WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1416 - Bobby Farrelly

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Bobby Farrelly knows he was lucky to grow up in small town Rhode Island, which was, in his words, marinating in characters. Bobby and his brother Peter were able to take those real life characters and put them into screenplays that became some of the biggest comedy films of all time. Bobby and Marc talk about the origins of Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary and more, as well as Bobby’s new movie with Woody Harrelson, Champions.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, Knicks? What is happening? What is happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF.

I've been up since 5.30. Why? Why? I do not know how to live the life of leisure. I'm not sure I have that life, but I could certainly sleep till 8 if I could sleep till 8. I get up. I don't know why I get up., but I could certainly sleep till eight if I could sleep till eight. I get up. I don't know why I get up. Today I had to do some stuff.

It's fine. And I've said this before, but I guess as you get older, you need less sleep. And that to me is one of the only bit of possible evidence that there may be a bigger force within our life, a God, if you will. I think that, or maybe it's just wired in, but I think it's sensitive in a way that would imply a higher intelligence. That the reason that when you get older, you need less sleep is that it's basically God saying, you might want to be awake for this. You don't have that much time left. And the reason I attribute that to a higher intelligence, because why would that necessarily be wired into our genetic composition? I don't know if it gets as much as an animal just on a survival.

Well, maybe. Maybe they're like, you might want to get up earlier so you don't miss the food. You're old. Get up earlier. There's not going to be food for everybody. And you certainly can't go out there and get the food. So you might want to be there looking sad and old when the food arrives. Look, today on the show, I have Bobby Farrelly on. He's one half of the Farrelly brothers, the writers and directors of Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin. There's something about Mary.

He's the solo director on the new movie Champions, starring Woody Harrelson, which I saw. They use a lot of actual mentally, or do you say intellectually disabled people, mentally disabled people? Or do you just say disabled people cognitively? I don't. I'll ask him. I should know these things. We should get new lists. Please circulate the new lists of the proper way to address certain groups of people.

I enjoyed talking to him. I enjoyed the movie. It's interesting because it's one of those movies that the story you're familiar with, but the Woody Harrelson, always good, that guy. Always good, Woody Harrelson is. Like every goddamn time, no matter what he's fucking doing. I feel like I should have him back in here to talk to him again because it was a little weird the last time, but I don't know that it would be any different this time. But he certainly is sort of a gifted actor. I feel like I just saw him in something else, too. What the fuck did I just see him in where he didn't have a huge part? Oh, yeah, Triangle of Sadness.

That movie's a lot. I have no idea what's going to win anything. I would like to tell you, though, that there's going to be a whole bunch of Oscar-related bonus content. I can tell you that right now. Brendan and I did a whole lot of Oscar-related bonus content. We talked about Best Pictures. We talked about the nature of the Oscars.

We talked about a lot of stuff. So you can get all that if you sign up for the fullars. We talked about a lot of stuff. So you can get all that if you sign up for the full Marin. And to do that, you just click on the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF Plus. But we get into it. It's interesting when Brendan and I talk movies, movies. We talk movies. I forget sometimes what a film nerd, but I never like to call myself a nerd of any kind. The basic idea of nerdism, I think, is a sort of completist, compulsive focus bordering on obsession with one particular thing. Like if you're a nerd for something, I mean, it can be a spectrum of stuff, I think like a fantasy or movies or there's, there's spectrums and there's, but there's mostly specific attention being paid. And the reason I

can't be a full nerd almost ever is because I have the initial impulse where sort of like, well, I have to know everything or own all of these or really understand this stuff. And I will acquire a lot of stuff, but then I just don't have the follow through. So I have, you know, the I have the stuff one needs of any particular focus, like a music group or a series of movies. But a lot of times, I just don't listen to them or watch them all. But I have them. But I think you really, to be full nerd, you have to have a fairly nuanced understanding of the trivia around your particular focus, the facts around your particular focus, the facts around your particular focus, the quality around your particular focus, and an opinion about it. You have to be in the

game with the conversation around whatever you're nerding out to, whatever your nerd focus is. And I don't have that. I have a bigger palette, you know, a little here, a little there. I can talk some shit about a lot of different stuff. I can talk a little bit of shit about a lot of different stuff and I can get pretty deep with some of it. But film, film nerd to me now, it just, it's too big. I just, you know, I'm a lightweight. I'm a lightweight record guy. I'm a lightweight film nerd. I'm a lightweight jazz guy, but I don't know who I'm, I'm a lightweight, I'm a lightweight record guy. I'm a lightweight film nerd. I'm a lightweight jazz guy, but I don't know who I'm judging myself against. When you make these decisions about yourself, which we all do like, yeah, but I'm not that, I'm not, I'm not that

good or I'm not, you know, really, I don't, well, I mean, there's, there's definitely other people that do this or that, or no more of this or that this or that or other people that are just better than me. They're just better than me. All right? That's all. They're just better than me. All right? Is that what you want to hear?

Do you do that to yourself? Do you scream that at yourself? What the fuck is that? I mean, I'm sitting around comparing myself to nine-year-olds who play one riff on the guitar like they're a goddamn performing monkey. And I'm like, what am I even doing with a guitar if that nine-year-old can do Roundabout by Yes? Now, I don't have any desire to play Roundabout, but Jesus Christ, I've never, I'm not a savant. And you can't regret that you're not a savant or you're not a prodigy. You can't regret that. Like, you know, I would have been better if I was just born with this

weird gift. A weird gift can be a burden. Talent in and of itself can be a burden. A weird gift can be a burden. Talent in and of itself can be a burden. I want to remind you, again, you have one week before I talk to director Jason Wollner about his show, Paul T. Goldman. And we won't hold back on spoilers. So if you want to watch Paul T. Goldman, it's streaming on Peacock. That's not a Peacock plug, but, and also Paul T. Goldman is a challenging bit of business. It is a challenging bit of comedy. It is a cringe fest in a lot of ways. I'm going to sneeze. Should I share it with you? Oh my God. You know, when you just let them, when you just let them go and you just let them spray?

You watch the fine mist and there's no one around? What a beautiful thing. Oh, my God. Let's just all enjoy that for a second. Wow. That was spectacular. Also, I just found out there's a surprise Brian Jones cat mug sale going on today, March 9th at noon Eastern. If you've always wanted to get your hands on one of the cat mugs that I give to guests, go to WTFMugs.co.

That's at noon Eastern today. so who am i judging myself against my point being about being a film nerd or whatever i was out in new mexico see you my dad and i was hanging out with my buddy devin jackson and hanging out with my buddy david kleinfeld but me and devin we kind of thought of ourselves as somewhat smarty pants. When we were in high school, smarty pants, we just had lofty interests. You know, I was working at a bagel joint across from the university. I was hanging out with university people. I was hanging out at the Living Batch bookstore. I was hanging out at Frontier Restaurant with all the wackos and the professors. And, you know, we were, I would say at the time, 1980, we were fairly advanced teenagers going to Don Poncho's Revival Movie Theater, seeing the double features, getting excited, you know, about

Apocalypse Now coming out and that kind of stuff. And we talked about movies all the time. And it was funny when I, I was hanging out with him. Uh, we got right back into it. It's right there. This sort of deeper interest. Are you doing the reading? There was a time when, I mean, I studied film criticism in college as an art history minor uh you know film studies it was important to me i've got to make things important again god damn it i what's the point of doing anything if someone else is doing it better than me shut up shut up Shut up. Shut up. I'll tell you what I'm really excited about. I got to go rehearse because tonight I'm playing at Largo with the band. Do you want the set list? Should I give you the set list? one of these sort of, not esoteric to a certain group of people, but certainly one of the more esoteric to the mainstream outside of the Grateful Dead circle, we're taking on Warfrat, which is really, I would say my top Grateful Dead song. It just kills me. And we're going to play it,

taking the risk, stepping out there on the ice. Not an easy song, but if you get into the groove, you get into a psychedelic trip, nice. We're going to do Say It's Not You by George Jones. We're going to do Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain by Willie Nelson. We're going to do Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. A lot of country this time. We're also going to revisit what goes on by the Velvet Underground, and I believe we're going to do a version of Hey Joe. So that's the mix, man. That's where we're at with it.

