Inside Adam Swift (1985)—"Mr. Spooner"
CE: That was another kind of very low-budget movie that was never released, with an actor named Raphael Sbarge. It was like a teen movie. A coming-of-age story.
AVC: It looks like it was released on VHS as My Man Adam.
CE: Was it really? Wow. Wow.
AVC: Can you recall the first film you were really excited about being in, because you felt it was going to be really terrific?
CE: [Laughs.] I guess it was Something About Mary. Just because it was so funny on the page. Even while you were shooting that movie, you knew that every scene you were in was funny. I shouldn't say that—I guess Groundhog Day came before that. I probably felt the same about that movie. At least while I was shooting it, I was thinking, "Oh yeah, this is gonna be a big, funny movie." It wasn't like Something About Mary, which made me laugh hysterically on the page—at least, not my character. Imagining Bill Murray doing his stuff made me laugh, but when we were shooting, I knew, "Okay, yeah, this is gonna be a good, funny movie."
AVC: You said you don't audition much—can you think of a role you went out and auditioned for, something you really wanted?
CE: I went out and auditioned for The Abyss.
The Abyss (1989)—"Bendix"
CE: I did end up in The Abyss, but I didn't get the part I auditioned for. That was during the 1988 writers' strike, maybe? Maybe there was another one after that, I can't remember. But it was during a writers' strike that I went out and read for the role Todd Graff got, the guy with the little white rat that he carries around on his shoulder. James Cameron liked me and we talked a lot, and then I heard I didn't get the part, and a few weeks later, I got invited down to North Carolina, and he was literally writing my role on legal paper while I was on the set. Handing it to me and saying, "Okay, you're gonna say this, that, and that thing." And I had a great time doing that movie, actually. He was really great to me.
AVC: That's twice that you didn't get a part and a director wrote a role especially for you, to make sure you ended up in his movie. Does that kind of thing happen to you often?
CE: I guess so. I think part of it, back in the early '80s, was because of Dave more than anything else, because of Late Night. There were a lot of casting people looking for who was hip out there, and what was the next hippest thing, and Late Night definitely was, and having an element of that in a movie, I think, added to whoever's movie. I know I got cast in Manhunter, Michael Mann's movie, because… There's no real reason for me to be in that movie other than the fact that it was, like, the height of my appearances on Letterman. I think I'd done a Cinemax comedy experiment, an article on me in People magazine, that kind of thing.
Manhunter (1986)—"Zeller"
CE: That was more difficult for me, in a way, just because I felt totally out of place there. I was cast through a casting agent who'd seen some article on me, and had told Michael Mann, "Oh yeah, it would be cool to have him in this movie," I guess. So I knew right from the start, "Oh, I really shouldn't be in this." The Abyss, I could put a little bit of my attitude from Letterman into the character. In Manhunter, I was supposed to be an FBI forensic investigator. And I don't know, I was 23 or 24 at the time, with a giant beard and long, stringy blonde hair—I just didn't look the part. I remember when the movie premièred, I appear in the scene where everybody's putting together the final information that leads to this killer, and the camera panned the table and cut to me, and there was this big blast of laughter from the audience that broke the whole tension of that scene. I can only imagine that Michael Mann was not happy about that.
Dilbert (1999-2000)—"Dogbert"
CE: It was an unhappy experience only in my performance—I wasn't happy with my performance in it. I'm not crazy about my voice on its own, doing anything. I've done a number of King Of The Hills because I'm friends with Paul Lieberstein, who runs the show, but I'd done a pilot with Larry Charles before Dilbert, and then he called and asked if I'd do Dogbert. I said sure, but I don't like the sound of my voice, and I'm not entirely sure why. I haven't figured that out yet, because I come from a radio family—in essence, my dad made his career in radio, and he has a great voice, but… My theory is that I'm not comfortable isolating one part of whatever it is I do. And my voice, without me moving around and mugging and adding whatever I add to it, I get uncomfortable. I thought it was a fairly lackluster performance.
AVC: Really? I loved your Dogbert.
