Michael McKean on Christopher Guest, retaining the rights to play Lenny, that gave him diarrhea

good evening - good evening to you sir it's such a pleasure to meet you we just got to say hi for briefly backstage but I've wanted to meet you for years doesn't take that long to meet me what you've now met me not take years did it oh it went very quickly and shaken we're on our but I'm an enormous fan you know you're you're you're great and everything you're in you are saying everything I have nothing ever that's true but you're famous for many things you're immortal for spinal tap oh goodness no you are you must know that you must know I'm sure you've talked about it many times but you must know that you are comedic ly immortal first I love you only you guys almost single-handedly created a genre it was a fun gig yeah yeah the idea of not writing a screenplay and just saying let's make this up as we go along was it essential laziness yes absolutely we were actually initially we were given a small chunk of money to write a screenplay and we said nah and we said we want him we want we made a demo version of what we wanted to do so we did a lot of it we got of our you know a lot of our friends who knew how to improvise Tony Hendra and and Richard Belzer and a lot of the Rob Reiner from the beginnings yes it was yeah and we made a 20-minute version with our own bucks and kind of hawk that around and eventually landed a sail Sun did people think you were going to take that and make a script out of it I don't know what they thought I didn't I didn't ask we were surprised that it became such an iconic piece of comedy yeah well it had kind of a limping start you know it didn't do much in the theaters there was one theater in Boston it played it for a year and a lot of other theaters you know where people liked the show and moved on and came out in late or 84-84 I had heard about it and I heard was fantastic and was being played in my college I was at Northwestern - and I went in to this auditorium because I I said somebody told me you have to see it I went in really early because I thought it would be packed yeah with people who were there to record final tasks and it was it was absolutely rammed with people but they were there to protest a guy named Adolfo Calero who was a representative of the Contras when the standing offices in the Contras were fighting somebody ran up through blood on him the entire thing a bucket of red paint representing blood oh my god everyone got dragged down at 6:00 ruined everything and then they ran the movie and it was me you have a good time okay good I couldn't believe although on the thought anyway you've also you also were in the great mighty wind so you're you you're great at playing in a band or position did you when you you know when you were a young buck coming up did you really want to be in a real band well yeah sorted to be an actor you know because I my dad took me to some plays and stuff and I thought looks like a good gig you know all these seats are pointing this way and it's me up here and hello you know it just seems a bell yeah but and but my parents love the idea but they were also very sensitive to the realities of life and they said you have to have something to fall back on and I said hey I play the guitar that's where the big money a hat indeed but I know I found a way to use to use music and the other stuff and it all works it's early did yeah you guys did a lot of interviews as the lad tap yes did people the interview ever like get confused and think that you were real a lot of people who do interviews are already confused before they come into work I know so yeah yeah I guess so the one of the first appearances we ever made before the film was even released we appeared on the Joe Franklin show do you remember the Joe Franklin show anybody yeah hit this guy this guy was on TV since I was born I mean he was you know he was always on TV and he had this very kind of low-budget show and we went on and he thought we were a real band bless his heart and we just kind of sat there and he was great we thought is this our future do we have to keep getting people and but most people play along most people are great if you think you would like to open for the stones or anything like that like oh no I was with a group called the credibility gap for a time Harry Shearer David L Landers was later my partner on Laverne and Shirley and and me and we used to open for actually open for John Denver I mean it was just a lot of head scratchers there you know just like what are they doing up there we political satire and stuff and we opened for Richie Havens one time who had a big following his shorts wonderful folks i layered stock yeah what's that and it was a long beach fox and someone had decided it was a good idea to give everyone an orange on their way into the to the gig and there are a lot a lot of sailors you know uh-huh and so they didn't like our act and they let us know by giving us citrus fruit vender v so yeah so I headliner nothing that's so easy so well on Iran a better call a better call Saul now and you play a shuck McGill that's right um oh is Jimmy's brother and he is where men in the world worse around the world your characters a bit of a shut-in because he is very susceptible to EMF electromagnetic frequency yeah issue has electromagnetic hypersensitivity okay do you have anything like that do you have any do have Utley like I have arthritis in my thumb which I've had for twenty years i arthritis my thumbs and I can always tell when it's going to get cold or when it's going to get hot or when it's going to stay the same because then my thumb hurts see and so that's really handles very heavy exactly yeah you're a one-man weather channel yeah I am but there's a laundry list of chucks illness and and a lot of symptoms such as genuine thing people actually feel terrible when they're around certain you know electronic devices and so I just have to tick pick and choose you know I have felt vertigo I have felt muscle aches and pains you just have to pile up and take it seriously whether or not it's a psychosomatic thing for this character he's really feeling it on someone or I mean they're real people who actually suffer oh yeah yeah and do you think it a psychosomatic or real I don't know I don't know or is there a difference between psychosomatic or real all acting is psychosomatic when you think of nothing and at the end of it P

Channel: Stephen Corlbet Full Live Show

Views: 149,528

Keywords: Michael McKean, Michael McKean interview, Christopher Guest, Lenny, gave him diarrhea

Id: R8C3XLfFRPY

Length: 6min 22sec (382 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2017