- 11 hours ago
"Luckily he’s included me in almost everything he’s done, so I’ve been very lucky from that," Willard said of working with director Christopher Guest.
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00:00Hi, I'm Fred Willard, and you're in studio with The Hollywood Reporter.
00:07So, Fred, you are an acclaimed television and film actor,
00:12but can I also say that you are a professional late-night talk show guest?
00:19That's what I always wanted to be, a late-night talk show guest.
00:23I mean, it's amazing. It spans decades.
00:26Your whole career, you've been this amazing talk show guest.
00:29I have done a lot of guest shots on talk shows,
00:34either promoting something that I've been in, a movie or a TV show,
00:40or doing little sketches on the programs.
00:45I've always loved that. I've always loved short, sweet, funny little sketches.
00:49Yes, there is an amazing compilation on YouTube of your appearances on The David Letterman Show, Late Night.
00:56David Letterman was always fun. I'd get a last-minute call from him to fly to New York.
01:04Yeah, and I would always plan something pretty unusual, the most unusual thing I could do to do it.
01:13I came in with several different angles.
01:16Yes.
01:17I remember once I came on, the one that comes to mind, I had them put a knife in my chest,
01:22and I came on and sat down and said,
01:24Do you notice how angry people in New York are getting angry?
01:27And he was very, you know, he went along with it. He's a good straight man.
01:36Yeah.
01:36Yeah, one of the ones that I saw that I really loved was when you came on the show undressed and had your suit with you.
01:45Oh, I pretended I just found out that, I just remember that day that I was on the show,
01:51because someone said, Hey, aren't you on Letterman tonight?
01:54Yeah.
01:54And I came on, so I had to change from one of my street clothes into a nice outfit for the Letterman.
02:00Yeah, thanks.
02:00So you had to get undressed and then dressed again.
02:03Yeah, undressed and dressed, yeah. That took a lot of practice.
02:05But let's talk about your recent collaboration with Jimmy Kimmel.
02:08Yes.
02:09So how did that come about?
02:10The government started talking about creating a space force.
02:15Yes.
02:15Now it just so happens that some 30 or 35 years ago, I was in a TV pilot called Space Force.
02:22Yeah.
02:23And someone Googled it and said, Oh, they actually were going to make a series out of this.
02:28It was a spoof on Star Trek and those, and I was the lead.
02:33And, oh, it was Fred Willard. Fred Willard's still around.
02:35Let's get him in and put him in one of those crazy outfits.
02:39Back in the jumpsuit.
02:41Yeah.
02:43Which didn't look much, much worse than the one that was actually used in the pilot.
02:50It was very, it was a lot of fun.
02:53Yeah.
02:54And the idea was that I was still around and still pushing for the idea of a space force.
03:01Then a couple of weeks later, they called again and asked me to come in.
03:05And I think I played George Washington.
03:07Yes.
03:08A ghost to George Washington.
03:09Yeah.
03:11And then a week or two later, they called me and I was Fred Trump, Donald Trump's father.
03:15Yes.
03:16And I became all sorts of characters.
03:18Yeah.
03:20And it's just about every two weeks, they would call to have me come in.
03:25And I love it because it's, they'll call like 11 o'clock in the morning and say,
03:31can you be in this afternoon to do a sketch.
03:33And it just so happens I have been available most of the times freely.
03:38And you go in and you rehearse it twice, then you sit in your dressing room for about an hour, getting a little nervous, you know, because that's the, you know, Elvis never went on stage.
03:51He, he was called from his dressing room when the comic was just about finishing with his, but he didn't want to wait around backstage.
03:59Yeah.
04:00You want to walk right in and here.
04:01And now here's the king.
04:03But then you go up and there's the excitement of, you watch Jimmy Kimmel's monologue and the stage manager's there.
04:12And suddenly he says, all right, 10 seconds.
04:14You're on in 10 seconds and you get a little nervous.
04:17You know, it's, it's not so much nervous.
04:20It's, it's energy.
04:21It's a good energy.
04:23So you're able to harness that energy.