CE: You know, this is all my perception. A lot of what I am telling you goes against what people tell me on the street, when they come up to me and tell me, "You were great in this, that, or the other thing." Some times I just walk away baffled about my own feelings. I've come to realize I have my own take on what it is I do. But a lot of people have come up to me and told me that they liked my Dogbert character.
AVC: Are there other aspects of yourself or your career where you feel like your perception differs from the general public perception?
CE: Yeah. I think overall, completely. Part of that is my own invention—the persona we are talking about is a guy that's fairly self-centered and is pretty much out to win the world, and who cares, mostly, just about himself. Yeah. I don't think that's me. People are always surprised that I'm not bouncing off the walls and that I'm not goofy, and crazy, and that sort of thing. But I think it's clear that I have created this other person, this alter ego. That's not unusual. It's certainly what Laurel and Hardy did, what the Marx brothers did, what Pee-wee Herman did. Even though I don't wear a goofy costume or have a goofy name, I'm still a completely different character.
New York Stories (1989)—"Robber"
CE: Okay, here's the New York Stories story. I got offered that part from Fred Roos, to play a robber in the Coppola one of the three little short films. And I was joking with Adam Resnick the day before the shoot, about me shooting this. And we were joking that Coppola wasn't going to know who I was, that he was going to call me "the guy with the beard." So I show up to shoot, and we don't shoot because there is something wrong with the camera. I don't know what the problem is, but I am there for, like, seven hours. And we haven't yet shot my scene. And it's late at night, and it gets into the early hours of the morning. I'm exhausted—I've worked all day at Letterman. So they yell "Action," and we shoot this wide scene. And Coppola says "Okay, that was great. Now, the guy with the beard, you come in a little earlier next time." And, I've go to say, I was just so mad at that point, at 4 in the morning, to not have the guy even know who I was, that I tried the next day to get out of the film, and tried to leave. But they had already got me on film so it was too late. I had to stay and go back and shoot the next night. That was my Coppola experience.
AVC: Who have been your favorite people to work with? Not just in terms of "he's a cool guy and I want to be in his films," but in terms of people who work best with you as directors?
CE: Adam Resnick, without a doubt, both as a writer and as a director, and as a friend to goof around with. You get a lot of inspiration out of goofing around, and a lot of ideas come out that way. So I would say it would be him before anyone else. And then looking back in terms of the movies, again, I've been a bit lucky, because most people have let me do what I want to do. When I was on the set, Keenen Wayans was great with me. He let me create a whole character for one of those Scary Movies, which isn't really what you do in those movies. You basically execute sight gags one after another. But he let me go off and play and improvise quite a bit, and do whatever I wanted. So I kind of think, with all of the movies, he would be up there, and so were the Farrellys.
Snow Day (2000)—"Roger"
CE: Kind of a favor-slash-business choice, financially. I knew someone at Nickelodeon who called me and said there was this role, and asked if I would be interested in doing it, so I did it. At the time, my kids were of the age that they were watching Nickelodeon, and would enjoy that kind of movie, and I thought "Well, I haven't really done a kids' movie yet." I guess I justified it that way.
AVC: Your next project is Thomas Kinkade's Home For Christmas. Can you say anything about that?
CE: It's about Thomas Kinkade, Painter Of Light, about his early days and how he learned to paint light. I play a guy in the small town that he grew up in, the head of the tourist department, who pays him to paint a mural on a wall in the town, to inspire the town. It's a little bit like a kids' movie, a little similar to Snow Day. I haven't seen it. But it's kind of a comedy-drama-type thing. It's totally G-rated. Peter O'Toole is in it, and Marcia Gay Harden. I'm not sure if it's coming out this holiday season or next holiday season. I think it's coming out next year.
AVC: What else do you have coming up?
CE: Picketing.
AVC: Are you actually out on the line?
CE: I was today, yeah.
AVC: What was that like?
CE: It's kind of fun. It's nice to see some writers I haven't seen for a while, and to hang with the Late Show writers, who I really like a lot. It was fun, in that it was raining and cold. It felt good. But I was about to start to do more things back on Letterman again, and it was starting to turn into more or less a regular thing, with me coming back and doing stuff with Gerry Mulligan, and doing some running characters. Dave was having fun with me coming back. When the strike is over, I'll probably go back and do some more of that.
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