Martin Short Heads to Twin River

Okee dokee folks … I had the chance to speak with Martin Short last week about random things and his upcoming performance at Twin River in Lincoln on Friday, March 10. Martin called me from his Los Angeles home where he has lived for the past 30 years.

John Fuzek: I read that you are originally from Canada. So are you still Canadian or are you an American now?

Martin Short: I’m dual, American and Canadian. I live in LA and I have a house about two hours north of Toronto and the lakes; it’s very beautiful summer home.

JF: I love Canada! I personally think Canadians have it together!

MS: Well, the things that divide this country have been kind of solved 40 or 50 years ago in that country. Healthcare passed in ’61. We have guns and we have laws that make sense. We don’t have the carnage. We took 25,000 refugees in and our prime minister greeted them at the airport with a hug. So it’s a different country. It’s more of a social democratic approach to things. There are regulations on our wall street so we didn’t have that crash in 2008 from the greed. There’s a perception that social democratic is that you are living in a communist state, but as we know that is not accurate. For years the words socialized medicine seemed terrifying, but it’s just making sure that if you were a citizen of that country you are not homeless in the street trying to score an Advil.

JF: I didn’t mean to get into politics with you. It just happens.

MS: Well, this is one of the odder presidents. It’s not like George W or Clinton.

JF: Would you rather be a Canadian nowadays?

MS: No, I love the US. I have lived here since 1985 and I raised my children here in Los Angeles. What happens in a large populated country is really about education. That is why Trump has been able to maneuver a lot of his stuff, like by convincing people that things aren’t true.

JF: So, my mother has a question for you. She wanted to know if you were going to perform anything from The Goodbye Girl.

MS: No, not this time, but I love that show. That was my first Broadway show.

JF: You are pretty well-rounded. You do comedy, movies, theater, write, sing. Do you consider yourself a renaissance performer?

MS: Renaissance performer would be pretty accurate, but I would say more renaissance entertainer. I think the trick of doing this for a long time is … when you’re young it’s just the challenge of wondering when they will make you go home. Then you wonder if you can make enough to cover the rent. Then at a certain point in your life you realize that it’s not about that and you start thinking that if you don’t have the “food on the table motivation,” it becomes almost trivial. So why do you keep doing it? For me, it’s always been about the variety in it. So if someone asked me to do a series for nine years, that wouldn’t appeal to me. So, in the course of a year I do concerts on my own, I do concerts with Steve Martin, I do television, I do movies, I do Broadway … I am the voice of The Cat In The Hat, too. So, I like to do a wide variety of things in the course of a year. It keeps me on my toes and keeps me interested. Besides, the first seven years of my career was in Canada and there’s no real “star system” in Canada, but you work all the time in a variety of things. It’s like being a member of MGM when they used to sing, dance, act … they had to do it all.

JF: My friend Shawna Kelly came p with this question. We both used to work at a festival and there we both met Chevy Chase and Steve Martin. You are the last of The Three Amigos we haven’t met. And since I am on that subject, will there be any other Three Amigos films? I know it has been 30 years, but, hey…

MS: No, i don’t think so. I think that Three Amigos was a terrific film in the ’80s, but it’s left at that.

JF: What about a film where the cast is the same but a different story, like what A Fish Called Wanda/Fierce Creatures did?

MS: Yeah, but which was more successful? But I work with Steve ALL the time. We are doing a 50-city tour this year.

JF: What do you do on your tours?

MS: We do 15 minutes of stand-up together, then I do 25 minutes and then he does 25 minutes with the Steep Canyon Rangers. Then we do stuff together. We do a Glick thing with puppets. Catherine O’Hara described our show as a “children’s show for adults.” I have always had a concert show. I’ve done this since 2002 and that is what i will be doing at Twin River.

Steve had a Steep Canyon Rangers show and we interviewed each other for the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Chicago. We really enjoyed it because we’re really, really good, longtime friends and we’ve done a lot of work together. We found the ease of it and it was so much fun so we were asked to do it again. So we decided to morph that with elements of my show and elements of his show combined … with new stuff, of course.

JF: So, your solo appearance at Twin River will be a sort of variety show?

MS: It will be like a “party with Marty.” My analogy would be that’s it like I was hosting “Saturday Night Live” and was the cast as well. Jiminy Glick will interview a surprise guest, Ed Grimley shows up, Jackie Rodgers, Jr. … more characters show up. I sing, I dance, we bring up people and turn them into the Three Amigos. There’s a lot of improvising, and it’s very loose. That’s why it feels like a party. It’s the idea that if you’re in your living room and someone starts playing the piano and you jump up onto the piano and start entertaining for an hour and half. That is the intimacy that I’m striving for.

JF: So, with all of your characters, which is your favorite?

MS: It sounds disgusting to say, but you create them and they become like your children and you love them all, you know? Glick is always fun because i am just making it up, but I like the structure of the written word and the memorized word as well.

JF: Ed Grimley has always been a disturbing character to me … he’s kind of creepy! Is he based on someone in real life?