04:25Yeah.
04:26Yeah.
04:27Yeah.
04:27Um, and next thing you know, Jimmy is talking to me and I'm answering him and, uh, the beauty of it is it's just one take.
04:35Yeah.
04:35And suddenly it's over.
04:37Yeah.
04:38It's a wrap.
04:38Oh, that's it.
04:39That's it.
04:40Take off my mic.
04:41And, uh, I would say, that went great.
04:43That went great.
04:44You have to do stuff.
04:45So I love to do it.
04:46I love those short little things where there's no retakes.
04:50Yeah.
04:50They don't say, let's take it again from the top.
04:54Yeah.
04:54So it's, uh, like almost, it's like live television.
04:57Right.
04:58And it lays, it is what it is.
05:00It just lays out as it is.
05:01That's right.
05:02How long have you been doing improv?
05:04It must've been 1966, I would think.
05:08Mm-hmm.
05:08And I got a call from my agent that they're, they want you to come in.
05:12And they're auditioning for a new company at Second City.
05:15Now I'd seen the original Second City, Alan Arkin, Barbara Harris, Severn Darden.
05:20And I was just floored by seeing them.
05:23They did political humor.
05:24They did, uh, scenes about Kafka.
05:28Half of them had beards.
05:29They were very, they were like professors.
05:31And I said, I can't do that.
05:33And they said, well, they had seen me.
05:35The producers in Chicago had seen me because I worked before that with a partner, uh, and
05:40we played Mr. Kelly's in Chicago and the Gate of Horn and a lot of clubs.
05:44And they'd seen me.
05:45And, uh, I went in and, uh, very reluctantly, and they, they asked for, there's about 30
05:53of us in the room and they asked for two of us to stand up and they gave us a, uh, each
05:59a subject.
06:01And it, one of them was about a folk singer waiting to go on at a coffee shop, which is
06:05right down my alley.
06:06Because we used to be, as the comedians in the, this was during the folk boom, we'd
06:11be scheduled to go on at 11 and the owner would come in and say, so-and-so just came
06:14in and we're going to push you back.
06:16Funny, at one o'clock they'd introduce us as the comedy team and so-and-so and then we'd
06:21come out and there'd be two or three people left.
06:23So that went well.
06:24Then another one went well.
06:26Then a third one went well.
06:27And funny, he said, we have time for one more.
06:29Anyone else want to volunteer?
06:30And I put my hand up.
06:32So I went to Chicago and we broke in some, uh, old material and the first night we were
06:39improvising and, um, they pushed me out on the stage to get into the scene.
06:46And I got out and I started talking and it went very well.
06:50And the next night I had a wonderful joke about a man who was, uh, a friend of ours who
06:56got killed.
06:57Well, he got hit by a truck.
06:59No, he had a heart attack.
07:00And I came out and said, well, it was both.
07:02He got hit by a truck.
07:03And if you got hit by a truck, you'd have a heart attack too.
07:06Got a big lap, but I had nothing left.
07:08So that's one of the things they taught you.
07:10Never come on with a great joke with nothing to back it up.
07:14Um, so I did that for one year and then I got into a group called the Ace Trucking Company,
07:20which was a different thing.
07:21Uh, they didn't go for such, you know, extended scenes leading someplace.
07:26It was a quick joke, quick, quick, quick.
07:28Um, cause you're playing to college students or people in coffee houses who, you know,
07:33who are eating or drinking.
07:34And, uh, so it was a different type of improv.
07:38Um, but I still, uh, and it was comfortable working with Christopher Guest cause you weren't
07:44going for a quick joke.
07:45You were trying to make a scene.
07:46It was a movie after all.
07:48And you knew what the scene was and you were working, you know, if you said something to
07:51Catherine O'Hara, she wouldn't blank.
07:53She'd come back with something.
07:55Eugene Levy would have something funny to say, Bob Balaban.
07:59But to this day, I still am a little nervous about improvisation.
08:03Right, right.
