Sick In The Head: Conversations About Life And Comedy Part 27

Leslie: It was a decision made by Jim Henson.

Judd: I auditioned for him for this reality show where he gave cameras to a couple of comedians who traveled round the country. I auditioned with Adam Sandler and David Spade and Rob Schneider. Jim Henson said he wanted to buy all my ideas but didn't want to cast me because I lacked warmth.

Leslie: From the guy who created the Muppets.

Judd: From the guy who taught you how to read. It hit me hard....But the fact he wanted my ideas was important. I realized Adam Sandler was really fun to watch and be around and I knew I wasn't like him. I was just a normal guy with some good lines.

Empire: You've now worked together many times, but This Is 40 was the first time Leslie was the lead. How was that different?

Leslie: It was just more tiring, but he protected me from all the stresses from the outside world. I don't know what the budget is or what the politics were. It was just a safe world for all the actors. I was so grateful for that. Thank you, honey. I kind of like you a little bit more again.

Judd: See, we've gone full circle. She hated me and then she likes me again. This is my day. This is my life.

This interview was conducted by Olly Richards and originally appeared in the March 2013 edition of Empire magazine.

LOUIS C.K.

(2014).

Louis C.K. is one of those people who are so brilliant and funny and uncompromising that sometimes I need to avoid their work. When I was writing This Is 40, I made a point to never watch his TV show because I was aware that it was, on one level, about a middle-aged guy with two daughters, and if I watched it, and loved it, I would probably feel like there was no need for me to make my movie. (Only after I locked my film did I go and binge-watch it. I couldn't love it more.) I also make a point of not watching too much of his stand-up, because he's so prolific and covers so much ground. Watching him makes me feel like there's nothing left to talk about, and that everything has already been done, as well as it can be done, by Louis. He has raised the bar for all of us.

It is worth noting that we conducted this interview in Louis's kitchen in New York City and, as we spoke, he made me a delicious dinner of steak and beans. For a moment, I felt like I was one of his kids, and I came away thinking, They have a pretty good situation there.

Judd Apatow: I was reading an article about you recently and I saw that you had an experience a little like mine-as a kid, I worked at a radio station, and you, somebody got you a job at a TV station?

Louis C.K.: Yeah.

Judd: I had a guy like that, too. He ran the high school radio station and treated us like adults. He was the cool guy. He would curse and he went to NYU with Martin Scorsese and taught film at the high school and he made me think that you could do anything, even as a little kid. So I had a radio show and interviewed all these comics. And I'm wondering what that was like for you to have this teacher who said, I'm going to hook this kid up.

Louis: In junior high school, I did nothing but drugs. I got in trouble all the time. I was a messed-up kid. And then in my first year of high school, I stopped all that and became a good student, but the problem was, by then, all my friends from junior high school had dropped out-like, every one of them. Five of my friends dropped out of high school after one year. And there was this kid Neil who lived a block from the high school and everybody would be there, at his house, partying every day-from nine in the morning, when his parents left for work.

Judd: Where did Neil's parents think the kids were?

Louis: They couldn't control it. Both parents worked. I mean, everybody I knew was getting high and n.o.body could do anything about it.

Judd: Did they a.s.sume the kids were going to get jobs when they were that young?

Louis: Everybody had jobs. I had a job. Soph.o.m.ore year of high school, I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Everybody worked at fast-food places. So all these kids were told by their parents-the parents got together and said, Just get out of school and work. The idea was that they were all going to come back to school a year later and try again. Anyway, all of a sudden all of my friends were getting high every day and I couldn't resist, so I just stopped going to school.

Judd: What grade is that? Tenth?