Maybe we'll do a blues jam. I don't know. But what I was going to tell you about is, and this is kind of a long tease, probably a couple weeks away. I'm not sure when. This month, though, I got to interview Brooke Shields in a couple days, and I watched the documentary, and it was just great.

And it was so weird because, you know, when I saw her and met her, she came to see the taping of my comedy special, and I saw her at a screening for two less. I was like, oh my God, Brooke Shields, what is happening? Because I felt like I knew her my whole life. And after watching this documentary, I told her that too. And after watching the documentary, I don't know, I felt bad for telling her that because that's what everybody feels about her when you're a public personality like that through your whole life. But I think she defined some things in my head about a lot of different things. I mean, my second wife was a model before she was a comic and I thought she

kind of looked like Brooke Shields and I got a whole new understanding of that particular industry and just how horrendous it was. But I don't know. I really enjoy the doc and I'm a little beside myself that I'm going to talk to her. Is that weird? It's true. But that being said, I should go. I didn't manage my time well today. I hope you guys are well and don't judge yourself against anybody

but you and what you do. Just acknowledge it. Try to appreciate it. Don't diminish everything. Don't diminish everything. You're doing okay. You hear me? You're doing all right. It's good. It's good. If you want to get better, you get better. All right?

If you want to work on it, you work on it. But stop beating the shit out of yourself. I'm just telling myself that. Bobby Farrelly has a new movie that he directed called Champions. It opens in theaters tomorrow, March 10th. And this is the two of us talking. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything.

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Today I'm going to talk to Michelle Yeoh later. Wow. You mean later today? Today, yeah. Oh, jeez. So, yeah. I'm glad I went first. You wouldn't even be listening to me. She's a tough act to follow.

That is not true. Do you know that for a fact? Have you talked to her? Well, she's a lot prettier than I am. Let's put it that way. Yeah, totally different background. I imagine her stories about Malaysia are going to be different than yours about Providence. That's true.

But we'll both be bullshitting, so we'll have that similarity. But is that where you're from? We are from a town just outside of Providence. Which one? Cumberland. Cumberland? Rhode Island, yes. Look, dude, I've been-

Very suburban. I've been, you know, I started doing comedy in Boston. So like you've worked with guys that I knew when I was first starting out. Well, there was a time there when we were growing up and when we were young adults that, yeah, the comedy scene in Boston, as you know, was just incredible. Do you remember Periwinkles in Devil's Square? I do.

Yeah, I performed there. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about it today because my car got stolen when I was working there in Providence. And that club had all the paintings of the guys on the wall, and there was always one guy. We were like, who the fuck is that guy? There was paintings of comics, old comics.

I don't know if you remember that. I don't remember that part. Not a bad club. No. Wait, you come from a big family? Five of us. I lost a sister already, so there's only four now, but yeah, there's five of us. We had three sisters,

three girls, and my brother Pete and myself. We're all very close. I think five over, you know, seven and a half years. Yeah. And how much older are you than me? How old are you? I am 50-14. Yeah. 50-14. What is that? You can add it up. I'm 64. Oh, I get it. I see. I just don't like putting the six in front, you know, can add it up. I'm 64. Oh, I get it. I see. I just don't like putting the six in front. It sounds so old. I'm 59. 59. But still, though, you're coming up then because I remember in the first movies, early on,

you got Kenny Rogerson in there. Yep. You got Jackie Flynn in there. Jackie Flynn's been in a bunch of them. Yep. All the Lenny Clarks. Lenny Clarks. Steve Sweeney. John Gavin. Sweeney. Gavin. Yep. All those guys. Dave Russo. I mean, in a bunch of them. All the Lenny Clarks, Steve Sweeney, Don Gavin.

All those guys. Dave Russo. I mean, yeah, tons of them. Yeah, man. I mean, I came in second in the comedy riot in 1988. The comedy riot? WBCN comedy riot. 1988. And that's when I started working.

So I'm working with all those guys, and they're the core crew. You know, Dennis Leary, Mike McDonald, George McDonald, Warren McDonald, all the McDonalds. Ronald McDonald. But, you know, I knew all those guys. Old McDonald. But you guys were, like, when you were growing up, were you big comedy fans? We were comedy fans.

You know, Peter and I, none of us did stand-up or thought about doing it, but we loved going to see shows, and we loved to laugh. So, yeah, that was our thing. If we were going to go to a movie, we'd go to a comedy. We're going to go out, see entertainment, we'd go to a stand-up show. But what kind of world was it when you grew up? What was your father, what did he do? My dad, God bless him, was a doctor. He was a family doctor in a small town, Cumberland,

was very suburban. And he was that guy. He took care of all the families in town, or many of them, and delivered a lot of babies. Nice to have a dad as a doctor, because you can always see a doctor when your dad's a doctor. Well, that's true. But do you know how hard it was for us to fake like we were sick and get out of school? I don't feel good. Go to school. That's the one obstacle.

He knew exactly when we were faking. But if you needed something to get looked at, he could call his friend, right? That's true. And you just go, because my dad was a doctor too, but he wasn't general practitioner. He was orthopedic. Oh, really? That's true. And you just go, because my dad was a doctor too, but he wasn't general practitioner, he was orthopedic. Oh, really? Yeah. So unless I had broken bones, he wasn't going to help, but you could always see somebody right away. Well, in my dad's doctor's office, there was a dentist right next door and he'd say, you guys go see him. So, you know, they'd take care of each other. It was before insurance and all that. I wouldn't even,

you know, I don't think he was sending them a bill. Right. But the downside is he was hurrying through everything. Just like, all right. I'm helping your dad out. You don't need that tooth. Well, that's. I had Irish teeth, too, as a kid.

Oh, did they go away? Let me see. Well, they, my teeth were, my teeth, yeah, I could have used a little orthodontist work. Yeah, that's some good Irish teeth. But they were prone to cavities as a kid. Yeah. And I remember one time, this is, I'm not proud of this, by the way, but I'm going to tell you, I went to the dentist and in one visit, in one visit, I was, he spotted 14

cavities. Oh my God. 14. So you. And that's when they were putting, you know, the fillings in. The mercury. The mercury. Oh, my God. 14. And that's when they were putting the fillings in. The mercury. The mercury. The gold.

You know, you drill in and then fill it up with mercury. So you got a mouthful of gold? I had it later on. I had to go and have it all taken out. Because it was going into your blood, right? I was starting to act nutty, and they didn't know what it was. I come to find out it was the mercury in my teeth. Is that true?

Were there symptoms? No. No, he what it was. I come to find out it was the mercury in my teeth. Is that true? Were there symptoms? No, he just told me. I better take him out. It's not good. Well, I mean, I just remember that. It took me a while to realize that you can't just see a doctor whenever you want. That's true. You know, because when you grow up with that shit, you're like, I think I got this, Dad.

All right, let me call Bob. We'll go over there. Yeah. That's true. It was always like that. My dad, his specialty was that he could diagnose you over the phone. All you had to say was, you know, I got this. How's your back?

Back's a little bit. You got a fever? No. You have this. And he'd tell you. And that's exactly what you had. Yeah. He knew it, huh?

Yes. Yeah. So when you guys are growing, none of your sisters were in show business? I have a sister. My youngest sister, Cindy, she came out to L.A. after Pete and I did, and she is an attorney, entertainment attorney. Oh, really? Yes.

So she's our entertainment attorney. So she's in the business too. In the Farrelly business. Yeah, but she has tons of other good clients too. She's got some Saturday Night Live characters, but you know, and yeah, she got a good, good list of clients. Okay. And, and when you guys are coming up, I mean like, cause Providence is a rough town. It was, but you're not right there. You're not living in Providence. We didn't live in the city of Providence. No, but Providence is, is, living in Providence.

We didn't live in the city of Providence, no. But Providence is, you know, we were growing up, it was very much a mob town, a mafia town. And it was good, you know, it was good and bad because of that. You know, it was organized crime. You know what's worse than organized crime? Yeah. Disorganized crime. Yeah.

That's what happens when you take the mob away. Now it's just, you know. Chaos. Yeah. But before that, it's like, yeah, you know, it was organized crime. Yeah. That's what happens when you take the mob away. Now it's just, you know. Chaos. Yeah. But before that, it's like, yeah, you know, it was organized. It ran. The whole city was run by mobsters and the people they put into office. But this is the Italian mob, right? It was a method to the madness.