08:04If you were to go to the, like the Upright Citizens Brigade theater right now, you'd,
08:08you'd get a little nervous about a new student.
08:11Absolutely.
08:11If I go back to Second City, uh, and they say, they come out at intermission, do you
08:15want to get up and do a set with us?
08:18No.
08:19Oh, come on.
08:20Okay.
08:20Uh, okay.
08:22Because there's a, uh, and, and I talked to Eugene Levy about it too.
08:26He, he felt, it feels the same way.
08:27He says, what's worse when they say that, you know, you're going to be on in the set.
08:33And he said, when you come on stage, you get a big applause and that's making it even worse
08:37because they're, they're really expecting dynamite.
08:39Yeah.
08:40And if you don't deliver dynamite, it's, oh, well, see, I could have done that.
08:45Absolutely.
08:45And today, when I started out, there was no improv.
08:48There was a Second City, there was the committee in San Francisco.
08:52That's about it.
08:53Yeah.
08:53And now every city you go to, there's improv clubs, there's plays that are improvised.
08:58There's, uh, and it's a great art.
09:00And when you go and see the people doing it today, you think, I, you think I could never
09:06start today.
09:06They're so skilled, so wonderful, so many wonderful improvisers.
09:11Uh, I, I've worked with the best and, uh, I'm constantly amazed at what great talent there
09:17is out there.
09:18Yeah.
09:19I'm glad I kind of made it to the first plateau and can kind of look around and say, okay.
09:23People say, oh man, no one can improvise.
09:25You're the king of the improv.
09:27I say, well, okay, I'll take that.
09:31I'll, I'll take it.
09:31I won't argue.
09:32Yeah.
09:33But just don't ask me to do it.
09:34And people ask me if I do much improv with Jimmy Kimmel.
09:37I don't, I haven't started yet.
09:39I don't feel that, uh, comfortable.
09:42It's, uh, the show kind of moves forward pretty quickly.
09:45Yeah.
09:46And Jimmy seems to try to get as much information in.
09:48Yeah.
09:49So a couple of times I, one time I said, are we still on?
09:53Are we still talking?
09:54Which seemed to get a little bit of a laugh.
09:56Um, I did a lot of these with Jay Leno.
10:00I did about 90 of them with Jay and that was a little looser.
10:05Yeah.
10:06Cause just before I'd go on, the producer would say, make Jay laugh.
10:10So I was free to say just about anything.
10:13And I was usually, uh, a silly guy with a martini glass in his hand, uh, making a report.
10:20I'd pretend there was someone off to the side I was talking to and Jay would have to say,
10:24uh, Mr. Will, uh, Fredericks, get back here.
10:28I think he called me Willard Fredericks.
10:29So it was a lot of fun.
10:31But again, it was the same thing.
10:32It was all live.
10:34Never let's try it again.
10:36Yeah.
10:37Uh, so you're, you're right on the spot.
10:40What is your favorite character to play so far when, uh, you've been working with Jimmy Kimmel?
10:45I think my favorite, I was an executive is in charge of preventing a, um, a huge meteor from hitting the earth.
10:53Oh, yes.
10:53And he was asking me what, what our defensive strategy was.
10:58Uh-huh.
10:58And I beat around the bush for a few minutes and finally I took off my glasses and I said,
11:04Jimmy, let's face it, there's no defense against this.
11:07We just have to keep our fingers crossed.
11:09It was, it was a nice moment.
11:11Look, folks, I'm going to level with you.
11:13There's no way to stop an asteroid from hitting the earth.
11:17And I played also the guy who was taking, um, the SAT tests for the high school students.
11:24Yes.
11:25You learned a lot of new vernacular for that.
11:27Yeah.
11:28Uh, that was, that was a lot of fun.
11:31And I found I, I had to use a lot of the hip new teen phrases, but even the writers didn't know what they meant.
11:38Some of them, but just things they'd heard.
11:40And, uh, I got a lot of comments from that.
11:45You also learned how to dab.
11:47Dab.
11:47Yeah, I didn't, I didn't quite know.
11:49Then I.
