The actor: David Koechner, a veteran of improvisational comedy well before he raised his profile by joining the cast of Saturday Night Live at the ripe old age of 33. Koechner only spent a year at SNL, but has stayed plenty busy since, taking small comic parts on TV and appearing in five or six movies a year. He’s also been keeping his improv tools sharp, both on the Los Angeles comedy scene and as half (with Dave “Gruber” Allen) of the musical duo The Naked Trucker & T-Bones. Koechner can currently be seen in the comedy Tenure (now on DVD), in which he plays a Bigfoot-obsessed college professor who tries to help his buddy Luke Wilson beat out a rival for a tenured faculty position.
Tenure (2009)—“Jay Hadley”
David Koechner: I remember sitting in a tree as the sun set, with the branch dangerously tented. Would not have been my choice, but apparently they liked the background, and didn’t ask us, “How about that tree, guys?” [Laughs.] We shot for about 28 days in and around Philadelphia. I was the second lead in that picture, after Luke Wilson. I’ve worked with Luke twice now, and it’s been good getting to know him. And this thing wasn’t a straight-ahead comedy, so that was certainly interesting. And the beard! I loved that beard. It’s not often you get an excuse to grow an unruly red-and-gray thing from your face. I kept it full-bore for maybe a month or two, and was able to work one more time with it. I did a small role in a movie called A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, so it was appropriate. The beard played.
The A.V. Club: Does your wife have any rules about how long you can keep a beard?
DK: She does not, but my kids do. They want me to shave after a couple of days. Growing a beard in your own home wouldn’t be fun without the opinions of others.
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy/Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004)—“Champ Kind”
DK: Glorious. With Anchorman, the thing I loved the most was that we all understood that something special was coming together while we were shooting, almost to the point where we didn’t want to break it up. I remember having conversations with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd and all of us opining “Wow, this feels pretty good.” And not wanting to overstate it, almost as if we’d jinx it. I mean look, you think every movie’s gonna work, right? You think every movie has great potential. But that one in particular, it felt like, man, every cylinder was poppin’. We shot enough for two movies, you know. There’s a second feature too.
AVC: As a comic actor with an improv background, do you like to work with the same people as much as you can? Is it a matter of trust?
DK: It’s more chemistry. And shared experience is certainly part of it. And an understanding of the tone you’re engaged in. It’s kind of like a pickup basketball game, where once you get on the court, even if you haven’t played together before, you can see, “Okay, he gets it.” Or “She gets it.” You’re kind of leading each other.