Louis: Tenth grade. And before that, I was a great student. I was getting A's. So there's this meeting with all my teachers and my mom came and they told her: "Your son's not coming to school." And my mom, who thought we were out of the woods, was like, "G.o.d d.a.m.n it." It was a great meeting because I felt like I was able to be honest with it all. My mom and I had been through a lot together, and I said, "I'm having a hard time staying here. I get depressed in school and it's hard." And one of my teachers-he was my homeroom teacher-he just said, "Well, you can't do nothing." He said, "You don't have to go to school if it's not for you, but you can't do nothing. What do you want to do?" And I said, "Well, geez. I'd like to make TV shows and movies." And he said, "If I can get you a job in that area, will you do that?" I said sure. And he came up to me the next day with a card and he said, "This is the number for Continental Cablevision, the local cable company." They had a TV station. He said they hire interns and it doesn't pay anything but you can go there and you can learn about television. And so I went to this place and there were these people making television and it was pretty good equipment and they had a news show and sports and little art shows and stuff. So they explained, If you come here, we'll teach you how to use all this equipment and you can do whatever you want. And I couldn't f.u.c.king believe it. I stopped going to Neil's house immediately and I thought, I want to get back into school. I had a direction in my life. So I started going to the station and it was all grown-up people. I was the only kid there.

Judd: Would you edit? Did you work the cameras?

Louis: I just started doing everything. I sucked in the learning. I would sit and watch the news editor. I learned how editing worked, and I was very good with machines. I could fix cameras when they broke and stuff. So I became the kid everybody trusted. They let me take the equipment home. If you could fix it, n.o.body cared. So I became a pet there, and everyone treated me like a grown-up.

Judd: I did the same thing at Comic Relief. When I was in college, I saw on TV that they were planning to do Live Aid but with comedians. It was called Comic Relief. I called up and said, "I will do anything." I was eighteen. "I'll do anything, just let me help." They said, "Well, we don't have anything," but then three months later they called back and said, "Come in and help us." I started putting on benefits around the country at all the clubs. But it was the same att.i.tude: I am going to be your go-to guy. And that's what you want your kids to have. It's hard, I think. I talk about this all the time with my kids. The reason why you do that is because you can see your demise if you don't do it. Our kids, though-they don't have that fire on their a.s.s because when I was a kid both my parents went bankrupt. It was very chaotic for a while and so, when those opportunities came up, I was an animal because I was afraid that I would be homeless at some point. I used to think that all the time. Jim Carrey always used to say that when he saw homeless people he would have this image of the guy patting the ground going, "Here, this spot's for you"-and that's what drove him. And he was homeless as a kid. His dad was an accountant who lost his job and never got an accounting job ever again and they became janitors at a factory. The whole family had dropped out of school. They would all clean together.

Louis: Wow, yeah, I don't know. Who knows what's in store for our kids. It might not stay like this forever. I always say that to my kids. I probably lay it on them a little too much. Someday they might be saying to their friends, "My dad used to have a house on Shelter Island, and he had a boat." I mean, for Jim Carrey's climb and everything that happened for him-the ma.s.sive success-he's looking for work. You always end up looking for work.

Judd: When things started going really well for you, were you able to enjoy it?

Louis: Oh yeah. I remember the first time I did Letterman. I had all these thoughts reeling in my head that I had to do this or that, and then when I got on, right before I got onstage, I thought, Don't forget to enjoy this because you're going to f.u.c.king kill yourself if you don't enjoy this. And I've always remembered that. It's all very fleeting, you know.

Judd: That's the big thing about it hitting a little later in life. You're wise enough to realize: Oh, this is a big moment.

Louis: I've never had all-at-once successes. I've never had any big leaps, the rags-to-riches thing. Everything has been one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. So many times I heard, You're up for this thing, this is the one, and it's going to be huge. And it never happens and then it's back to coming down to earth. You get blue b.a.l.l.s from that, you know-like, This is going to be it! And you start thinking about how you're going to change your life.

Judd: What was the big one of those for you?

Louis: I met with these people at Good Machine, which was an indie film group. They were making some great stuff, and they repped this movie I wrote called Delicious Baby. It was this f.u.c.ked-up movie about a woman who moves to a small town and everybody wors.h.i.+ps her and meanwhile she's been eating all the kids. And, uh, n.o.body wants to believe it because they love her and a robot ends up choking her to death. So they read it and they took me to lunch. They sat me down and they said, "We have some big news. We're making Delicious Baby. We have a green light." And that feeling was incredible. What an amazing feeling. Anyway, we made the movie and it won an Oscar.

Judd: End of story.

