinists. They were once really left wing thinkers and they're bright intellectual people but I personally think their world view is a little inhumane.
JH: Are you still working on doing a Broadway show?
GC: That's going to be much later. That's a labor of love, a labor of luxury. I have a good income from what I do now and Broadway is not famous for income so I'll do that at a point where I want to relax a little and turn the machine down a little bit. It would have a theme to it. It would be a one person show. Two acts, it would run for six months in the same theater. It would not be a conglomeration of material but a theme.
JH: The theme being?
GC: Growing up in New York.
JH: Well, enjoy your time in New York today. Thanks. I'm a big fan.
GC: Sure man. You take care man. I'm getting punchy.
JERSEY GIRL is now in theaters.
NOTE: To check out another conversation with George Carlin, read Antony Teofilo's on-set conversation with from a previous
Moviepoopshoot column. http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/renaissance/49.html
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