DCist Interview: Tom Green
Long before Borat ever walked the street, Tom Green made his living on MTV shocking strangers, his parents, and television audiences with his brand of feigned naïveté. You may remember the Canadian comic giving his parents' car a "Slutmobile" paintjob that he thinks they'll love, or making an embarrassing fuss about buying condoms. Following a bout with testicular cancer, Green went on to make several movies, marry and divorce Drew Barrymore, work with Letterman and Leno and get fired by Donald Trump. He now plies his trade by producing his own show on a self-dedicated Internet channel.
Green is in the midst of a worldwide stand-up tour that will bring the comedian to Washington, D.C. for six shows at DC Improv this weekend. (He's off shortly thereafter to perform in Cave-in-Rock, Illinois at the Gathering of the Juggalos!) We sat down with Green to talk about his act and find out how the Tom we know from TV compares to the real person.
You're sort of an important part of D.C. sports lore. I don't know if you know but...
Unleash the fury!
You got it. Would you ever have imagined?
I hope to come to a game this year. People have sent me videos of it on You Tube. It looks like a lot of fun. And I want people to come out to the Improv and unleash the fury [this] weekend. I actually do "unleash the fury" live in my show as it is in the movie Road Trip.
What can people expect from your stand-up routine?
It's something that I've really wanted to do for a long time. I've been on the road now for eight months. It's a high energy show. It's a silly show. But also I talk about a lot of things that are changing in our world that I think are ridiculous and scary at the same time, technology and Facebook and social networking. I'm trying to keep the show in a fun but still absurd and ridiculous place.
How has your comedy evolved since you've started your career?
It's a completely different thing, doing stand up than television. Obviously, there's things that are comparable, but with television there's cameras in the way, you're usually using material that's been written for you. It's not as personal as being in a comedy club or at a theater. It's a really honest medium. I've been having a kind of cathartic experience.
When you're doing your show, are we seeing the real you or a caricature of you?
Well, in my stand-up show, I do get into a lot of personal stories and I make fun of myself. I also do some more traditional stand up social commentary type material and some music. It is a performance. I mean, I've been doing this for so long now it's sometimes hard for me to really know what the difference is, you know? I've been doing this so long now that when I'm joking around with my friends with no cameras around, I'm still very much the character that I am in my stand-up.
We're always performing to some extent in our lives. It's definitely closer to the real me when I'm doing stand up than when I'm running around in a gorilla costume trying to get kicked out of a zoo or something in Japan.
With Celebrity Apprentice it seemed you couldn't get your peers to take you seriously. Scott Hamilton wouldn't believe that you were a serious person with something to contribute. Is that frustrating?
Well, yeah. Absolutely. But it's funny on television. It ended up sort of being an epiphany for me doing that show, because you realize people really do have their own things going on in their head and you can't always take other people's opinions all the time. You can't be offended by it. If people are being angry or mean or unsupportive, that may just be their problem and that was a big thing for me to realize that.
Tom Green brings his stand-up act to the DC Improv with 6 shows this weekend: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 8 and 10:30pm. Tickets are $25 with a 2 food/drink item minimum order per person.