11:49She did your own spin on it.
11:51Yes.
11:51Well, they, they deliberately made it a little off, a little slow motion.
11:57What, what amazes me is the audience he has.
12:01People will see, see me just friends or on the street say, I saw you on Kimmel last night.
12:06I mean, it's, he must have a huge audience.
12:09Yeah.
12:10I've known Jimmy on and off for years.
12:11I used to go on as a guest when I was promoting a film or a TV show.
12:15And I'd actually sit in front of the audience.
12:18And, uh, so that, that was always fun.
12:20And actually Jimmy was in this house several times, uh, for Christmas parties.
12:24Then one time I went on, he said, you haven't had me back for a Christmas party.
12:28The last Christmas party.
12:29I felt terrible.
12:30Oh, cause I was just thrilled that he came.
12:33Yeah.
12:33Uh, we invited him and he showed up and it was a big crowd.
12:36I think he came two Christmases in a row.
12:39And I said, well, I don't want to, uh, you know, take advantage of him.
12:43And I asked him to come a third time.
12:46Yeah.
12:47But he hit me when he says, Hey, you didn't invite me last Christmas.
12:52He was looking for the invite.
12:53That's right.
12:54I feel terrible.
12:56I mean, you've worked with a lot of, uh, being a, uh, a professional late night talk show guest.
13:01You've been on Carson, Ed Sullivan, David Letterman.
13:06I mean, it's amazing.
13:08The list keeps going.
13:09I mean, do you, do you have any pointers for young actors who are maybe going on a talk show
13:13for their first time?
13:14Well, kind of think ahead of time, uh, what you're going to be asked and, uh, what your
13:19answer is going to be.
13:20If you're promoting some project, you've got to speak pretty well about it.
13:25Make it sound interesting.
13:27Uh, maybe say there's a little twist near the end that we can't disclose something that's
13:33a little shocking.
13:34I'm not allowed to talk about it.
13:36The audience is, uh, it was very questionable whether we'd leave it in the film or not, you
13:41know, something like that.
13:42And just pretend that you're very pleased.
13:47It's very seldom that you see a, uh, an actor come on and say they didn't like the director
13:53or didn't like one of the other actors.
13:56Everyone seems to love everybody on these interviews.
13:59That's true.
13:59Everyone was the most wonderful director.
14:01My co-star was the most wonderful, but you've got to do that.
14:06Yeah.
14:06Well, maybe you'd make it more memorable if you did put together.
14:10That's a very good.
14:11I thought of that.
14:11I've thought of actually saying we had some ill feelings on the set.
14:16Maybe you can tell during the halfway through the 30 minute mark, how there's some friction
14:21between me and my co-star, the actress, uh, you know, anything to draw the people in.
14:27Yeah.
14:28Do you remember a time when you really bombed a talk show appearance?
14:32No, I, I, I don't.
14:34I got away with an awful lot of stuff.
14:37I, I remember once I came on Letterman, there was the trickiest one.
14:42I came on Letterman and I had a TV set with a character I'd already done.
14:48And I played back and forth with the character stopping and starting it, you know, like a comedy
14:53team arguing.
14:55And I, I sweated that out and I had to tell the engineers, you know, cause when I came
15:02on the TV set was covered.
15:04And he said, now if you wait too long, the TV set is going to start and it's going to
15:08throw off the timing.
15:09So, uh, I was watching the clock to make sure we got, uh, through it all.
15:17Right.
15:17But you did.
15:18It synced up perfectly.
15:19Yeah.
15:19Yeah.
15:20So tell me, are there any Christopher Guest movies on the horizon?
15:24Do you know?
15:25There may be several.
15:27I never hear the way I hear a rumor.
15:31Some went at a party or something and say, Oh, my client's going to be in a new Christopher Guest
15:35movie.
15:36Are you going to be in it too?
15:36And I said, uh, that's the first I've heard about it.
15:40So I wait by the phone and luckily enough, the phone rings and, and Christopher is very,
15:46um, you know, uh, Fred, uh, I'm thinking about doing a new movie.
