2 top H’wood funnymen ‘Bored to Death,’ loving it
BEVERLY HILLS—In the fifth-floor hallway of the Four Seasons Hotel, Ted Danson needles a group of journalists: “So, what was the best thing I said?”
Danson (“Cheers,” “Becker,” “Three Men and a Baby”) just spent 20 minutes with the writers, invited from all over the world recently, to promote Season 2 of the HBO series, “Bored to Death.”
It’s an easy question. The best thing Danson said was not about himself but about eclectic writer (novelist-graphic novelist, short story writer, columnist) and now, executive producer, Jonathan Ames, on whose semi-autobiographical musings the series, described as “a film-noir comedy,” is based.
“Jonathan is a superstar in New York literary circles,” Danson said. “He’s in touch with tragedy and sadness [but] he’s one of the kindest, gentlest, sweetest innocent people I have ever met. You cannot be mean or sarcastic around him; it kind of puzzles him and goes over his head, literally. And yet there isn’t a perversion that he hasn’t leapt into, feet first. No social fabric binds him… he just pretty much experiments with and explores everything.”
Earlier that morning, Danson’s “Bored” co-star, Jason Schwartzman (“Rushmore,” “The Darjeeling Limited,” “Marie Antoinette”) likewise paid gushing tribute to Ames, whose writing, he (Schwartzman) said, is “so unique, so funny, that reading the script is like reading a menu that makes you really hungry… you can’t wait to try that and do this… you know?”
Having seen Season 1 and, that same morning, the first two episodes of Season 2, the journalists had to agree.
Well, have you?
“Bored to Death” tells the story of a noir fiction-obsessed writer who is also an unlicensed private detective with services listed on Craigslist (free online classifieds). The writer, curiously named Jonathan Ames (Schwartzman), also writes occasionally for a New York glossy magazine run by the eccentric George Christopher (Danson). As Season 2 begins, he’s decided to be a teacher in a night class in creative writing, though few of his students have any idea who he is. He also continues to hang out with Ray Hueston (Zach Galifianakis) a laconic, henpecked cartoonist.
As plots go, this may not grab the uninformed passerby. The real hook, Danson and Schwartzman agree, is… Jonathan Ames. “Have you met Jonathan Ames?” was the first thing both actors asked the visiting entertainment writers.
“He’s the reason the whole cast is back this year,” Danson said. “We all want to see what Jonathan Ames has cooked for us again.”
The Ames spell
Danson describes the series’ humor as “this wonderful kind of funny that comes out of putting people in very bizarre situations.” It’s not mean humor, either, the actor stressed, adding, “The characters are kind of sweet, lovable losers.” Plus, Ray, Jonathan and George “really love each other.”
Schwartzman went into the technical aspects: “The dialogue is very precise and balanced. Do we dare improvise? That would destroy the harmony of the whole work. There is a method to Jonathan’s madness.”
But Schwartzman says Ames, the writer, is “very accommodating” to the actors. “He’d call and ask if any of the lines look strange, or if there are words that would be hard for us to say.” (Schwartzman confessed, without shame, that he couldn’t say “real world” with the least amount of ease.)
Try as they might, the actor-comedians still fell short of words to capture the spell. In a 2009 interview, Ames, 47, unwittingly did it himself.
What’s with all the Jonathan Ames?
Well, whenever I wrote fiction, people assumed it was true. When I wrote non-fiction, people assumed I’d made it up. I couldn’t win. So I decided to name the character Jonathan Ames in the short story “Bored to Death,” to play with the frisson. It’s very strange to have Jason Schwartzman playing me. I’ll be in the editing room hearing him say, “I’m Jonathan Ames…” But I kind of like it—we all have multiple selves and the more confused I am, the better. It feels natural to be confused.
Did you choose Jason to play you?
Oh, yeah. I once played myself in a pilot I wrote five years ago… it didn’t get commissioned. Jason was my first choice because on top of being a wonderful actor, he’s a musician and he writes beautiful lyrics. He’s very much an artist. I felt he’d find it easy to play a writer. He’s a bit of an old soul but at the same time he’s this wonderful engine that can carry the whole show. People can be going crazy around him in every episode and he just keeps going forward—curious, wide-eyed, sometimes smart, sometimes confused but a really great engine.
Why do detectives have such an appeal for you?
I think for writers the private detective is like the Holy Grail, both a human being and a hero. I also think—and it’s kind of alluded to in the third episode where they say Oedipus was the first detective in literature—that solving mysteries is a basic component of storytelling. So why not have the [series’] lead character try to solve a mystery? He’s got the idea that he ought to be a detective in the same way that Don Quixote thought he should be a knight. It’s about being driven mad by literature.
How do you find switching between novels and columns, graphic novels and, now, television?
It’s always been Darwinian—I have to do this because I’ve got to pay the rent and not live with my parents again. So I will now do journalism or I will teach. I never really had a TV in my adult life because, living in New York, I would have had to pay for cable and that was an extravagance I couldn’t afford.
But I can get pretty much everything from some of the principles of literature. Like, there’s a great quote from David Mamet about writing scenes—get in late, end early. Basically, it’s a great rule for life: Jump in, then get out before you become boring.
Naked man running
Boring? That would be so out of character. Ames, the real-life writer, jumped—feet first, like Danson said he was inclined—into an early Season 2 episode where he runs naked on a New York City street.
The three lead actors have cemented little bonds of their own. Danson, 63, and Schwartzman, 30, have this quirky father-son relationship going. As Schwartzman described it: “Yeah, but it keeps changing; sometimes I’m the father. I do ask a lot of questions but the advice he gives me oftentimes is very irresponsible… so that I end up arguing, ‘I can’t do that!’”
The acting synergy is another story. Schwartzman related, “I never think what I’m doing is funny. Zach and Ted are funny, for different reasons. Ted does things with his hands and his body… there’s something intuitive about it that is so funny to me—like a spaced-out dreamer philosopher quality. I’m watching and I’m like, this is so f------ funny! And with Zach, you can never keep a straight face.”
Hueston was not available for the HBO interviews, but Danson amply illustrated the observation employing the spaced-out philosopher imagery. Asked what bored him to death, he deadpanned: “Cynical people bore me to death… people who make money out of other people’s fears and anger bore me to death. No… I’m making that up. I don’t get bored.”
As for Schwartzman never thinking anything he does is funny, his enrapt audience of foreign journalists vehemently protested. Asked how long he had to wear this shimmering S&M leather suit for Season 2’s first episode (which airs Tuesday, March 8, 10 p.m. on HBO) he cracked, “Long… very long. Then I rented it for the weekend.”
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