Caffeinated Clint
For the new comedy “Death at a Funeral”
Never ask Frank Oz to do an impression of Missy Piggy or Yoda, that’s one thing Alan Tudyk learnt when he worked with the veteran voice-actor come filmmaker on the new Brit comedy, Death at a Funeral.
“He’s done so many great Muppet characters, but he won’t do that stuff”, Tudyk, who plays drug-addled Simon in the film says. “He doesn’t throw it out there. And I tell ya, if you ever interview him don’t ask him to do it – I did a bunch of interviews with him, when we were together here, leading up to the release and that question always came up. I would just take one step back and he would just go ‘I’m not doing no party favours for you, these are characters I consider sacred to me, I’m not going to just get them out for you – and say your little radio station call letters, or whatever’”.
Tudyk never actually to audition for Oz, whose other films as director include Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bowfinger, before he got the job.
‘’I’d been away and came back to three scripts. I really liked that one, so my agent asked me to put myself on tape to send to London. It was hard because you don’t get to meet the director and there wasn’t even a committed casting director on it – because they were casting out of London – so you’re just throwing over a video cassette. Then, I got a call from Frank Oz who said ‘I really liked how you did this role, let’s talk’”.
Oz is a man who knows what he likes, and definitely knows how to look after his actors, says Tudyk.
“Frank is great. Unlike a lot of film directors he’d have rehearsals – you don’t get a lot of rehearsals. Usually you’d just sit around a table and do a read-through, and maybe – maybe – put it on tape once; you usually just get the script and start shooting it but because this was a 7-week shoot, and that’s the shortest shoot Frank’s ever done, he asked whether we could get a week rehearsal at the start. We rehearsed it almost like a play. Boy did it help – you got to flesh it all out. It was a great process. I came from the theatre, in New York where I started, and that process is just beautiful. I’d work with Frank Oz any day.”
And though Tudy’s done comedic performances before – Wash on TVs Firefly, Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball, Jack the e! boss in Knocked Up – Simon is truly in a league of his own. Just how much alike are actor and character?
“Well”, laughs Tudyk, “I like to experience the world and I’m somewhat like a child. It’s interesting because with Simon you don’t get to see Simon too much – you get to see who Simon is for about two minutes and then it’s Simon on acid and all these hallucinogenic drugs…. I like to experience the world and smell the flowers, but Simon would like to stick them in his hair and run around”.
Unlike say Serenity – the feature-length version of Tudyk’s trademark series Firefly – or Dodgeball, Death at a Funeral has earnt the 36-year-old actor a ‘different’ type of fan.
‘’I have been [recognized for the role] but it’s funny, it’s not one of those films that people stare at you and go ‘Oh wow, look who it is!’, instead they feel the need to actually walk up to you and go ‘Hey, I just saw Death at a Funeral and really liked it’. So I’ve met a lot of those kinds of people. That’s really neat, when you see people excited about something that you’re part of, that you helped make.”
As we speak, Tudyk says he’s preparing for a trip to Australia where he’ll be appearing down under at a science-fiction convention. His role on the short-lived series Firefly, axed after only a dozen episodes, still has quite the fan base it seems and Tudyk is only pleased to say thankyou to them – even if they are half-way across the other side of the world.
“It just blows me away. We were cancelled and then we made a movie out of it – that’s wild; you don’t see that happen until years later when it becomes a campy spoof of the thing”.
DEATH AT A FUNERAL commences next Thursday
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