Since you’ve directed the film, how many times have you seen it?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: Oh my God.
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: I have no idea. Countless.
So are there parts you’re sick of?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: I don’t know if sick of, because it’s always fresh to watch it with other people, despite you having seen it many times. I get tired of sometimes seeing my ugly mug up there. The hardest thing is I don’t know what happened. My body shut down.
We hear some directors can’t watch their film anymore because they’ve seen it so many times in editing.
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: They start to take it apart. I can see that. Sometimes you can’t help but think of the day that it took to shoot that scene, regardless of the fact that the scene all worked out and everything’s fine. But it takes you right back to if we had this much more times, blah blah blah would’ve happened.
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: Yeah, yeah, although I think sometimes seeing it more, that sort of starts to dissipate. I remember feeling that so strongly when we first got into the editing room, not being able to concentrate on anything but jus the memory of that day of shooting, or getting that, or whether it was easy or hard.
We’re very happily surprised that “Community” is coming back again, and Dan Harmon is coming back. Have you talked at all with him about anything coming up for the fifth season?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: No, I haven’t spoken to him yet because it’s relatively still fresh. Pam, who put our faces on today, is our makeup artist from “Community,” she probably knows more than I do because the crew was in on the know of when they’re going back and everything. I’m just happy that a lot of our old crew and Dan and Chris [McKenna] are all returning. Obviously, I don’t know what the writer’s room will look like. They’re obviously working on that but so far I don’t know any ideas. I understand he’s probably watching the fourth season as we speak.
I actually liked the fourth season. Am I a traitor for saying that?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: I don’t think you’re a traitor because I think we did our best. I think David [Guarascio] and Moses [Port] did a great job with a very difficult task because regardless, everyone has a fondness. We have die hard fans and change is scary but I think they did a great job and we all knew that all we could do is try to do our best to maintain Dan’s vision.
The dean’s outfits do require having a bit of a physique, so how do you keep in dean shape?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: What do I do? Working out has always been a stress reliever for me. I don’t know if it’s so much vanity as it more just keeps my mind from going crazy.
Why didn’t you play the fake dean yourself?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: Oh, you mean instead of J.P. Manoux? Because I think the plot was he was hired because he was an actor, right? But in the timeline, I don’t know, it gets all confusing. I remember him being hired for the job, so maybe that’s why they went that way. I wish I had an evil persona. I wish in the evil timeline I existed, but clearly I didn’t.
Nat, are you still going to go out for pilots again?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: Yeah, I’m doing a pilot for FX that Andrew Gurland wrote that Judy Greer is also doing. I think we’ll shoot probably in the next month or so, so we’ll see. It was a great script and I also look forward to being potentially, if it gets picked up, on cable. It allows a little flexibility for Jim and I to continue doing what we’re doing and have time to do both.
What kind of character are you going to play?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: I play a husband. Judy Greer plays my wife and we have three kids. It’s basically a marriage in which the couple has probably grown apart a little bit and I think my character still wants to connect physically and sexually, and I think her character is not interested and tired and over it a little bit. So she suggests me getting my needs met elsewhere and I think my character struggles with the implications of potentially doing that and wrestling with whether or not that could feasibly happen. But I think it will really center probably a lot on their relationship.
More of a drama or comedy?
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: No, I think it’ll be mostly comedic but certainly it’ll be dark. I think FX is the perfect home for a show like that.
You guys were improvising in the hallway here, and I know you’re both from The Groundlings. Do you feel that this generation of young comedians get the part of improv that it’s actually about supporting each other, even if it seems like you’re ribbing each other?
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: I hope so. I think good improv knows that. I think improv’s had a great run from “Reno” to “Curb Your Enthusiasm” to just in movies and television in general now, and also commercials. So I feel like improvisers know that you’re coming from story and characters and the idea that whoever is out of the gate first is sort of the lead in the improv and your job is to put them up on that pedestal and support them.
I worry that people coming up may not understand the fundamentals, and if they approach it like an ambush, that sort of stops the comedy dead.
Academy Award-Winner Jim Rash: Yes, to me if people really want to improvise, get into classes and learn. The idea of just improvising and riffing can sometimes be at the expense of story. So I think watching places where it’s just sort of like I’m going to start riffing and then monologue my way through this, hopefully they’ll [learn].
Academy Award-Winner Nat Faxon: Yeah, I think you can certainly see bad improv from a mile away. I think when it just feels tangential and not connected to, like Jim said, character or story, it’s pretty apparent and transparent. Obviously, we rely on it a lot in our writing, in our acting and directing. It plays a big part in everything we do.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