Louis: Yeah, no-so it didn't get made, obviously. And I had to come down from that. Oh, that f.u.c.king hurt. That was brutal. There were a few of those kinds of things. I thought I was going to be on The Tonight Show with Carson. I got a call saying I was going to be on Letterman when I was nothing, a club comic. At the time, Frank Gannon booked the Letterman show and he told me he was going to put me on-and then he retired. I was really young then. A shot at Letterman could have totally changed everything.

Judd: In a good way or bad, do you think?

Louis: I'm glad I didn't get it. I'm glad for every single thing I didn't get.

Judd: I always felt the reason why I was interested in comedy was that I was on some level hostile and looking for answers. When you look back, what do you think was the fuel for your work?

Louis: I think comedy is a freeing thing. It's not even an escape. It just feels good. You know what I mean? My parents were divorced around the same time as yours-I was in fifth grade, ten years old. Those were formative years. I was awkward and I couldn't quite score the way everybody else did. I didn't feel like I was succeeding as a kid. I was bad academically, always behind, always in trouble. I had friends and stuff, but I didn't feel like I was winning in school. And comedy was this amazing thing because comedy is like saying the wrong things-when you see a grown-up do it and they succeed at it and get applause...

Judd: When did you tune in to what comedy was?

Louis: My first love was Bill Cosby. My friend Jeff had a whole stack of his records; we would just sit and laugh. I loved the sound of it. I loved the sound of his voice and hearing the audience and the nightclub feeling and how it sometimes felt like a concert. I used to listen to how the record sounded. Oh my G.o.d, I just like-it put a real l.u.s.t in me.

Judd: What's the thing that Cosby did that you wish you could do?

Louis: I wish I could control myself like he did. I wish that I could...talk...like...this...on...stage. Respect the negative s.p.a.ce. Respect the silence, let it alone. I wish I had that kind of control. I came up in the Boston clubs scene where- Judd: It's combat. You learn it as combat.

Louis: And I still-whenever I'm watching my opening act on the road or if I'm in a club, I'm like, They're all gonna leave. They're not going to be there when I get out there. Like, I need to get on right now. I always closed the show because I was too dirty and too loud. No one wanted to follow me.

Judd: It all changes when the crowd is there to see you. How many years has it been for you where they're really there to see you in a big way?

Louis: I had done Lucky Louie and it got canceled, and then I did this special called Shameless. It went on the air and I got a call from the guy at HBO: It's good, it's good. Anyway, I had built some shows, booked some touring clubs, and one of them was in Philadelphia. I had a week booked there-you know, you do Tuesday through Sunday. You have two on Friday, three on Sat.u.r.day. Any other week I go and n.o.body is there on Tuesday. Fifty people Wednesday, a hundred Thursday. Friday and Sat.u.r.day are packed if the show's any good. That was for years, you know. For like twenty years I had done things like that. But anyway, I got a call one day. This was in January and I had Philly booked in April, and they say, "We want to add a show on Thursday in Philadelphia." And I said, "Why? Why the f.u.c.k do they want to make me do another show?" And he said, "Because they're all sold out."

Judd: Three months in advance.

Louis: And I was like, "What the f.u.c.k did you say to me? They want to start adding shows?" It had never happened to me. That's a big f.u.c.king deal. That was a big thing, to suddenly go to clubs that were sold out well in advance-they're all there to see you, and you're taking the door, and the club that you've been working for and has abused you is suddenly, you know, "sir" and "please" and "thank you." It's a weird thing. I started doing theaters in 2007 to 2008, seven hundred and fifty to fifteen hundred seats.

Judd: Does it change your act?

Louis: It's a huge amount of pressure. 'Cause you have to be really great. When you're the headliner at some club, you're just the last guy. You do forty-five to an hour, close strong, and make people feel like they had a complete eat. When you do well as a headliner in a club, people are like, "That guy was good, that guy was good." But in a theater, there is an enormous amount of pressure because this is their choice for the night. So you want to deliver. And I get anxious about that. Once you're doing twenty-five hundred seats, five thousand seats-there's a whole other thing there. It has to be phenomenal.

Judd: And you're turning the whole act over, too. Carlin would turn it over, but he did it over a few years....

Louis: He did a gradual thing. But for me, it was more interesting to do it this way, to think of each year's act like a different book that I wrote.

