Off Camera with Sam Jones

What, me worry? Editor, musician, actor, comedian – Ed Helms makes it all look easy. And for him, it kind of is. The secret? A supportive, if showbiz-ignorant family helps, as does a seemingly bottomless supply of self-confidence. Helms left a happy, successful career as a commercial editor to take his chances in comedy with none of the attendant anxiety you’d expect with such a move. Why? He was just pretty sure he could do it. And he was right, landing at The Daily Show as one of its best writers and correspondents. As far as Helms was concerned, he was pretty much in his dream job when he was offered a role on The Office, but with no guarantees Andy Bernard would live beyond a couple of episodes. Risk an established career for what could easily be a rapid sitcom death? He figured he could do that, too. And we all know how that worked out. Helms talks to Off Camera about the arc of his career, his band (Andy Bernard’s mad banjo skills are real, kids), how The Hangover impacted his life and his rampant curiosity about, well, almost everything. Don’t mistake Ed’s confidence for arrogance – chalk it up to his hard work and equal parts respect and disregard for fear. But mostly, this most happy fella simply loves every moment of what he does, whatever that happens to be at the moment. Which is probably why we do, too.

When a kid tells you he wants to be an actor and starts holding regular meetings in the high school cafeteria with his “business partner” it’s kind of cute. When they establish a joint bank account to fund New York audition trips and the occasional arcade game, well call it naive. Unless you are Matt Damon and said business partner is Ben Affleck, then call it a no Plan B laser like focus on a goal. One that spawned the Academy Award winning script for Good Will Hunting. What started as an attempt to write themselves into acting jobs garnered Damon not only accolades but also some early lessons about fame, career choices, and the industry he was determined to be a part of. It also enrolled him in a 20 year on the job master class with the best film makers of our generation including Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Steven Soderbergh, Francis Ford Coppola, and Gus Van Sant. Along the way he also developed an uncanny ability to disappear into any character and become someone believable different in every film. So what could possibly be next? Damon tells Off Camera why no matter what it is, it will be something that he absolutely loves. So pull up a chair and listen in.

As a third grader, Sarah Silverman had already narrowed her future career to three options: Comedian, actress or masseuse. She landed pretty quickly on comedian and never looked back, dropping out of college with the support of a father who financed her NYC apartment and three-year curriculum of comedy club work. Success came rapidly and almost unbelievably when she was hired as a Saturday Night Live writer at just 22 – sans audition. She was fired almost as rapidly, without any of her work ever appearing on the show. Former SNL writer Bob Odenkirk said, “I could see how it wouldn’t work… because she’s got her own voice, she’s very much Sarah Silverman all the time. She can play a character but she doesn’t disappear into the character – she makes the character her.” Despite some noted guest TV and film appearances, Silverman never looked at standup as a stepping-stone to an acting career. She is a stand up comedian “the way some people are gay”. Compulsively revealing the painful (she dealt with depression and bed wetting into her teens) and the uncomfortable, the more she becomes herself, the funnier (if more shocking) we find her, whether we admit it or not. Her combination of honesty and true comedic skill results not in a series of jokes, but a series of insights that connect – all the more stealthily for being cloaked in humor. Sarah Silverman talks to Off Camera about her breakout special Jesus is Magic, the decision to film the more recent We Are Miracles in front of a vast audience of 39, and living the low-overhead dream.

Drug dealer, football player, alcoholic, shooting victim. In his first decade of acting, Michael B. Jordan has found ways to humanize characters that, on the page, may seem stereotypically what he dubs “the black guy.” In The Wire, a young and very sheltered Jordan asked fellow actors to help him understand how to simulate a cocaine high onscreen, and through that surreal experience discovered his unfettered love of acting. In Friday Night Lights, Jordan started journaling as an acting exercise, and amassed a detailed back story for quarterback Vince Howard that made the character seem shockingly real. With Fruitvale Station, Jordan dug even deeper. Playing a real person for the first time, he inserted himself deep into the family of the slain Oscar Grant, who was killed by a police officer on a train platform in Oakland in 2009. Jordan spent time with Oscar’s former girlfriend, mother, daughter, and all of his friends. The result was an intensely real portrayal of an innocent young man in a film that exposes our ongoing race problem in this country, and Jordan’s performance was nuanced, understated, and masterful. Perhaps his ability to play characters with the odds stacked against him comes from his own desire not to fall into that lifestyle. Jordan started working very young, doing modeling and acting in commercials, and saw an acting career as a way out of the tough urban environment of Newark, New Jersey. In his words, he saw “plenty of Wallaces, Bodies, and Avon Barksdales,” and was determined to make a better life for himself. Not only does Jordan not want to just “play the black guy,” he also doesn’t want to compare himself too closely to actors that came before. He says he doesn’t want to be the next Will Smith, or the next Tom Cruise--he just wants to be himself. When you are around Jordan, his optimism and ambition are infectious and endearing. He doesn’t just want to star in films – he wants to produce them. He doesn’t want to just be on television, he wants his own channel. And he doesn’t just want to be the face of a studio, he wants to run a studio. At Off Camera, we wouldn’t bet against him doing anything he sets his mind to.