Not the Irish mob. No, it was the Italian mob. Right. The Irish mob was over in Boston. Yeah, yeah, because I remember that. Well, yeah, my grandmother once said when we were in Vegas when I was a kid, we used to meet them in Vegas when I lived in New Mexico. They're from Jersey.

But she said about Vegas, she says, you know, it was nicer when the boys ran things. Yeah. You know, it's funny. Yeah. It's funny because it's true. Yeah. There is something to it. Yeah. You know, it's funny. It's funny because it's true. There is something to it. Like I said, there was a method to the madness. Do you remember it though? Did you have experiences

with no, like, cause usually when you live or you're a kid or you're a teenager, you're going into Providence to party or go to a place, everyone kind of knows like, well, that's where that mobster hangs out or this is that restaurant. Yeah, that mobster would be right there. Someone would say, see that guy over there? Yeah, he's, you know, and he was a hit man or something. Yeah. But it was a very small state. I don't know if you've heard.

I do know that. Yeah. I think it's right up there with the smallest in the country. I did a gig once at the Cranston Bowl. Did you? Quit bragging. Yeah. In Cranston, Rhode Island.

They had a comedy night. Uh-huh. And then there was another weird play. I did a show in Melody, Rhode Island. Do you even know where that is?

Is that way down towards Connecticut? Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. Yeah, way down. We did the one night. In Rhode Island, it's one hour. Yeah.

It's one hour from end to end. That's right. Yeah. But it is sort of off the beaten path. But so you're growing up in that,

but what are you guys, you going up to Boston a lot? Where are you is sort of off the beaten path. So you're growing up in that. What are you guys, you're going up to Boston a lot? Where are you getting sort of like the ideas to maybe do movies? The ideas that we ended up getting to do movies was totally just the stories that we grew up with, the people around us, the characters. We always love characters, and that's the beauty of Rhode Island. It is marinating with characters. We always love characters. And that's, you know, that's the beauty of Rhode Island is it is marinating with characters. There's just people that are just a little bit out there.

Yeah. There's tons of them. And for some reason or another, Pete and I were always drawn to those people. They just amused us. And we just love stories. What's the age difference?

He's one year older. Yeah. Yeah. He's a year and a half, 18 months to the day older. But did you study film? Did you go out? No. You never did? No. Where'd you go to college? I went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

in upstate New York. Yeah. It's an engineering school. The reason why I went there is I was a hockey player, and they have a good hockey team, and I got recruited there. Yeah. And so I went there, and I didn't know what to study. I studied, I was going, I don't know, how about this? How about that? I ended up majoring in geology.

Yeah. Geology. Yeah. Never used it one day in my life. Nothing? Got a degree. Can you identify a rock? I know a couple of, you know what, when the category's on Jeopardy, I can occasionally

get the answer right. Yeah. That's plate tectonics they're talking about. What is plate tectonics?'re talking about. What is plate tectonics? Genius. He's a genius. Where'd your brother go? Pete went to Providence College.

He has the distinction of graduating dead last in his class. And the reason why we know that is because when it came time to graduate that day, he didn't have the GPA for it. Yeah, sure. He needed a 2.0 to graduate, and his was like 1.97. Oh, wow. Just missed it. He went to one of his teachers, and he said, come on, I'm in a jam.

The guy lifted his current grade from like a, whatever he had given him, like a D to a C minus. Yeah. And that got Pete to 2.0. And he got out. And he got out. So he was at least tied for last, right? Yeah. Beyond that, any lower than that, you couldn't graduate.

So what is it? So the two-year, you got nothing, you got no future. That's true, yeah. And my dad would say, he'd call us a couple of near-do-wells. Were you? Did you get into trouble? We were both in a little bit of trouble, but just regular, you know, nothing serious. Just the trouble that kids get in around town.

So you get out of school, and he's like, what the fuck are we going to do? Well, we both went into sales. I was selling life insurance and all that kind of stuff that I knew nothing about. Yeah. And who wants to listen to a kid who just graduated from college and has absolutely no money and no knowledge, but he's trying to sell you life insurance products. Right. So I was that guy. Yeah.

Annoying my relatives and not very good at it. And Pete was selling shipping space on ocean liners. Really? He was working with U.S. lines. Would you have a family friend that got him that gig? How do you get that? I don't even remember how. That's a crazy weird job.

Probably ad in the paper, yeah. He was in sales. And, you know, so neither of us were particularly good at it. And to Pete's credit, he got the ball rolling. He had this brainstorm one day where he woke up and he said, he just had this burning desire to become a writer. And that was a little unusual because he didn't major in writing. He majored in accounting.

Sure. But he just thought, I want to be a writer. And that was it? And so he started writing. and in accounting. Sure. But he just thought, I want to be a writer. Really? And that was it? And so he started writing. He quit his job, and he moved down to Cape Cod, which in those days— What town? Mashby.

Yeah. Mashby, near Falmouth. Yeah. But in those days, there would be nobody on Cape Cod in the winter. That's changed. It's all crowded now. So you'd go down there for the winter, and it was a good place to write. He was working at some restaurant waiting tables, and he

ended up, he had an idea for a book, and it was semi-autobiographical. And he ended up writing the book called Outside Providence, which we later made into a movie. But it took him a few years. Yeah. He wrote it, and he's a writer. Yeah. That's it. It's established. It's done.

But did it get published? It did get published. Yeah. Really? Right away? Yeah. It didn't sell many copies. Right.

But it did get published. Okay. And it was a well-written book. It was about his... It's not autobiographical. It's a fictional story, but it was loosely based on some of the things that had happened to him in his life. And so he, yeah, he got it published and he thought, this is great. I'm a, you know, now I'm a writer.

And he moved out to LA and with this, he went to, actually went to graduate school for writing after he wrote the book. Yeah. He went to UMass grad school and then on to Columbia. In Amherst or the one in Boston? The one in Amherst. Oh, nice. And he met this other guy, Bennett Yellen, who was from LA and he too was a writer. And the two

of them started writing screenplays together. And so that brought Pete out to LA. And what are you doing? Selling insurance? I went from selling insurance. I wasn't very good at it. A buddy of mine who I was working with, we came up with an idea to sell, to create this new product. It was a round beach towel. Round.

So that six foot round. And the idea is when you go to the beach, you know, sometimes you have to move your, the sun moves, you got to move your towel. So you align correctly. We were thinking, oh, with a round beach you know, sometimes you have to move your, the sun moves, you got to move your towel. So you align correctly. We were thinking, oh, with a round beach towel, you don't have to move it. Oh, what a day that was when you came up with that, right? You just move on it, yes. How big a day was that?

It was a big day. Yes. We thought, we thought, that's it. Okay. We got, this is the future. Yep. Beverly Hills, here we come. And we, that moved, that prompted me to move out to California, too.

The Round Beach Show? With the beach towels, yes. So you had them made? We had them made. They were called sunspots. That's pretty clever. Yeah. And two of us came out here, out to California.

And your brother was out here already? And he was already out here, yes. But you didn't care about writing. You call your brother, I'm going to stay there. Is there a place where we can put the boxes with the towels? That's 100% accurate, yes. We had our towels in his garage, in his little place in West Hollywood. Are there any around still?

No, they're a little bit harder to find. What happened with the towels? It never really took off. We kept getting close. What does that mean when you get close with a round towel? Well, we'd bring them to like beach shows and things like that. Everybody loved it. They were all excited.

But it was, you know, we were young and I don't think we had the money to run a business like that properly. But oddly, I don't think I've seen the round towel. Do they exist in the world? Did someone steal the idea? Did it run with it? After we tried, we tried for like three years to get it into all

the department stores and all that. Yeah. It kind of just, you know, like I said, it came close, but it didn't quite work.

Yeah. Okay. Yes. If you look around, you'll find some now imitating what was our original idea. Sunspot.

The sunspot idea. They don't, yeah, I don't think they call them sunspots anymore. Yeah. But while I was out think they call them sunspots anymore. Yeah. But while I was out here, Peter and Bennett were writing screenplays. Yeah.

