Kingpin (1996)—"The gambler"
AVC: You also did Kingpin with the Farrellys. It was only a few years between those films, but did you notice any difference in their style as they became more prominent and better-known?
CE: It was almost exactly the same. I just had more to do in Something About Mary. They'd sent me Kingpin, I remember, and they had said that they were thinking of me for the Bill Murray role—they had it out to Bill Murray, but they weren't sure if Bill Murray was going to do it. Then they called and said, "Yeah, Bill Murray's gonna do it." And I said "Oh, that's too bad," and then they wrote this other little part for me in the casino, and called me up and flew me out just to do that scene. They were really hardcore fans of mine, and it was fun to work with them just that night, shooting that scene, but then a lot more fun to have more to do in Something About Mary.
AVC: Was that a role you were really disappointed to miss out on?
CE: The Bill Murray role? Um, not really, only because I haven't—I don't really go after roles to any great degree. I was back doing David Letterman when they were doing Kingpin, and I was happy doing that. Yeah, it would have been nice to have that role, but at the same time, I wasn't relying on acting to put bread on the table, so it wasn't like I missed out on anything great. It was more like "Oh, I won't see the Farrellys, I'll only be shooting one night, and that's too bad."
Late Night With David Letterman (1982-1985)—"Various characters"
CE: That was really fun, because it was all about making Dave laugh; it wasn't really about making the audience laugh. It was all about coming out there and making sure Dave found whatever you were doing funny. There were plenty of times that I would come out and not necessarily get huge laughs, but Dave would laugh, and I knew that piece worked. And in the end, I think that the audience that was watching Late Night early on, they were seeing things that hadn't been done on TV before, and it was all new, so whether or not it was uproariously funny, I think I at least got points for doing different stuff.
Lianna (1983)—"Lighting Assistant"
CE: [Laughs.] I don't think I have ever talked about that movie. Wow. That is random, for sure. I think I was like 17 or 18 when I did that. Maybe a little older. It came out in '83, but it was shot before that. It was before I was at Letterman. I had done summer stock up in New Hampshire at the Eastern Slope Playhouse, and that's where John Sayles—he shot Return Of The Secaucus 7 up there, and that whole group—David Strathairn and all those people worked at the same theater that I apprenticed at. I had met Sayles there, and he just called me and asked me if I wanted to do this little part in that movie, and it was—that's my first movie role. I haven't seen it since it was done, so I can't really comment on it, except for I had a head of hair and no beard at the time. [Laughs.]
AVC: What do you remember about being on a movie set for the first time?
CE: Well, it was a low-budget movie, and even then, I knew, "This isn't really the way it is on regular movie sets." I guess just having grown up with my dad in the business and being on movies like Cold Turkey, which he did out in Iowa—it was a huge film, that kind of thing—so I knew it was kind of somewhere between a home movie and what would be called nowadays an independent film. But it was still a little nerve-wracking and a little—you're finally up to bat, and you have to show that you've got something. I don't remember there being anything in that role that I could really bite into, other than the fact that the character looked like me.
AVC: Was it any easier knowing that he had cast you in the role personally because he liked your work?
CE: Oh yeah. Yeah. I haven't really auditioned much in my career. I've been lucky in terms of the feature work; it's mostly been people that have been fans of mine that have called and said "We have this part, do you want to do it?" That kind of thing. And that's sort of still the way it is right now—I don't really go after features too much. But doing Lianna was—at that age, you're trying to get as much on your résumé as possible, so I was really happy to have a film on my résumé. And I knew all those people, so it was more like I was being invited into his group of players, but already sort of having hung out with them up in New Hampshire. So it wasn't that awkward a feeling for me.
Hyperspace (1984)—"Hopper"
CE: Wow. This is really random. Really, really random. The director called Letterman, had seen me on the show, said he was a huge fan, and asked me to be in it, and I said sure. It was down in North Carolina where we shot that. Paula Poundstone was in it. It was kind of a parody of Star Wars, long before Spaceballs. It's another movie that I have not seen, but I remember at the time thinking that it was funny. It was kind of low-budget, but Paula Poundstone had some heat on her at the moment, and I was a fan of hers—I think she had actually done Letterman before she got that, so I sort of felt like, "Oh, this is the next step, then, for me." And then from there I went on to Inside Adam Swift. [Laughs.]
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