Anyone reading Wikipedia’s entry on Will Forte couldn’t be blamed for suspecting it’s the prank of a fellow jokester. High school class president and football player? College history major? Promising financial broker? Seriously? Entries for his more recent past (That ‘70s Show writer, The Groundlings, Saturday Night Live) seem more like the real Will Forte – until you watch his subtly astounding turn in Nebraska. Director Alexander Payne considered over 100 actors for role of David, all of who wanted it – badly. It’s understandable, given the Oscar buzz and critical acclaim the film and cast have generated since the movie’s release. So how does MacGruber wind up as the kind voice of reason in a bleak cinematic landscape populated by bitter, deluded characters? Forte says maybe Alexander Payne had the best answer when he said that directors often choose actors “because they think 80% of the character is already you.” Indeed, Forte’s performance is so genuine, honest and stripped down it makes us wonder if the whole wacky funny guy thing is just an act. Any comedy we see in his character is of the absurdly sad sort that Payne has a genius for capturing. It’s hard not to draw parallels between the physical journey David takes in the film and Forte’s journey as an actor. Forte is grateful for every moment of it and excited about what comes next. At Off Camera, we will be watching to see exactly what that will be.

Martin Short grew up in a family full of funny people. He staged make-believe talk shows in his attic and absorbed a steady TV diet of comedy masters like Carson, Rickles and Paar, and yet inexplicably dreamed of becoming a doctor. Or a dentist. Always serious about success, Short gave himself a one-year contract to make it in comedy before returning to school for a master’s degree in a respectable medical field. Though we all know how things worked out, it’s rare to find a budding comic with a backup plan. But Short is a rare comedian – one you’d both want to go out and drink with and who you would allow to watch your kids. Maybe due to his upbringing as the adored baby of a family who never discouraged his comedic pursuits, Short developed a self assurance uncommon to the standard performer’s psyche. But it’s as hard-earned as it is innate: Short prepares. He practices in mirrors. He plots sketches with index cards. He does his homework. He knows his audience, and when it comes to talk shows, he knows his hosts. He’s an encyclopedia of the style nuances of everyone from Kimmel to Letterman. Short will tell you that confidence is the most important factor in any good performance, and it’s likely what kept him on a steady rise through the ranks of improv and sketch comedy, and helped him avoid imploding from the pressures of being the new guy in the room with some of the genres’ most intimidating names. Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal and Lorne Michaels were just a few of his early colleagues. It’s not hard to imagine that Short’s self possession is also at the root of some of his most precocious and obnoxious inventions. We find Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick hysterical in direct proportion to their complete lack of self consciousness. Short’s most beloved characters are his finely observed, albeit magnified versions of people we all know. Off Camera attempts to reconcile the frenetic showman, consummate comedy student and urbane purveyor of talk show banter as we ask, “Is this guy serious?”

Stacy Peralta recalls his earliest and most visceral memories of skateboarding as the rumbling of the sidewalk coming up through his feet. Metaphorically, what he might have been feeling was the oncoming explosion of skateboarding, which would carry him to places he couldn’t imagine as a grade schooler on his inaugural ride down an especially smooth stretch of Venice Boulevard in Southern California. By age 17 he was inventing iconic tricks and earning more money than his parents as a skater, and by 19 he was the sport’s highest ranked pro. His skate team, Powell Peralta, launched the careers of legends like Rodney Mullen, Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk. His _Bones Brigade Video Show_ virtually invented the skateboard video, creating the sport’s first marketing vehicle and enabling kids worldwide to see the sport’s best athletes up close and personal. And for his next trick? Peralta walked away from it all. Peralta abandoned what had been his whole identity to attempt a writing and directing career in film and television. This leap of faith is even braver (or perhaps more foolish) in light of his own complete lack of confidence in his chances of succeeding. And his fear seemed justified by an initial run of projects that Peralta says “just got worse and worse”. But because doing anything else seemed even more impossible, he _did_ succeed: His documentary _Dogtown and Z-Boys_ premiered at Sundance, winning the documentary Directing and Audience Awards and selling over a million DVD copies. His _Crips and Bloods: Made in America_ won acclaim as a hard hitting, and thoughtful look at the circumstances that led to the creation of two of the most violent gangs in U.S. history. Peralta talks about weathering the highs and lows of a truly remarkable career and tells Off Camera that for the first time in 15 years he doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. Whatever it is, have faith it’ll be rad.