And they'd call me and they'd say, hey, read this screenplay we just wrote. Right. And when I read it. You were like the regular guy. I was the guy. Yeah. And I'd give them notes. I'd say, I like it.

I'm not sure about this guy, though. Yeah. I don't know. The ending seems to take forever. You know, whatever, it'd be my note. And they'd make their adjustments. And then after doing that for a number of years, they said to me, why don't you come in and write with us? The three of us. Years it took. Well, maybe a year or two. And I hopped at the opportunity and came in with them, and the three of us wrote screenplays for about five, maybe seven years.

How many did you write? Probably like 10. How many got made? Zero during that seven years. You had nothing. Right. You know the thing I was telling you, close but no cigar? Yeah.

It was a lot of that too. But you guys got representation. We got representation. It was a lot of that too. But you guys got representation. We got representation. Yes, we were called in to script doctor some other script. Oh, yeah. Before a movie got made, we'd punch it up.

And people would read our stuff and they'd say, that's funny. Yeah. But they'd never make it. And one of the scripts we wrote along that time period was Dumb and Dumber. And we wrote the script and we'd hand it in to people and they'd say, they'd go like, that's hysterical. What else you got? You know?

Yeah. Well, what's the matter with that? Right. And they're like, oh, two dumb guys. They don't make movies like that. They just didn't. It was. So.

So what happened? How did. After about seven years. Yeah. We'd go home, by the way, back to Rhode Island, and the people would say, what are you doing? I'd say, well, we're screenwriting. Have I seen one of the movies?

Like, what movie? Exactly. Anything I would have seen? No, no, they haven't made you. Uh-huh. Okay. What are you really doing? What are you, bookmaking?

How did the towel thing work out? You know my friends that's exactly how they talk uh so it got the there was a little bit of frustration to me you're up there you're working hard we actually were getting paid uh a little bit enough to get by yeah and then somewhere along the way somebody we we we met with uh a really big time producer and he told us, we were telling him about Dumb and Dumber and he said, well, why don't you guys just make it? We thought, really, we were telling him about all of our scripts. Sure.

We'd get close. General meeting. But nobody would make it. And he said, well, why don't you guys go make one of them? And we were like, because we don't know. We don't know how to do that. We're not directors. Yeah.

And he said, well, you wrote the script. You can figure out how to direct it. Right. Surround yourself with smart people, good cinematographer. Who was this producer? A guy named John Hughes. Oh, yeah. The late, great John Hughes.

And he told us that. He said, you two, Pete and I, he said, you two guys should direct. Yeah. And literally it never occurred to us. We don't know how to direct. Right. And he said, you'll figure it out. Wow.

The hardest part, he's telling us as writers, is what you've already done. Yeah. Coming up with the story. Yeah. If nobody else will direct it, you direct it. Yeah. And then we thought, oh, okay.

So what was the next step though? Did you like, but you had agents. Did someone tell you how to get money or what the process was? That was the next step. Yeah.

To try to figure out who was dumb enough to give us money, right? Yeah, yeah. So we went out to a lot of smaller companies who were making, would finance independent movies.

Right. We were looking for about $100,000. To make Dumb and Dumber. Yeah. Wow. As an independent movie. Oh, my God. Can you even imagine?

Well, that was a different year, but still $100,000 is nothing. Right. So you had no sense of how much it would cost to make a movie. Well, somebody told us that you could, you know, we were looking at other movies that had been made. And we're like, what was the budget on that? And we thought for $100,000, you can make a small enough independent movie then that you could get it into film festivals and that sort of thing. So that was our goal. And as we were doing that, we, you know, we're sending it out.

Well, who are we going to get to play it? And literally agents wouldn't even, they wouldn't even give the script to their, to their actor clients. Really? Yeah. Because it was called Dumb and Dumber. Yeah. And they were thinking the guy's going to say, what are you giving me dumb, dumb and dumber tips? No, mind you.

Yeah. It's not in the vernacular. The movie hadn't been made. Right. It, from, at first glance, it sounded like a terrible idea. Sure. And actors would be insulted that they were getting scripts called Dumb and Dumber. Yeah.

And so what we had to actually do is a couple times we changed the name of the script just to get people to read it. Yeah. We called it Go West. Wasn't that a Marx Brothers movie? Yes, it probably was. We called it A Power Tool Is Not A Toy, which was just a young adult song banned from Providence.

We were just calling it anything to try to get people to read it. That didn't work. We went back to Dumb and Dumber, and we started casting it, and who came on board but a young guy named Jim Carrey. Where'd you see him? How'd he get it?

We had a producing partner, Charlie Wessler, who had read the script. Yeah. He said, this is funny. And he helped us. He brought us to a company called MPCA, Motion Picture Corps of America. They're in Santa Monica. Brad Gravois and Steve Stabler.

And they were going to give us the money to make this movie on a budget. Without Jim Kelly. Yes, yes. And so while we were casting it. They were going to give you the $100,000. Roughly $100,000. Yeah. Okay.

I can't even imagine what that would have been like to make that movie on 100K. It would have been amazing. While we were casting it, Jim Carrey read it, and I think Charlie got it to him, and he read it and said, I love it. I want to do it. And his career was just taking off right then. Right. And so we were like, boom, lightning in a bottle. We had the script that Jim Carrey wanted to do just as his career was starting to take off.

So now all of a sudden it's like not a $100,000 movie. We ended up making the movie that we got $16 million budget. Okay, that's still not a fortune. No. I think seven of which went to Jim Carrey. And Jeff Daniels, he was not really a known quantity yet, was he? Carey. And Jeff Daniels, he was not really a known quantity yet, was he? The reason why we got Jeff is because once we had Jim, we started thinking who can play alongside him. And we went down the list of a lot of guys that could possibly do it. And Jim Carey was so in the zone funny then. Yeah.

That it didn't feel like anybody could keep up with him. Yeah. It was kind of like one guy's funny and the other one's not as funny. Yeah. And so we thought, well, what if we get a guy who's not funny, known to be funny, but he's a good actor and we challenge Jim in that direction. Right. He has to act against this other guy. But also you got a straight guy too, right? Yeah.

But they, true, it could play that way, but we were playing it like, let's challenge Jim to act. Right. And he liked the idea, too. We brought in, Jeff Daniels, to his credit, came in and read for us. Yeah. And he and Jim just hit it off.

It was just instant chemistry, and they loved each other. Yeah. And it just, yeah, Jeff wasn't known for playing that kind of role. He was a really well-respected actor. I think his agents thought he was making the worst decision he could ever make. Is that true? I'm trying to remember, like, at what point, you know, this would have been in his career. Like, what had he done up to that point?

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, he had done, he had worked with Woody Allen. Oh, so he'd already done Purple Rose of Cairo. So that was done. I think so, yeah. Dumb and Dumber was in 90, came out in 94, so. Oh, he'd done a million things. Yeah.

Like he had done a million things. Yes, he had done Something Wild. Something Wild was a movie. Something Wild, sure, with Ray Liotta and Melanie Griffith. Yeah, we like that. And we thought he was funny in it, even though it's not necessarily a comedy. You know, he was funny.

Oh, he'd done big movies. Yeah. And so his, you know, I think his representation probably tried to talk him out of doing this. All right, so you got these guys, and you guys direct. You figure it out. We surrounded ourselves with people who knew a lot more than us. We thought, sure, that as soon as that budget had gotten up to where it was, that they were going to say, okay, you guys step aside.

We're going to bring in a real director. Because we're giving you a lot of money. And they just never did. We were as surprised as anyone. That's crazy. So you were able to execute the comedy exactly how you saw it. So it's weird because for all practical purposes, that movie was the beginning of you guys owning the comedy space in movies for years.

