What About Bobcat?

Bobcat Goldthwait on the rebirth of his career.

by Shaun Brady

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Make no mistake — Bobcat Goldthwait is fully aware of his place in the culture. "If somebody told me Michael Winslow was making movies," he says of his Police Academy co-star, "I'd be kinda skeptical. I'd have a very arched eyebrow."

But Goldthwait is now three-deep into a directorial career (supplemented by gigs helming TV shows, including Dave Chappelle's and Jimmy Kimmel's) which began with 1991's Shakes the Clown. All three deal in particularly bleak comedy — Sleeping Dogs Lie (2006) concerns a woman's revelation of a canine sexual encounter to her fiancé, while his latest, World's Greatest Dad (see Sam Adams' review), stars Robin Williams as father to the planet's most unpleasant son, who meets an even more unpleasant fate. Goldthwait stopped by the lobby of the Sofitel Hotel last month to discuss his career rebirth.

City Paper: Did you make a conscious decision to quit performing and work more behind the scenes?

Bobcat Goldthwait: I jokingly say that I retired at the same time that people stopped hiring me, so it worked out really well. But I could still work if I wanted to. I could be on celebrity reality shows, because they use the term "celebrity" really loosely. As soon as Howie Mandel was a hit on Deal or No Deal, I got three phone calls to host network game shows. But I don't, because I know those things just don't make me happy.

CP: Does performing no longer appeal to you at all?

BG: I feel like I've hated standup for about 20 years, but I go out and I do it so that I can keep making these tiny indie movies and pay my bills. But recently, I was out on the road and I was videotaping it, thinking I was going to make a movie about how morning DJs are douchebags and club owners are criminals and opening acts suck shit. And none of that happened. I had my friends with me, I actually had fun, and everything was good. But I still hate it, and probably anyone else could have told me the problem years ago — I hate this character. I hate the persona. So I started performing out of character. Sometimes it goes well, and sometimes there's people in Des Moines yelling, "Do the voice!"

CP: You and Robin Williams go way back — did you write World's Greatest Dad with him in mind?

BG: No. If I was going to write a movie for Robin, I certainly wouldn't make him a poetry teacher dealing with tragedy. He and I are just really close friends, and just as I would tell him about anything I was working on, I mentioned this over dinner, and he read it and said he'd like to do it.

CP: How is it different directing someone you know so well?

BG: I don't think I've ever worked with anyone I've felt more comfortable giving direction to, and he says it's the most comfortable he's ever felt on set. I did freak out the night before, though. I was like, "What if he doesn't listen to me?" We're best friends, but he could easily say, "I have an Academy Award and you were in Hot to Trot."

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CP: Both of your recent films deal with unpleasant truths.

BG: It bothers me that we all constantly make our own reality so we can justify our behavior. That's something I loathe in myself and other people. The other theme that seems to go through these movies is a sense of kindness, which is very weird. I'm fully aware if I heard Bobcat Goldthwait talking about kindness I'd stick him in the head with a fork, but those are the things that I'm interested in. Maybe someday I'll make a caper movie or a robot movie, but I can't imagine it happening real soon.

CP: Do you feel like the films you make are incompatible with studio filmmaking?

BG: Yeah. Most of these characters are based on people, so how can you give me a note about what my brother would do? I don't want to hear about some knucklehead's ideas whose sense of comedy goes all the way back to the early Ben Stiller films. The studio system is based on fear and money, and even as a kid I thought money and power were asinine goals.

CP: In talking about your films, you've often complained that comedies aren't made for adults anymore.

BG: When I was a kid, Woody Allen would make a movie and reference Kafka. I would be 12 or 13 and go, what is Kafka? I would be forced to catch up to Woody Allen instead of the other way around. That's one of the things that's not cool about stand-up: when you're onstage doing comedy, you have to keep the dumbest person in the room entertained. And if you don't they're going to heckle and ruin the show. So you have to keep the drunk lunkhead or some fucking broham jock amused.

CP: What else are you working on?

BG: I'm finishing up a spree killer film, and I spoke with Ray Davies, who gave me his blessing to write a screenplay for a musical based on the Kinks album Schoolboys in Disgrace. With Sleeping Dogs Lie, I was trying to do my version of a Woody Allen movie, and this one was my take on a Wes Anderson movie — that's why there's a big English pop song and a slow motion scene. So with Schoolboys I really want to go out and make a Bob Fosse kind of thing.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)