Judd: Are you aware of how much that's changed comedy? How everyone else is looking at their acts because of you?

Louis: I'm not aware of that. I know that some people don't like it that I say...Look, when I started doing a yearlong tour and a stand-up special, the next time I would tour, it seemed natural for me to let my audience know it's a different show. You're seeing a different show. I never was bragging to other comedians. Some comedians got p.i.s.sed off because they thought I was bragging. I don't give a f.u.c.k what they think.

Judd: I do feel a sea change from it. It seems to have inspired people to work harder, to evolve who they are on a daily basis. I used to work with Larry Miller at the Improv, and he was incredible, and he had this polished act. He was the one who urged me to write more. To treat it like a job. He'd do his Thanksgiving bit, and it could be one of the best bits of all time, but now I feel-in the best possible way-that comics feel the pressure to be in the moment with what their life is, with their act.

Louis: I think it's better. Chris Rock taught me a lot about this kind of stuff, but I really learned it from Carlin. I remember I was in the parking lot of the Yang-what's that Chinese restaurant in Boston that does comedy?

Judd: The one that Steven Wright was discovered at?

Louis: No, not the Ding Ho. The Ding Ho was gone. I can't believe I'm blanking on it, 'cause I did so many gigs...I opened for Jerry Seinfeld there. But anyway, I was sitting in the parking lot and feeling like s.h.i.+t and listening to this interview with Carlin. And he said that he gets done with his jokes and moves on. And I thought, G.o.d, if I only had the f.u.c.kin' courage to get rid of these jokes. I've been doing them all my life. And I hate all of them. I hate every joke I tell.

Judd: But you stuck with them.

Louis: Yeah, you stick with them. Because you don't need anything else. I got all these tools, I know how this bit works, I know how this bit works. So I started thinking about that and then, years later, I was talking to Chris Rock and he said, "If you do Letterman or you get the big shot, don't go back and do your cla.s.sic five minutes. Do what's exciting you today. Do what's really turning you on in the moment." And that was a great piece of advice. Chris said, "If your audience sees you're special and they think you're funny, and they go see you live and it's a totally different show from last time and it's great, they will never let go of you. You will never lose that audience. They will never let you go." That's how he put it. What an interesting way to think of an audience-and that's Chris's audience-they just hold on to him. So that became my endeavor. I thought, I'll go out, do another hour. Creatively, I've got an empty vessel, nothing in it. How do things cl.u.s.ter together? I thought about these things scientifically, like this doc.u.mentary I saw, when you snap your Achilles' tendon they put like a fiber on there and your body starts to coat it with tendon material....

Judd: And it grows around it?

Louis: Yeah, it grows around it. Because something's there, when there's nothing there. So I thought, How does that apply to my act? How do I build an hour when there's nothing there? And so I would go onstage with five minutes of improv, ten minutes, now I've got a really strong twenty. So stop doing it and start at five again and build another twenty, and I've got forty minutes now. I can do forty minutes. I'm not doing the L.A. clubs anymore, I'm going to Horatio Hornblower's in Ventura, or the Wolf or whatever it is. Those clubs, you know, people are eating steak, there's a little more pressure. And try to turn that forty-it's like the way they make yogurt, they take a lump and put it in milk and it fills it up, fills it up. Go onstage with not quite enough time and with the pressure of headlining, and forty turns into an hour just out of necessity. I've got an hour now, I can do an hour. Make it great. And then decide that that hour is s.h.i.+t and I need twice the material. Do a second hour, fold it in. I worked so hard on that stuff. I don't know if I have the b.a.l.l.s to do it that way anymore.

Judd: That's not how you do it now?

Louis: I do. I mean, the last hour I did, I feel like it's my last one for a little while. But it's like, how many of these things do you need to do? Also, I love club comedy. I miss it. I miss f.u.c.king around on the club stage.

Judd: Is that what you want to do now?

Louis: Well, my TV show has me in the clubs. Sometimes when I'm filming my show, the Comedy Cellar is a location, so if I have extras hanging around, I bring them downstairs and do a set and they'll kind of chuckle and I'll use it on the show because I'm able to do weird little bits that don't quite make any sense. But I'm getting into different-sized things these days. Like, I just did SNL, and I got obsessed with the monologue. I thought, Geez, if I can do a great SNL monologue- Judd: It was a dark monologue, the one you did.