Well, that was the first thing we had ever made. And I mean like ever made. We hadn't made a home movie. We hadn't made an MTV video. Nobody had shot a commercial. Nothing. We had not made yeah and it's a huge hit right it's like a huge hit it was a big hit right right out of the gate uh and you guys are all of a sudden like well made guys at at that time though yeah jim carrey you know he's so funny

and everybody recognized that that i don't think they even really said who made it who made this movie they weren't really saying that. A couple people were, but we weren't. But the money was, they knew the money was there. People who mattered knew they made money, and you guys wrote it and directed it. Well, after that, we got offered from the same company that we had made the movie with. Those guys

said, hey, we want to make another movie with you. And then we made the movie Kingpin. Which is arguably, I mean, you can make a case for the best movie ever you. And then we made the movie Kingpin. Which is arguably, I mean, you can make a case for the best movie ever made. Wow. I thought you were going to say, definitely one of the top five bowling movies ever. No, man. There's moments in that that are just crazy. I think you really knocked something loose there. Who the fuck wrote that line? You jarred something loose, Tiger.

Funny, because I used that line the other day. Was that your line? I never remember who wrote what. No, it's a collaboration. It was such a great thing for Woody Harrelson to do. I mean, it was just like that. To see him do that guy was such a revelation, man, because he's so fucking good. He's good in your new movie. Right.

But that movie didn't deliver like the other one did. It did not. And it was all about the, we thought, sure, when we made the movie with Woody and Bill Murray and Randy Quaid, we thought, oh, this is another dumb and dumber. We thought, sure, we had another hit on our hands. And the movie came out, and it was just a different company and different marketing and all that,

and who they were trying to sell it to, and nobody saw it. And it just came and went. You know what, though? I think some of it, like, had to do with, like, it was too real a guy. Well, I don't know that people would have even gone to see it to make that determination.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like nobody thought they would want to see this movie. Right right it just didn't do anything at the box office right right right right we were very disappointed with that fortunately yeah it uh it founded its audience on when the dvds came out and people did find it and it actually became like a a cult hit within a year like but not at the box office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. But then like, but how do you, did you not think you were going to make another movie after that?

There was a very good thought that, yes, that that was it, that we wouldn't make another movie or wouldn't be able to. Why, because you couldn't deliver, like, were you being turned away? We weren't being taken seriously. We weren't really being considered. I think if they say, well, you know, Dumb and Dumber was a big hit, they'd say, well, yeah, but that was Jim Carrey. And then the other one, Kink Bin, was a good movie.

Yeah, but it didn't do any business. There was a reason that they could dismiss us. So we knew that whatever our next movie is, if we have that opportunity, we better get it right. Right. If we missed on the third one, we would have just. You're out forever? That would have been it.

Were you sitting on that script already? That script, There's Something About Mary, was originally written by two good friends of ours, Ed Decht or John Strauss. They were two other screenwriters who wrote together. Strauss. It was, they were two other screenwriters who wrote together. And whenever they, when they told us the idea for this story they had called, there's something about Mary. Uh, we just thought it was, we just thought it was really inspired. And the, and the idea was a guy's hung up on this girl. He went to high school with, he's just wondering whatever became of her. You know, I, I still have these feelings for this girl that got away. She moved away when he was in high school. And so he hires a private eye to track her down to see what became of her.

Yeah. And when the private eye finds her, he too immediately falls for her. Right. And he goes back and tells the guy, ah, she went to pieces. Sure. Let it go. Move on with your life. And he goes after her.

And that was the original idea to that extent. But it wasn't a real story. It's not based on anything. I don't know. It was a fiction. Okay. It was fictionalized. So that was the one line of the movie.

And they had it at the studios, and it was being developed, and people were giving them notes and this and that. And every time they'd come out with a draft, it just had too many cooks in the kitchen, if you will. And they just never, it didn't ever feel right. It was never as good. And these guys are good writers.

It was just overdeveloped. Right. They were trying to take all the studio notes and make them work. And it didn't, it never really, you know, found itself. So Pete and I loved that original, so it died. It just died at the studio. Yeah. And Pete and I love that original. So it died. It just died at the studio.

Yeah. And Pete and I love that idea. We went to him and said, is there any way we can take your idea and rewrite it? Right. They were like, go for it. Yeah. And we did.

And so the four of us, you know, wrote it. It was their original idea. Sure. Pete and I did the rewrite and, you know. And who'd you attach first? Pete and I did the rewrite. And who'd you attach first? You know, the very first person in that movie that we attached was Cameron Diaz to play Mary.

Because we had seen her in The Mask with our friend Jim Carrey. And when we saw it, you know, she was just that woman that you looked at and said, wow, who is that? Who's that actress? And she really lit up the screen. And so we met with her. We thought, you know, she might be the perfect woman to play our Mary because it was something that was just, there was something about her. As soon as you met her, you just flipped for it, you know. Sure.

She was an ingenue nobody really knew her and uh and when we met her we loved her so she was our our first pick and then we cast around that so now you guys didn't write you didn't do any tv writing we wrote we wrote some uh we had some TV ideas. We always wanted to write on Seinfeld. Yeah. So we'd send ideas for them. And we had some of our ideas turned into episodes and things like that. But we were never on a staff writing, no. You never wrote. We tried to, and we never got hired. Oh, so you pitched just that story ideas to Seinfeld? We'd go in and pitch them some of our, you know, we were trying to audition to get on the writing,

in the writing room. Just before you landed Dumb and Dumber? Yeah. Yeah. And they'd say, no, you know, you have to throw some ideas their way. Yeah. And we never got the job, but occasionally they'd say, we did like that one idea. Could you mind if we write? And so they'd take a few of our ideas and rewrite them themselves.

We get credit, but we were not on the writing. We got a little money from that, right? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Which episodes? See, the version on Seinfeld, it ran for like three or four episodes, and it ran into the famous episode where Master of the Domain and all that. Yeah, yeah.

So we had helped them with those storylines. Oh, yeah. Well, that's good. You probably still get checks for that. They're not real big. Yeah, no. They tend to dwindle. They're not Larry David checks.

No, no, yes. They're $1.50. They're cups of coffee checks. So Mary, because the thing about Mary was kind of awesome in that, I don, so, cause like the thing about Mary was like, uh, kind of awesome in that. I don't know. I'd never seen Ben Stiller like that. He really kind of revealed himself to be this incredibly, uh, great physical comedian. Yep.

I mean like unbelievable. Uh, Ben has a, you know, when you're making a comedy, it's one thing to be funny, but when you're a good reactor everything around you becomes really funny and and ben was as good as anyone he could react to things happening to him he just had this look on his face of that guy that the world's picking on he just he just nailed it we loved working with him but we weren't sure who the uh who was going to play that part when we got we got down to our final three actors yeah uh there were just three people that had come in and auditioned, and none of them had become big stars yet. But our final three guys were Ben Stiller, who got the part, Owen Wilson, who was just, we were like, this guy's got something for sure.

And then the other guy was Jon Stewart. Jon Stewart was an aspiring actor at that point. Right. And those three guys, it was those three. And we, who do you like? Who do you like? And we were like adding up the numbers. That's interesting.

And they were all very close. It was a close horse race. Yeah, they all could have done it, I think. Because Ben really can tap into this awkwardness. First of all, I never think, oh, God, if only we got so-and-so. Ben was the right guy. Yeah. He won the part and he nailed it.

Yeah. And that's how it is with acting. You know, it's not necessarily who you think of right away. Right, sure. Or who you think it's going to be. But the right person comes to the role. And there's no question in my mind, Ben Stiller was the right guy to play that part. And Matt Dillon was so good, dude.

That was great. Yeah. And he had always been a leading man then. It was so funny. And I don't think he'd even been in a comedy. So it was fun working with him. Yeah. Well, I mean, and that's the first time that you guys, I guess, actually, I mean, without, I mean, obviously the centerpiece of Dumb and Dumber were dumb guys.

But that was the first time you used a mentally challenged guy. Well, here's the thing. Yeah. In our experience growing up, we were friends with these other guys down the street, and they had a brother. There were two brothers. Pete and I hung out with these other two brothers.

Yeah. Dougie and Chris. They had another brother, Warren. Warren was what you would call it those days you'd call mentally retarded, okay? But he was always part of the gang. Yeah. Like he just ran with us.

Yeah. He was just part of everything we did. Because it was the other guy's brother. Yeah. And we loved him. He was hysterical. Yeah. He just, he always laughed.

We never laughed at him. We laughed with him. Sure. And he was that guy. Yeah. And so we thought, you know, well, what is it about Mary that's so lovable? And one of the things we wanted to put in there about her was that she's really such a nice person. Right.

