Comedy
legend Bobcat Goldthwait
made a film about giving a dog a blowjob - we despatched Peter
Prickett to ask him some seriously relevant questions...
When I told people I was going
to interview Bobcat Goldthwait, most people said “Who?”
Then I explained that he was Zed in Police Academy...
People suddenly knew who he was.
As I started the interview I approached him about
this subject. That people knew Police Academy, and perhaps Scrooged.
“Like it or not, my obituary photo will be me in a police uniform,”
he admitted. “It’s a double
edged sword. It exposed me to people and paid bills. At the same time
when people came to my stand up they weren’t aware that I actually
had material.”
Bobcat Goldthwait started doing stand up in bars
aged fifteen. He used his brothers I.D. to get in and performed as Jim
Goldthwait. From there Bobcat appeared on Letterman at twenty.
Kurt Cobain was a fan. Before Nirvana broke out, Bobcat was interviewed
by Kurt Cobain on a college radio station in Michigan.
“He gave me a CD of Bleach. I told my friend that rock and roll
sucked because these guys were really good and we’ll never hear
from them again”. A few years later Bobcat
was opening for Nirvana on their final tour of North America.
“Kurt was a very sweet guy. I liked him a lot. He had a great
sense of humour and people always missed that part of him.”
Then there was an infamous appearance on Jay
Leno’s Tonight Show. Bobcat set fire to the couch.
“I was bored doing stand up. I was bored with being a celebrity
for celebrities’ sake. I had just smashed up another show much
worse. I did $10,000 worth of damage. The trouble is, when you start
working with fire you get convicted of arson. I was on probation for
four years”.
In recent times he has been focused on directing.
The first thing he directed was an alcoholic clown movie called Shakes
the Clown. Then low budget music videos. Jimmy Kimmel asked him to work
on his show. Whilst working on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Sleeping Dogs was
made during a couple of weeks off.
Bobcat has now left Kimmel and hopes to make more small films.
How different is directing a talk show to directing
a movie?
It’s completely different. When you are directing a single camera
thing you can say cut and stop and discuss things. On a talk show when
we are recording I couldn’t even talk to Jimmy. I made Sleeping
Dogs when I had a week off, then I took another four or five days to
finish it.
Which do you prefer, directing or being in front
of the camera performing?
I prefer being behind the scenes. My decision to be an entertainer was
made when I was twelve. If we were all stuck with the jobs we chose
as children there’d be a lot more firemen and astronauts in the
world.
Did the tightness of the schedule make the shoot
stressful?
No. We did it so low budget that nobody was getting paid. Everybody
who was there was there because they wanted to be. It was like being
pirates or something. It was done in a jovial spirit.
What was it that pushed you to get the film made?
It was really one of the producers. She read the script and pushed to
make it. We scraped money together, people pitched in. Robin Williams
gets a credit at the end of the movie. He called me and asked “Why?
What did I do?” I said to him, “Remember that Stratocaster
you gave me? I sold it”.
Did you approach any mainstream studios with
the idea?
I showed it to two people. One said to me “Does she have to blow
the dog? Couldn’t she just give it a hand job?” My manager
at the time said that they didn’t want to send out the script
because they were afraid what people would think about my mental health.
Which I find funny because it’s probably the most accessible and
wholesome thing I’ve ever written.
I noticed that the movie was originally called
Stay.
It was called Stay and then they did the Marc Forster movie. When we
were at Sundance (Festival) it was still called Stay. The Marc Forster
film had larger attorneys than myself.
There is also another film called Sleeping Dogs Lie.
They had a smaller team of attorneys than myself. I like Stay better
as a title, but I do like the confusion. People think Naomi Watts is
in a dog blow job movie.
Our interview is disrupted as a pot of coffee
is delivered. Bobcat takes some time out to pour two cups. I don’t
have the heart to tell him I don’t drink coffee. So it sits beside
me for the remainder of the interview.
Before I saw your film I was told that it was
a romantic comedy. It’s quite unlike any romantic comedy I have
seen. How would you classify it?
I would say it’s a relationship comedy. Not a romantic comedy.
A relationship comedy with a tasteful amount of bestiality.
How long did it take you to write the script?
It was three days. I’m sure detractors will say that I should
have spent another day or two on it. It was an idea I had in the back
of my head. One weekend I just typed it up.
The film is about how honest people should be.
When I run into people who are upset by the movie they aren’t
upset by the bestiality, they are upset by the idea of not being honest
in a relationship. I think those people are very foolish. Full disclosure
in a relationship is a terrible idea. If you are lying and the person
that benefits from it is you, then that’s probably a bad lie.
But if you are lying out of kindness then I don’t think that’s
a bad lie at all.
As writer and director you get the choice as
to how honest your characters learn to be.
I like it when the character says, “It’s living up to the
lies we tell about ourselves that makes us better people.” I believe
that. I think that if I had to live up to all the wonderful things I
say about myself to other people I would glow, I would be incredible.
Where did the idea for the central catalyst come
from?
I don’t know. Not that I know anyone who blew a dog. The idea
hit me, but two things hit me at the same time, the idea about being
honest in relationships and blowing a dog. That was really the germ
of the movie I wrote on a piece of paper ‘bad idea’. A month
or two later I wrote the script.
The film has been officially selected at Sundance
and San Sebastian.
I never thought I would see it in a theatre. I always thought it’d
be something where I would say to my friends, “Hey, you wanna
see something fucked up? I’ll show you this movie we made in two
weeks.” So the fact that it got into any of these festivals at
all is way beyond my expectations.
As our chat about the movie came to its natural
conclusion. There was one more thing I wanted to know. Most of the time
he is billed as Bobcat Goldthwait, others Robert Goldthwait, occasionally
its Jack Cheese, and sometimes the Goldthwaite is spelled with an ‘e’.
So how come the inconsistency, and where does Bobcat come from?
In the movies I call myself Bobcat because I don’t like to think
I’m taking myself too seriously. When I started doing comedy a
friend of mine called Barry said he wanted to be called Bearcat. So
being sarcastic my friend Tom Kenny and I decided that we would be called
Tomcat and Bobcat. Tom Kenny I’ve known since I was six and now
he’s SpongeBob Squarepants. Anyway, so now I’m 44 and still
Bobcat while they are just Barry and Tom. So I don’t think that
joke played very well.
Sleeping
Dogs is in cinemas from March 16