Louis: That was a fun thing because I got into it as its own project. I thought, I want to do the stuff that I do at SNL-and luckily I had done the show before. The great thing about doing something twice is-you know, when I came out to host SNL, the rehearsal audience is cool. They're cool people and they feel like they're in on something so there's a cool feeling. And then you come out for the live show and you're like, Wait, these people are f.u.c.king tourists and a lot of them are kids. There are families. People are here with their parents and they're not cool. And so, the second time I thought, I want to do a really interesting monologue that's like its own piece of performance, and I thought, They're not going to like it.

Judd: I mean, you don't usually hear people talk about religion and death- Louis: No, not at all. That's the stuff that I've been doing, and I was saving it for the series but I thought, Let's take my best right-now material and use it. The audience is not going to like it but it doesn't matter on television because if you don't let it get to you, n.o.body can hear.

Judd: It played really well. I mean, watching it on TV. It sounded like it was all going well.

Louis: I trained for it by going to really s.h.i.+tty places. I never worked so hard on a set in my life, certainly not a four-to-eight-minute set. I did a lot of bad places with open mics where it's all, you know, bitter comedians and no audience. I remember one place there was literally water leaking on the floor next to me and there's a guy in the front row on the phone and I was like, This is perfect. I just played. I thought, I need to be able to play this without any support, and I got really good at it and I got a great f.u.c.king crowd. The SNL crowd loved it. It was totally unexpected.

Judd: Is dress rehearsal the first time Lorne sees the monologue?

Louis: Yeah, Lorne really helped me because I did the first show-you know, the worst thing that can happen in an important show is when the rehearsal goes well. It just hurts you. You need caution and an alert mind to do this kind of thing. And I came out for dress and I did twelve minutes and I f.u.c.king killed. And n.o.body had seen it. n.o.body had seen the material because I had been running out at nights to do it. So we have the between-show meeting and Lorne-my manager had said to me, "Don't let Lorne cut a single minute. Do twelve minutes like you did in the room," and I was like, yeah. After all this work I did do to humble myself, I was really jacked up. So I go into the meeting and I'm like in this big, leather chair and Lorne says, "Have you had any experience at SNL?"

Judd: I haven't worked there but I know the moment you're talking about.

Louis: Everybody's there. It's like meeting the president. It's, like, very important. And he says, "So you did twelve minutes in the monologue. How much do you want to do on-air?" I said, "I want to do all twelve." And he goes, "You're not doing twelve." He goes, "It was good but there was a lot of air in it, a lot of stopping and starting. I know there are cuts in there." My faced turned red. I was angry. I was like, "Well, I don't know. I thought it was pretty good. And f.u.c.k you." I was really mad. And then later this woman comes in and says, "Uh, we're one minute under." And so I go, "Then I'm doing twelve." And Lorne turns to me and goes, "Calm down." I was really insulted. He said, "I'll give you seven and n.o.body's ever done seven." And I said, "What if it goes long? What if I go over and I end up doing ten or more?" And he goes, "Then we'll know that you're very undisciplined and that you're unprofessional." And everybody laughed. So I said, "I want to see the monologue from rehearsal." And he goes, "Show it to him." My point was to prove how great it was. And I watched it and I was like, G.o.d d.a.m.n, it's not that good. Tons of air. And a lot of stopping and starting. I had a whole fart thing. A whole thing about farting on a baby that f.u.c.king killed, and he was like, "You're winning without it. I wouldn't do it." So I realized the farting on the babies was stupid and it's going to ruin the monologue. So I got Michael Che, who writes for the show, and asked him to sit with me. It's the most vulnerable thing you can do is ask a comedian to help you cut your material, but I was like, "What do you think?" And he was nervous, he was like, "I don't know." He didn't want to make a wrong decision. But I cut it down. I cut four minutes out as we're ticking off time to get on the air.

Judd: And you have to act and work the other sketches, too.

Louis: Yes, it was high pressure. Very high pressure.

Judd: How do you remember it all?