And she's a decent person. She's always nice to people. Yeah. That kind of thing. And we said, hey, how about if she has a brother like Warren? Yeah. And she's always looking after him and making sure he's good. And that's just part of who she is.

She would never move on with her life and forget about her brother Warren. And so that's what we wrote into the script. Yeah. The studio would say to us, no, you can't put that in there. You know, you can't. And we're like, why? You know, that's a real guy that we know.

Like, why can we not include him into our story? This is our Warren. Yeah. And we named him Warren. Yeah. Was the guy really mentally challenged? The actor? No, he wasn't. No. And we named him Warren. Yeah. Was the guy really mentally challenged? The actor? No, he wasn't.

No. And that was a different day and age where you didn't necessarily think, we didn't necessarily think that you had to hire a disabled actor to play a disabled role. Well, I thought he did a pretty good job. He did a great job. Yeah. A great actor. But it was an honest job. Yeah. a great job. Yeah. A great actor. But he was, it was an honest job.

Yeah. No, he was great. He was great. But again, like in those days and age, you know, Dustin Hoffman played Rain Man. Sure. Okay. He's playing this character. Well, nobody thought, oh, we got, you got to hire a real, a guy with real, you know,

on the autism spectrum to play this part. It just didn't, it wasn't the way people were thinking that. Right, sure. But they do think that now. But what, now, so when they said you can't have that character, you fall for the character. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

And they said, you know, I remember the studio was telling us, it's like, no, they're going to, you're going to think you're picking on people. Yeah. It's like, we're not picking on people. Sure. We're including him. Right. We're including him in our story. I don't know think you're picking on people. It's like we're not picking on people. Sure. We're including him. Right. We're including him in our story.

I don't know where we're picking on him. He's got some idiosyncrasies for sure, but our guy at home has idiosyncrasies. So we just felt like it was inclusion. Right. And I think it read like that. Was there reaction to that at that time? Like, you know,

because like you said, the times have changed in terms of people's perceptions around sensitivity. Was there, was there a reaction around, uh, Mary in terms of that? We'd always, we'd always get a little bit of flack from the critics or something like that.

Oh, they're doing that. You know, the Farrelly brothers are doing this and that. Yeah, yeah. They're picking on so-and-so. And it was, you know, you never love to read that stuff for sure. Sure.

But we always realized we're not making this movie for critics, okay? You can critique it all you want. But you also, your heart was in the right place. We felt like we're just trying to make, tell a funny story and make people laugh, right? So it was all in there. tell a funny story and make people laugh. Right. So it was all in there after the movie at the premiere. I'll never forget that.

This woman came up to me who I knew had a brother with similar disabilities. And she said, I am going to go home. I'm going to call him as soon as I get home. I can't believe I feel bad because Mary loves her brother so much and pay so much attention to him. And I, I,

I got to start paying more attention to my brother. And so it was that thing where the people who had anything to do with the real community, who either had a sibling like that or son or daughter, they loved it. And that's the one. If that group ever came after us. I tell you, when that guy falls out of the tree

in the long shot, I just thought of it. I just thought of it and started laughing. We'd never be able to make there's something about Mary nowadays. It's too bad because it got people laughing. You know, this world, you know. Yeah, I do know. People need to laugh. Well, I mean, but like you made, there's a lot of movies here.

We can't go movie to movie, but you know, Shallow Hal and Me, Myself, and Irene. But then The Ringer, you go back to dealing with this mentally challenging, this mentally disabled thing. And that was a slight, it wasn't now, but it was getting there, right? In terms of reaction. The Ringer, in The Ringer, Johnny Knoxville plays the lead, and he's a guy who owes some money to some bookies, so his harebrained idea about how to win it back is he's going to go into the Special Olympics,

pretend he's one of them, if you will, and his friends are going to gamble, and he's, of course, going to win, right, according to him. Well, he gets in uh, and, and his friends are going to gamble and he's of course going to win. Right. According to him. Yeah. Well, he gets in there and he realized there are a bunch of them are way better athletes than him. Right. He can't win.

And, uh, it, it, it was, it was a nice story in that he had a total miss misconception of what that community was all about. Yeah. Again, the heart was in the right place. We, we would never have made that movie if we thought that it's going to offend the people with intellectual disabilities. Yeah. And in order to give us the good housekeeping,

seal of approval, we went to Eunice Shriver, who created the Special Olympics, and asked her to read the script. We happened to know them. We had people that knew them. Sure. Told them, we're going to read the script. We happened to know them. We had people that knew them. Sure. Told them, we're going to make this movie.

Please read the script and tell us what you think. Because we wouldn't make it if she said don't. I find that insulting. Yeah. So she read it and said, this is exactly what we need. We need movies about this group of people. Because by and large, Hollywood pretends they don't exist. Yeah.

And so, and she was saying, you can't believe how much we laugh when we're at the Special Olympics and all that, how much laughter there is, how much humor. Sure. And so, I like that you're doing it. And she gave us her blessing. And so, that was huge. Yeah. And what was the response to the movie?

It was, the response wasn't too bad. Again, some critics would think we were doing something wrong, but like I said, critics were always tough on us. It do all right at the box office? It did very well at the box office. It definitely wasn't one of our bigger hits, but it did do well. I saw The Three Stooges. I thought that was an earnest attempt.

Well, it was hard to recreate their magic. But we grew up on the stooges. But it's funny, though, because you could tell that, though, in the sense that the way you shot the slapstick, even how you guys do it, you can see the stooges in your work. Because you just let that comedy happen. You set up the situation, and that slapstick's going to happen. It's a very specific thing. And not a lot of people can do it well. And you guys could that comedy happen. You set up the situation, and that slapstick's going to happen. It's a very specific thing. And not a lot of people can do it well, and you guys can do it well, and it must have been because you love the Stooges.

Oh, we did love the Stooges, absolutely. Growing up where we grew up, much of the year was cold and rainy, and after school we'd come home, and on Channel 38 in Boston, they'd run the Stooges. Yeah, there weren't 500 channels then. There were just a couple. Yeah. So on a rainy day after school, you'd sit down and you'd watch Stooges episode after Stooges episode.

Didn't they run like the Dead End Kids and stuff too? I don't know what the Dead End Kids. I don't know that. The Bowery Boys. I think that was in Jersey. I think it was Channel 11 in Jersey used to run all those black and white TV comedies. But the Stooges, yeah. Yeah, Stooges. So every kid in my townies. But the Stooges, yeah. Yeah, Stooges.

So every kid in my town knew, like, all the Stooges lines. It was just, it was what we laughed at. And so we just were always fond of them. Yeah. Well, I mean, but you knew, like, right, that weren't there people trying to do movies like yours at this time? Like, you know, like, when the thing about Mary, when something about Mary hits, wasn't there sort of a resurgence of people trying to copy you guys? There definitely was.

When we made There's Something About Mary, there had not been an R-rated comedy in a long time. Yeah. I think all the way since, you know, since like maybe Animal House or something like that. They used to make R-rated comedies. And then they just stopped making them. All the comedies were geared towards 13-year-old boys.

And they thought, why make an R-rated? The guys we want to get in there can't buy a ticket to them. Right, right, right, right. So it's crazy. But we convinced the guys at Fox who made There's Something About Mary to allow us to go a little bit further. Don't try to tone it down to a PG-13 rating. Let us run with it and do some stuff

that hadn't been done, like the goop in Mary's hair and that kind of stuff. And we knew that would never work in a PG-13 movie. That would be understood. They did let us. And when it was a big hit, yes, right after that, well, what happened? All the other studios are trying to come out with, you know, raunchy R-rated copies. Do you remember, like, what, American Pie?

Like, what were the movies that you thought were? American Pie was a good one. I don't, yeah. There was a lot of, like, you know, Freddy Got Fingered and some weird ones. Yeah. You know, they just, I think they just thought like if you, the further you go, the better. Right, right, right.

And, and, you know, a lot of it is, yeah, you can go far, but you have to have, there's gotta be a sweetness to it too. Sure. Otherwise. That's the, that's the trick, right? It's gotta be a yin to the yang, right? Yeah.