Any 7 year-old who inhales 19 ice cream cones in a row for her first movie appearance, arranges a clandestine meeting with an agent at 11 and inflates her age by an improbable 8 years to audition for the role of a 19 year old really wants to be an actress. Maybe Laura Dern never really had a choice anyway. The daughter of acclaimed actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd was assured of her destiny by Martin Scorsese, who saw her future in the fact that she didn’t throw up the aforementioned ice cream cones. He was right. Dern gives us complicated personalities whose often baffling behavior we somehow understand due to the firm and uncompromising grip she keeps on their humanity. It’s a rare ability to find in any actor. It’s a crucial ability for an actor whose carefully-selected projects started and largely remain with directors like David Lynch, Alexander Payne and Martha Coolidge, whose films aren’t widely populated by America’s sweetheart-type characters. In this interview, she discusses what she’s endeavored to bring to some of her early roles in films like Foxes, Smooth Talk, Wild at Heart and Blue Velvet, and those films’ effect on her as a young actress growing into womanhood on camera. To understand her approach is to understand how the best in their craft can suck us into their characters’ psyche without our ever realizing we’re there. Dern also touches on some of her enviable mentors, age and sexuality in the movies, and getting closure on the wrap of her brilliant HBO series Enlightened. Obviously and deeply in love with every aspect of film making, Dern is as fascinating to talk to as she is to watch; she’s the friend you’d want to stay up with all night for the most fun and interesting conversation. Off Camera apologizes in advance – this interview will leave you wanting more.

What kid tells himself, “I know being a high school loner who reads comic books all the time will pay off for me”? One who winds up being a loner who reads comic books all the time. Or, one who winds up creating iconic comedies like Knocked Up, Superbad, and most recently, This Is 40. Enamored with comedy and comedians as a grade schooler, Judd Apatow set about interviewing his idols for WKWZ. The first thing he learned is that they’re kind – no one kicked him out when they realized WKWZ was a high school radio station. While his comedies and the actors in them are household names, most fans are unaware they’re the beneficiaries of a filmmaking approach Apatow is largely credited with developing. Fueled by self-doubt or maybe just any comedian’s compulsive search for the ultimate killer line, Apatow shoots and tests multiple versions of almost every scene he films. His true genius may be his knack for identifying new and often unlikely talent, and letting it inform his scripts. This approach has elevated the not only the films themselves, but the careers of James Franco, Lena Dunham, Seth Rogen, Melissa McCarthy and Steve Carell, to name only a few. Perhaps due in part to his own painfully geekish childhood, he continues to remake Freaks and Geeks in work that lays bare our foibles, anger, lunacy and occasional transcendence. At once eviscerating and empathetic, he holds a mirror up to us and we laugh in recognition. Apatow has seen us naked, and we don’t mind. Off Camera sits down with the crazy voice in all of our heads for an in-depth interview.

Being a bona fide badass is the price of entry for a career in rock and roll; and if you ask Dave Grohl, it’s the key ingredient for just about anything worth doing. His approach to life has fueled the Foo Fighters’ 20 year,11 album career and garnered him a following of very stoked rock fans, many of who gathered at this year’s SXSW music conference to hear Grohl’s keynote address. The hipsters, rockers, start-uppers and next-big-thing developers packing the room were no doubt curious to hear how one goes about dropping out of high school, rising to fame as the drummer in Nirvana (a small Northwest act you may have heard of), and then go on to lead one today’s few remaining true rock bands? For Grohl, the answer’s pretty simple: figure out who you are and what inspires you and don’t look back – develop that individuality by working as hard as you can at what you love. That clarity of approach drove not only his Nirvana/Foo Fighters trajectory, but numerous musical side projects like Queens of the Stone Age, and Them Crooked Vultures. And most recently, a new artistic title: documentarian. He didn’t know anything about the film making process except what he needed to know most: Passion for your subject is sine qua non; and not one to do anything without it, Grohl didn’t question himself. Nor apparently did Rick Springfield, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, and Tom Petty, all subjects of Sound City, his fascinating documentary about the people behind the studio that launched an amazing roster of legendary music acts. For a guy who admits to still feeling like a 13 year old and dressing like a 17 year old, Grohl has something to teach all of us…and shares it with Off Camera in one of our most inspiring interviews to date.