MS: Well, there was a guy I knew in high school named Phil. He wanted to be a photographer and his voice always went up high. I remember saying to him, “Hey Phil, what did you do this weekend?” He said, “I took a lot of slides, but I’m not going to develop them because i know what they are.” Then I was doing Second City Stage and I was doing this character and I remember Danny Aykroyd — or was it his brother Peter? — said, “Boy, your hair is standing up taller each time. You’ll be putting more and more grease in your hair.” So as a joke to make him laugh, I put it into a full point and the audience was hysterical. And, isn’t that my goal? So he became like an abstract, odd man that lived in life. Then when i was on “Saturday Night Live” he became obsessed with Pat Sajak and game shows. You create a little world for them.

JF: So, where did the triangle (that Grimley plays) come from?

MS: It was just an odd instrument that he would play. It just seemed like any choice that was odd would appeal to me. When i was doing “Prime Time Glick,” Michael McKeon was the musical director and his instrument was the harp. So, I guess odd choices just make me laugh.

JF: I read that you were in Godspell back in college.

MS: Well, not IN college, it got me OUT of college. I had been doing a master’s in social work and Eugene Levy, who was my friend back then, told me, “You have talent, you should give it a shot.” I didn’t have any preconceived notions so I thought, “Well, I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror at 50 and not have to think, ‘What if I tried acting? Wait, remember you did and no one cared.’ So I did. I was still in university. I had two more exams left in my fourth year and I auditioned for Godspell. It was a hit off Broadway in NYC and they were going to do its first national company starting in Toronto, and everyone wanted it. I got a callback. There were 400 people called back and they narrowed it down to 10. The 10 were Gilda Radner, Paul Schaffer — he was made musical director. He auditioned with his girlfriend at the time and they said, “We don’t care about her, but who is that guy pounding the piano?” Also, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Victor Garber. It was amazing.

JF: Now that sounds like a cast of Godspell that I would love! Godspell is one of my favorites when it is done correctly. I have seen it done ways that it never should have been done.

MS: Yeah, sometimes they just get too hip with it and too slick with it. Well, what they were looking for back then … I remember Gilda’s audition. I didn’t know Gilda then. She got up and had pigtails on the side of her head and sang “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” She wore overalls and I thought that was the saddest thing I had ever seen in my life. Right away Stephen Schwartz said, “You’re hired!” and I thought, “Oh my God!” They don’t want slick; they want raw originality. And when that element is part of the show, it works.

JF: There was a character (Sebastian Ballentine) that you played on “Law & Order” that was disturbing. Did you enjoy that role?

MS: I did. I am always intrigued by things that are a bit of a surprise. I remember that I had lunch with Dick Wolf because they wanted to write this part for me. I thought that would be cool to do, but I told him that what happens is that people who are very identified with comedy tend to do something dramatic and “stretch.” They become all dour and glum and they’re “acting.” So I told him that I thought that they should make this guy really charming so the audience really does believe that there is no way that he could be at all disturbed and couldn’t be a murderer because he’s too affable. I think that the end result was creepier. I remember a few years ago I was doing a TV series, “Damages,” and it was the same thing. I was working with Lily Tomlin and Glenn Close and the executive producer came up to me on the first day of shooting and said, “When you smile you become Martin Short.” And I said, “Well, you’ve got a problem because I am Martin Short and I don’t think we want to create a character that doesn’t smile because people smile.” The EP laughed and he said that I was right and they let that go. So there’s a little prejudice for people who have had a lifetime of comedy who do dramatic things because we don’t want to see those people in our dramas because we associate them with other elements like joy. But, you know, some of our greatest criminals have been really charming. I remember when it aired, I was in NYC and my son Oliver phoned my daughter Katherine and said, “Turn on the TV, Dad’s gone insane!”

JF: I was browsing through a list of your accomplishments and I noticed that you have a stamp in Canada.

MS: I do. I have a coin as well. A three dollar coin.

JF: Cool, what kind of stamp do you have?

MS: I don’t know. You put it on a letter and mail it.

JF: I have never actually known of anyone who have a stamp AND a coin who were living.

MS: That’s true. I am very legendary in that respect.

JF: So, I put it out to some of my Facebook friends to see if there was anything that they wanted to ask you. One person asked, “Did you ever date Shelly Long?” I don’t know why they asked that.

MS:I never dated Shelly Long. Long and Short, I get it, I get it.

JF: Another question, “Do you ever break character and burst into laughter?”

MS: You mean in a sketch? There was a little bit of it that happened, but only because Bill Hader is so funny when he breaks up. We did a sketch last time I hosted “SNL” and I played the Queen’s gynecologist and Bill Hader was breaking up and the more he did the more I tried to make him break up.

JF: A few people wanted me to tell you how much they liked you in the film Inherent Vice. One of your roles that I liked was Uncle Jack on “Arrested Development.” It’s such a shame that some people never really got it and it was canceled.

MS: These niche shows like “SCTV” are not always designed for the masses. That’s what makes them special.

JF: If you had to choose between “SCTV” and “SNL,” what would you choose?

MS: I wouldn’t. I do these things and other people tell me what they like. I remember years ago someone asked me what was my least favorite film and I mentioned it, and then I was at an airport and a 13-year-old kid came up to me and said, “I heard that you said that you don’t like that movie, but I loved that movie.” There are things to both of those shows that are unique. I like all these things. Also, you can’t be commenting too much on what you do because you are not doing it by yourself, so if you comment on it you are commenting on the work of 500 other people involved in the project. Like we are finding out now with Trump, words matter.

Martin Short performs at Twin River at 8pm on March 10.