Louis: Well, because you f.u.c.king better know it. You f.u.c.king better know it. I mean, I had to switch the order. I had to change stuff. I just told myself, Don't try to remember this. Make these decisions and they'll be there for you when you hit the moment. I loved it. This kind of thing to me is the most worthwhile life experience. I'm standing at the door to SNL after all that s.h.i.+t, and Gina the stage manager is counting off and my hands are on the door, and I just started chuckling. I was like, This is f.u.c.ked up. This is live television. This is f.u.c.ked up. And I went out and it just-it was all there for me and I was able to sail. The audience was at the right place. They looked a little critical but I felt like, It's going to be okay. I'm going to bring this material and you're going to like it. f.u.c.k, did that feel good.

Judd: And that was the day that you realized Lorne knows what he's doing.

Louis: He knows exactly what he's doing. He's so smart, but he scared me. And I needed to go in scared.

Judd: You like being scared?

Louis: I remember when I was a kid, Billie Jean King was doing that Battle of the s.e.xes thing-I don't remember if it was happening when I was a kid or if I saw a show about it. But I was so impressed with her. She reminded me of my mom and I just thought she was the coolest person and I hated Bobby Riggs because my mom was a single, working mother. They toured together and did these interviews together, and he was always going, like, women should just go back, put on a tight s.h.i.+rt, and make me a steak. He said this amazing s.h.i.+t and she's just sitting there with a smile on her face. And they turned to her and they say, "How do you feel about all this?" And she says, "Well, all this does is put pressure on me. Everything he says just means that I have to beat him." She gets this big smile on her face and says, "I love pressure."

Judd: Wow.

Louis: And I never forgot it. I was like, f.u.c.k that. That was such an interesting notion-that pressure, give me, give me, give me, because all that's going to do is make me better. Like, eating pressure. Having it be fuel. I like that. Whenever I realize, Uh-oh, this is f.u.c.ked up, I don't feel ready, this is going to look bad if this doesn't go well, I get that physical feeling. I don't like that feeling, but I like the whole arc of it. You need the whole arc for it to be good. When you win and you do well, it feels great.

Judd: Was that an historic moment for you, hosting SNL? Was that one of your dreams?

Louis: When I worked at Conan, SNL was right next door and I used to go through SNL to get to the commissary, just walk through the studio so that I could smell it. I loved the f.u.c.king smell of the place. I didn't want to be a sketch performer or anything, but the idea of hosting it? I never thought that I would be that guy. I was very happy to get the shot, terrified to get the shot.

Judd: I can't imagine how scary that is.

Louis: I was really scared.

Judd: Like, How am I going to learn how to talk off of these cue cards?

Louis: Yeah, everything. Everything. How am I going to do any of this? I thought, I've got to get a writer to help me. I've got to bring a guy in. Everybody does that. But then I was hanging out with Amy Poehler a lot and she said to me, "Don't bring somebody in. Just give yourself to the process." So I just showed up and said, "What do you guys want me to do?" And I let them lead me through it. But the second time I did it was the best because I had the benefit of experience and I was so excited to do it again and I knew a lot more about it and all the people were junior. There were all these young kids and I found myself teaching some of them, and that was a nice feeling. Anyway, it is fun to be part of old hallowed things.

Judd: How long do you think you can do your show for?

Louis: I don't know. I feel like I have to take it year by year. This year was a totally different experience than last season. I didn't do it like a job. I decided I don't need to go and try to make movies or anything. This show was a good job. It's a good thing to be doing creatively. I had this thing that I was going to make a movie. And I'd been saving it and I said, f.u.c.k it. I'll make an episode out of it. So I cut it into two pieces and I made it an episode and it's a whole flashback thing.

Judd: There's a type of storytelling, and movies are not hospitable to it. It's a miracle when shows fall together and you feel like, Oh, this is the right idea for the right person and s.h.i.+t's about to go down.

Louis: TV shows are about getting the right tuning. It's like trying to crack a safe. Once you get it, it starts paying off like a slot machine creatively-like, I created a machine that makes paper cups, you know. I just sit there and stack them. And it keeps running as long as people want paper cups.

Judd: Whose voice is in your head that's wise?