15:51I said, Oh, is this good news for me?
15:55Uh, but luckily he's included me in almost everything he's done.
15:59So I've been very lucky from that.
16:01Uh, the first time I worked with him, it was in Spinal Tap.
16:04That wasn't his movie.
16:06It was Carl Reiner who directed it, but I worked with Christopher and Harry Shearer and Michael
16:12McKeon.
16:13And, uh, it was all improvised.
16:15The scene we did, we did it about four different times, three from my angle, looking at them
16:21as they came into this air force base.
16:24And then once they turned the camera around on me and I just said anything that came into
16:29my mind.
16:30Uh, and, um, then he called me for the first one that he directed was waiting for a Guffman.
16:37Right.
16:37And, uh, that started to change everything.
16:40Uh, it was, uh, I was thrilled to be working with my, uh, the people I worked with, Catherine
16:46O'Hare, Eugene Levy.
16:48I was such a fan of theirs and, uh, Christopher Guest.
16:52I'd seen him on Saturday Night Live.
16:54I'd met him socially a few times, but it was just, it was just so much fun.
16:59It was like a party every day or a picnic doing these scenes.
17:03You'd never think that it's going to be seen in a theater audience.
17:07You were just doing it to, to try to get this story told and get in a joke or two.
17:13And, uh, uh, when it came out, it, it, it did quite well.
17:17Now, um, you recently played God in the historical roasts.
17:22Yes.
17:23Uh, you know, Jeffrey Ross is the king of the roasters and he's roasted about everything.
17:30And he finally decided to roast people who are no longer living.
17:34Yeah.
17:35And, uh, he ran out of people, ran out of living people.
17:39He'd wanted to roast someone who couldn't sue him.
17:42So, um, this was a roast of, um, Anne Frank, which people think, oh, that's very tasteless.
17:50But that's just, um, that's just key to be tasteless, but in a loving way.
17:56Mm-hmm.
17:57So I got a call on a Friday night from my agent, uh, Jeff Ross would like you to come
18:02in on Monday and play God.
18:06Mm-hmm.
18:06And I said, well, that, someone must have dropped out.
18:10My agent said, I don't know.
18:11This is the last minute thing.
18:12I, I don't think, uh, you should, I, I, I say you pass.
18:16I said, okay.
18:18I said, no, I'd kind of like to do that.
18:20I don't know.
18:20So Saturday afternoon, the phone rang and it was, Fred, it's Jeff.
18:25And I said, right away, I said, oh, I'm going to do his show.
18:29He said, you know, this part of God.
18:31And I said, Jeff, I'm a, you're my friend.
18:34I owe you a lot.
18:35Uh, I'll do it.
18:36So Monday, Monday we shot it and I was God.
18:40And he talked to me as God.
18:41How can these terrible things, that was the key thing.
18:45Anne Frank and Hitler, Gilbert Gottfried played Hitler.
18:48We had Eleanor Roosevelt, we had, uh, Eleanor Roosevelt.
18:53And, uh, Jeff Ross would occasionally talk to me.
18:56How would you let these things happen?
18:57I go, well, these things, you know, I can't cover everything.
19:01Um, and it was done and he was doing three a week and he didn't know to the last minute
19:07who he was going to cast and what, but it was great.
19:10And you always have trust in Jeffrey Ross.
19:11He's, he's always doing something like that.
19:14So that was fun.
19:15So I played God.
19:16God, I don't think I ever played God on Jimmy Kimmel.
19:20I did play George Washington though.
19:21Yeah.
19:22Yeah.
19:22I mean, is there anything left to play?
19:24You've played George Washington, you've played God.
19:27Like who, is there any character you haven't played yet that you wish you could play?
19:31Babe Ruth.
19:32I'm a big baseball fan.
19:33I think that would be fun.
19:34Get a putty nose and be the real Babe Ruth with real troubles, real problems, real complaints.
19:42Yeah.
19:43Fred Willard, thank you so much for being here and we'll be looking for you.
19:46Is there any other way?
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