In Waiting for Guffman, Eugene Levy's character Allan Pearl is
a Jewish dentist with lofty showbusiness aspirations and nothing
in common with his creator, Levy says. "He's like an
amalgamation of a lot of different people, mostly Jewish, that I
have known over the years, who are gentle souls, don't have much
going for them, and think they're more talented and funnier than
they really are." And along with the film's other
characters, Levy's "developed in front of the camera,
because we didn't rehearse any of the scenes before we shot
them."
"I'm not great at
analysing what I do"
He denies that his Jewishness - which plays a role in his
Allan Pearl character - is tied in to his sense of comedy.
"I don't think that has anything to do with it. I'm not
great at analysing what I do. The thing that works best for me is
riding a very fine reality line, and having people wonder: is it
supposed to be funny or not? I like that line kinda blurred, and
when it rides dangerously close to that line, that's when I get
the most excited."
Primarily a Canadian TV comic, Eugene Levy is the
scene-stealer in such comedy hits as Splash and Multiplicity but
doesn't appear in a plethora of big-screen outings. When he does,
viewers are inevitably in for a treat. Waiting for Guffman is his
latest gem, which he also co-wrote with director Christopher
Guest. It is a hilarious mock documentary, which chronicles the
production of an amateur musical to celebrate the
sesquicentennial of the fictitious small town of Blaine,
Missouri.
It appears that Blaine has two claims to fame - it's the
"stool capital of the United States" (as in footstool,
but the ambiguity is used for humour) and it was visited by a UFO
before Roswell was ever heard of. In fact, when the aliens landed
in Blaine, they invited the residents on board their ship for a
pot luck dinner, and when they took off, they left behind a
circular landing site within which the weather never changes (67
degrees with a 40% chance of rain). Now, Blaine is 150 years old,
and, to celebrate the occasion, the town council has decided on a
number of special events, all to culminate with the play Red,
White, and Blaine. Guffman is the Broadway theatrical scout
coming to see iof the show’s up to standrad for the Great
White Way.
"I can't say I love
it, even though it's fun and a great way to work," Eugene Levy on improvising
Directing this play is off-off-off-off- Broadway exile Corky
St. Claire (Christopher Guest), the man who attempted to turn
Backdraft into a stage production. Corky is ably assisted by his
music director, Lloyd Miller (Bob Balaban), and has a fine cast
of six. They are the husband-and- wife team of Ron and Sheila
Albertson (Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara), Blaine's travel
agents (who have never been outside of Blaine), local dentist
Allan Pearl (Levy), Dairy Queen waitress Libby Mae Brown (Parker
Posey), auto mechanic Johnny Savage (Matt Keeslar), and an old
coot by the name of Clifford Wooley (Lewis Arquette). Abandoning
their day jobs and SCRABBLE clubs, they come together to breathe
life into a musical version of Blaine's history. Unlike
conventional films, Waiting for Guffman was largely improvised
explains co-star Levy. " All Chris Guest and I did to begin
with, was put together an in-depth outline for the movie. Much of
the film was improvised, which is the way Chris did This is
Spinal Tap." Levy, who was required to improvise his own
hilarious on-screen character of singing and dancing dentist
Allan Pearl, says he has mixed feelings about working in such a
free environment. "I can't say I love it, even though it's
fun and a great way to work; I don't think you could improvise
any other kind of movie except this kind of mock
documentary."
The 51-year old comic actor, who had gone to school and worked
with the likes of Martin Short, admits he wasn't "especially
funny as a kid but developed that side of me in high school when
I started singing." Levy's first love was music (his first
professional engagement was in Godspell) but he started to
develop a keen ear for comedy in his later high school years,
when he started to write skits. Levy says he has no idea where
his humour came from. "I grew up watching all of the great
comics of the fifties, but where my skewed sensibilities come
from, I have no idea." Levy is coy about his Jewish
childhood, saying "it was a reform kind of Jewish
background. We observed everything that you had to observe, but
not in an extreme, overt kind of a way."
"I felt very strongly
about NOT raising a family in Los Angeles"
Levy starred for seven years in the classic Second City TV
show, which also launched the careers of John Candy and Martin
Short. But unlike his contemporaries who made the transition to
film, Levy shunned a full-time Hollywood career. "I made a
choice to stay in Toronto to raise my family", Levy recalls.
"I felt very strongly about NOT raising a family in Los
Angeles. Also, I did not have this huge penchant for building a
career; my thing was to try and make a good living." He now
continues to make a good living, and though absent on camera for
a while, he's bouncing back, with several major films on the
horizon, including a new film with Guffman co-creator Christopher
Guess.