A little heart to it. Yeah. So. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about, there's something about Mary's, underneath all the, know the raucous stuff yes there's a sweet story yeah if you just told that sweet story that'd be like a hallmark yeah it's like a romantic comedy so we uh yeah we camouflaged it with you know big laughs do you find like have you like what

is your feeling about a culture and, and, you know, like heading into making this new movie, uh, uh, uh, champions, like, were there considerations around where we're at culturally? I think absolutely. Uh, right now making any comedy, you have to be aware of, uh, that, yeah, the comedy landscape has changed a lot. And, uh, there's a lot of people who, you know, comedy in movies is on a hiatus. Yeah. It just hasn't been many. But I think that, you know, isn't comedy always like surprising people a little bit?

Sure. Like if you're not surprising them. Right. You're doing something wrong. Right, of course. Because it's hard to be real funny if there's no surprises. If they see it coming, yeah. Yeah. Right, of course. It's hard to be real funny if there's no surprises. If they see it coming, yeah. Yeah, so that's one of the things about crossing boundaries is it surprises the audience.

Yeah, and it's what you're supposed to do. And so I think it'll come back. I think right now it's just been, you know, the last few years have been weird in society, but it'll come back. The new movie, Champions, is, you know, it's kind of. Don't you have a kid who does comedy? I do. Stand-up. Yep.

Yeah. I have a son, A.B. Yeah. A.B. Farrelly, who does stand-up comedy. Yeah. Runs with you in those. Yeah. I don't think I've met him.

I'll have him come over and say hi. Yeah? Yeah. Is he around here? Yeah, he lives out here in L.A. Is he? Because I'm at the comedy store a lot. Does he come over there? Yeah, he lives out here in L.A. Is he? Because I'm at the comedy store a lot. Does he come over there?

Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, tell him to introduce himself. I wonder if he knows me. Oh, he knows you. Yeah, absolutely. Everyone knows you. You're a big shot.

I'm a big shot. But, yeah, I think maybe you're right. Maybe it'll find its level once respect is paid to those who have it coming. I think that the evolution of language and how people are treated in comedy has always been what it's been. We don't say Chinaman anymore and we don't say – I mean it's just – the weird kind of holding on to language as, an indicator of censorship is a little ridiculous. It's just an evolving respect for marginalized people. Absolutely. A hundred percent.

I think of the movie, what's the one where Mickey Rooney was playing the Chinese landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Okay. Yeah. Which is a tremendous movie. Sure. Famous movie. Breakfast at Tiffany's is a really beautiful movie and really well done. Yeah. But it has this moment in it where, and it was

done for comic relief. Sure. At the time, nobody batted an eye. Mickey Rooney is playing a stereotypical Chinese man or something. Yeah. And it's his stereotypical and, you know, if you look back, it's like the equivalent of blackface or something. Of course. Against Chinese, you know, Asian

people. And it was all meant to be laughed at at the time. And these are really smart people, the filmmaker and all that. But whatever the sensibility was then, nobody batted an eye. Right. Well, it's interesting. I just realized this, that Matt Dillon's character in There's Something About Mary is really the point of view of, you know, this anti-woke kind of movement. It's that sort of commitment to like, come on.

Matt Dillon's character did a lot of dumb things in that, but we were making sure that, yeah, guess what? He's a total idiot. He's supposed to be an idiot. But it's balanced. I'm saying it's a great comic character, but the point of view of that guy is the point of view of people fighting for the right to be that guy now. That's correct.

Yeah. Interesting. So where does the idea – because the one thing I noticed about watching Champions, about the new film, is that this is a movie not unlike the woman from the Special Olympics. The ringer. Well, but her idea of like to sort of integrate this world into regular life as something not to be ashamed of or hidden, it seems to be that is part of the core of this movie. Is that, you know, it's like, you know, these are our neighbors. These are, you know, this is not, it's not something to be laughed at. These are human beings. That is absolutely correct. And, you know, my feeling, having a lot of friends in the disabled community, is that the disabled community is wildly underrepresented in movies and television.

It's like you just pretend they're not there. Right. Because you don't see them. Right. Or if you do see them, they're only portrayed in one way. Yep. They're a perfect angel or maybe they're a villain or something. But every time you see them, it's generally some stereotype.

Right. And what we try to do in this movie here is bring in a lot of these, first of all, these characters, but also these actors who, you know, real actors with disabilities who play these characters and show them that they're well-rounded, that they're not all perfect. They're not all saints. Yeah. They're not all villains.

Yeah. Like anyone else. They're well-rounded human beings who have a life that, you know, they're doing the best they can like everyone else. And most of them were brought up in homes just like any of the rest of us. Correct. Until, you know, they go, whether they live in a group home or not. But they are usually, most of them in this movie, I would say, are from families that loved them.

And, you know. 100%, yeah. And totally integrated them into life. Correct. Yeah. And what you get is you have sort of the full spectrum of mentally disabled people in this movie. You have Down syndrome people, you have people that maybe accidents happened and then you have other types

of mental, but they all know what's up. They absolutely do. When we had these 10 actors come on the set, I on the set, I remember the crew, there was a feeling like everyone was kind of walking on eggshells. Right. Nobody knew quite what to say. They're afraid they might say the wrong thing

or do something wrong. And it was just a feeling of, geez, what do I do now? Yeah. Well, by the end of the show, every single person was like fast friends. You looked at all the 10 actors, and you didn't even look at them like they had a disability at all. Right. Like they were any different.

They were just who they were and you totally understood them. And it was so cool. Yeah. It was so cool. And it was the whole crew, including me and Woody and everyone else, because you didn't know at first how it was all going to go. And by the end, it was like, what the heck was I even worried about? And that's what happens when you meet a community like this.

Well, you get nervous. People get nervous. You do. You know, what do we, how do we do, what if there's a, how do we talk to them? What do we? Well, you know, I think part of the reason why people get nervous is little things like, am I going to say the wrong thing? Yeah. why people get nervous is little things like, am I going to say the wrong thing? Yeah.

Because the verbiage around this community changes all the time. Yeah, I don't even know what it is now. You know, the R word, the dreaded R word. Well, we know that one's no good. That they hate. But, you know, originally that was, I don't think that was a word that was, that was the word they were using. Right. It wasn't intended to be a slang until, you know, other kids started going, yeah, we're

touting. Right, right, right. And then all of a sudden it became a pejorative. Right. And so that's what happens is that the verbiage changes over time and you're like- That's all of it. That's what we were just talking about with Chinaman, is that there's an evolution of language of respect that can be afforded to these communities without it being a punchline.

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What is it, though, now? Is it intellectually disabled? Well, it depends on who you ask. Okay. Here's the thing that the Special Olympics told me,

and I think this is pretty good. It's never someone who's intellectually disabled. You'd say it's a person with intellectual disabilities. Okay. It's a person first. Okay, yeah, right. It's a human being first. Okay. It's a person with intellectual disabilities. Okay. It's a person first. Okay. It's a human being first. Okay.

It's a person with Down syndrome. Right. Got it. It's a person on the autism scale. Right. Like that. So that you make sure, yeah, it's just not some, you know, they're not a Down syndrome person.

They're a person with Down syndrome. That makes sense. But anyway, I like that. But the latest I heard is that they just want to say people are disabled or non-disabled. Period. And yeah. And the reason why they brought it down to those two things is because they say that they're disabled because they don't have the access to all the things in society that non-disabled people have.

Okay. And it's not just, you know, wheelchair ramps and all that. Like I'm talking about the actors. They don't have the access to all these parts. They don't because the parts aren't there. And also many of the parts went to, you know, non-disabled actors. So it's really access to opportunity that makes them disabled. That's the newest version of this.

I get it. Well, you know what's great about watching it is that, like, there is, was it hard to get Woody to do this? No. No, Woody got me to do it because Woody found, it's from a, this is from a Spanish movie of the same title, Campeones. Yeah. And it was kind of a big hit over in Spain and Woody found the movie.

Okay. And just thought it would be a great movie to remake for an American audience that doesn't know about this movie. Sure. And also such an act of inclusion. Yeah. Woody loves this movie. Woody's got like 110 credits or something, and he makes them, and then he goes on. And he's not a guy that loves to go out and promote a movie or something like that.

It's just, it's not who he is. He'd rather just be the artist. Yeah. Make it and let other people promote it. But he loves this movie so much. He's so proud of it. Yeah. And he should be because he's so good in it.

Yeah. And. Harrelson's always, he's always great. And, and Caitlin Olsen's great, you know. Yeah. And. Caitlin was, Caitlin was. Always good to see Cheech Marin.

Cheech is? Yeah. And the surprise for me was Ernie Hudson. I'm like, where's that guy been? Yeah. Ernie Hudson. Ernie's a class act. Yeah.

But what I was going to say is that all these disabled people, these people with disabilities, they have their own. But one thing about people with these type of disabilities is they operate sort of in a different time zone, you know, personally than, than us. And it's, it's its own thing. So it has its own timing. And it was sort of interesting watching that kind of integrate, you know, watching Woody, you know, kind of get into their timing. watching Woody kind of get into their timing. It's very interesting,

and there's an excitement about watching it, to see them achieving these performances. Well, each one of the 10 actors that are in here have a distinct, once you spend three months with them every single day, you'll realize each one has a distinct personality. And sense of humor humor too, right? That's different than the other ten. Yeah, yeah.

They all share a bond and all that, but they're all different. And the thing I was trying to do with the movie is to show each one of those people, just show that little bit that I saw in real life. Yeah. You know, the Cosentino, the girl, the way she's sassy and stands up

and takes guff from no one. Right. And that's how she is. Yeah. That's exactly how she is. And then, you know, the big guy Showtime who throws the ball backwards. He just loves to dance. Every single day he's in a good mood.

It's amazing. I love that you didn't pay that off. You know, the third act of this thing really is something. Oh, great. Thank you. Because, you know, I didn't see any of that coming

because there isn't, you're doing one of these movies. It's a sports movie. It's an underdog movie, underdog sports movie, right? With the fucked up coach, right? So there's precedent for it. But so the trick of this would be

not only just working with the disabled actors, but what is the twist? And really, the third act is sort of like, what? Wait, huh? And then, you know, but the fact that the championship game goes the way it's going to go is completely a surprise. Yeah. Well, thanks. Yeah, because, yeah, you know, there's a lot of tropes, right?

There's a lot of, and it didn't matter. Cliches. Yeah. And, and that's what it is. It's a, well,

we don't want to do exactly what the audience thinks you're going to do, but at the same time, the audience wants to have a, you know, satisfaction. You can't help it with this movie. You want to bring them up. Yeah.

You want to, you want to have them walking out of the theater in a good mood. You don't want them like, just piss them off at the end just to be different. And so that's the trick is not doing the cliche but satisfying them. But also, yeah, you did. And I didn't like that one character, you know, why he's not on the team. Who the fuck saw that?

I didn't see that coming. How are you going to see that coming? Right. That was heavy, man. It was good. And the guy, the young man who played it, he was awesome. I mean, that was a good piece of acting there. That kid never acted in his life.

It was. It was good. And that's not his real story either. Right, of course. So he was acting. Right. This is acting for him. And he just nailed it.

It was very impressive. I remember the night we shot that it's, it's Woody at, at his house at the door and, uh, we were all almost crying watching him. It really, he really sold it. It was so believable. The kid. Yeah.

Yeah. The actor himself. And Woody did too. Yeah. Woody was blown away. He was, Woody was legit. His, his feelings were legit because of, because of, uh, this kid, Joshua, who played that role. They played the part of Darius. He,

he really blew us away where he went as an actor, you know, and he'd never acted in his life. It's great. And also like the one thing I came away from it is I said, like, this is a family movie for, like, because it operates in a way, you know, not unlike, not just a sports movie, but, you know, and I'm not meaning this in a negative way, but it functions in the same way that after school movies were supposed to work. You know what I mean? That this is a, it's a movie about inclusion. So, like, for families to bring kids to this, you know, especially bully kids.

Yeah. It's a service. It's a service. Well, I remember when we were in the editing room making it, there was a lot of times we said, you know, I don't want this to feel like an after-school special. Sure. Because I don't, you know, nobody wants, I don't know, I think people would shy away from it if they thought, oh, they're just trying to get a message across and all that. It's not really a message movie. No, no, it's not.

It's a nice, nice story that if, yeah, I guess there is a message in there, but that's not what we're, that's not our goal. Well, it's just the nature of what we were talking about this whole time, that in terms of going back to your friend's brother, Warren, through The Ringer, but it's really the thing that you always defended was inclusion, right? So this is like a movie about that in a way. So you don't have to do the message on purpose, but it's there and it's heartwarming. Yeah. I mean, you were making a heartwarming movie. Wow. Yeah. The original, again, it's from the original Spanish movie, and that was very – they did a great job. Somebody told me that it was based on a true story of one of the filmmakers over there.

It was based on his brother or something like that. But that's what you can feel is that you want these people in this to be real. is that you want these people in this to be real. Unlike when we made The Ringer, and there was a certain, you know, in comedy we call it broadness. It's broad. It's a little zanier than real life.

Stuff happens. It's a little bit of a different set of rules. Right. But this movie here, there's no broadness to it at all. I wanted to make sure it felt like these are real people. This is a real situation. There's nothing movie magic about it.

Yeah. These are, these are things that could actually happen to real people. Yeah. I liked it. I loved it. A little more of a dramedy. Thanks. Yeah.

Thank you. So, all right. So you and your brother getting along all right? We get along great. Oh, okay. Just kind of doing your own things a little bit. We, yeah, you know, we did our own, we did our movies together for so many years. And then along the way, we just thought,

eh, you know, maybe we'll try to go out and do one on our own. And Pete's first venture on his own was a movie called Green Book, which won an Oscar. So when he started doing the math, he was like, wait a minute, I worked 20 years with Bobby,

and then I worked one year without him, and now I'm an Oscar winner. And that didn't go unnoticed. That's it for you guys as a team. No, I'm doing a new movie right now. I'm actually in Atlanta about to start a new one, and here's how we're doing it. Pete wrote the screenplay. I'm going to direct it, and we both produce it.

So that's the version of it. Oh, great. We'll call it a Farrelly Brothers movie because. Comedy? Yep. Big Christmas comedy. Who's in it? I'm not allowed to divulge right now.

Oh, really? Yeah, they asked me not to, but we have a very good cast. All right, buddy. Good talking to you, man. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Good talking to you. Thank you.

All right, buddy. Good talking to you, man. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Good talking to you. That was Bobby Farrelly. If you're just tuning in, the new comedy he directed, Champions,

opens in theaters everywhere tomorrow, March 10th. Hang out a second. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. We'll be right back. as those are groceries and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids

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The Oscars are this Sunday, and we've had a lot of Oscar nominees on the show this award season. In fact, since you might have missed some of them, we're going to release a special compilation episode tomorrow with the nominees talking about their Oscar-nominated work. Michelle Yeoh, Daniels, Brendan Fraser, Hong Chao, Austin Butler, Andrea Riceboro, Sarah Pauley, Todd Field, R Ryan Johnson, Judd Hirsch, and Tony Kushner. And if you want even more Oscar talk, we posted a new episode of Mark on Movies to the full Marin, where we try to figure out why we care about the Oscars.

I'll tell you, I never forget, like I think one of the greatest moments in Oscar history was when fucking Jimmy Kimmel brought the busload of people in. Oh, I love that. That was great. It's so effortlessly took the fucking wind out of the whole goddamn thing. Well, that's hilarious.

Because we're talking about how going back to even when you were a kid, you just liked movie stars and you liked the pageantry and the pomp and that. But all it took was these people with cameras and this lady wanted to take selfies with Denzel. That just made the whole thing worth it. Well, it forced them, the celebrity culture,

to play along with something that half of them won't even do on the street. The Oscar compilation episode will drop in the free feed tomorrow and to subscribe to The Full Marin, go to the drop in the free feed tomorrow and to subscribe to the full Marin,

go to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus next week. We've got O'Shea Jackson jr. On Monday to talk about being the son of O'Shea Jackson, senior also known as ice cube. And on Tuesday, as I mentioned earlier, director Jason Walner, director of Paul T. And on Tuesday, as I mentioned earlier, director Jason Wollner,

director of Paul T. Goldman on Peacock. So you might want to watch that. Alright. Okay. Thank you. BOOMER LIVES! Boomer lives.