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The Strip

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : The employees of an electronic store face the reality of growing up when one of them gets married.

Opened December 4, 2009

Runtime:1 hr. 31 min.

Interview with Dave Foley

Q: How did you end up doing stand-up comedy initially?

Dave Foley: Oh, I started out when I was seventeen. One day, a friend of mine told me in the school bus, after I made him laugh all the way to the school, "You should do stand-up." And I said, "I've never thought about it." So, I started writing some, and went up to a local comedy club to perform—just started when I was seventeen. From there, I also started improve. Then I met Kevin McDonald and we formed the "The Kids in the Hall," then I gave up stand-up, and just did comedy sketches from there on.

Q: Was it really surprising for you that you TV show, "The Kids in the Hall" was not only successful in Canada, but also here in the U.S.?

Dave Foley: I was surprised that we even had a TV show. When we became kind of popular in Toronto, we thought we were funny and we hoped other people did too—we didn't know how successful would be. I think now, all those years later, it's kind of strange that we still think of ourselves as punks, but now we are like grand old men of comedy. All this comedy happened since then. There are people saying they've been influenced by us, so it's kind of gratifying.

Q: How was the process of writing the "The Kids in the Hall"?

Dave Foley: A lot of times it was ugly (LOL). Especially when we were younger, because in the Kids in the Hall, five of us are all pretty equal as writers, which is part of why it’s sometimes pretty brutal, with competition to get the stuff in, because all five of us are writing, and writing different groups. We all come out as ugly as we get, and we just keep at it.

We can make each other laugh harder than anybody else, and we just felt like there is something special about this group. You know, there's something we do together that we couldn't do separately. And we just recently did an eight-part mini-series for Canadian TV. It's going to be out in Canada in January. I hope it's gonna sell to other places. It's not sketch comedy, it's ongoing stories where we played all the parts.

Q: Ok, Let's talk about your new film. Since you are also successful as a writer, how did you work it out with director Jameel Kahn? Did you have any input?

Dave Foley: Well, Jameel wrote a really good script. They sent me the script, and I really liked it. So there wasn't any need for me to do anything. But Jameel, even though he had written a great script, encouraged anybody to play around on the set. So there's ad-libbing and a little bit of improv. But largely, we just acted the script, because it was good. And because we had a very tight schedule, it's a very low-budget movie. Jameel really know how he wanted to shoot. As a first-time director, he was very confident, very sure of what he was doing. It's amazing cause it's a very scary thing to direct a movie.

Q: In this film, you guys deal with a lot of odd customers. I heard that you initially worked in a movie theater as an usher, so have you had any odd experiences or annoying experiences with customers.

Dave Foley: Yeah, I used to work with Kevin McDonald as an usher in a movie theater. But I think Kevin and I are just as weird as any of the customers (LOL). Kevin is usually fooling around, getting audiences or a line-up to laugh on their way to the theater, because we did some bits with people. And one day, he accidentally did bits with some of the audience guys who turned out be in the Mafia.

Suddenly, these very scary Italian men came up to Kevin; one of them said that, "You know what you did earlier to this man? You are very fortunate that he found it to be funny. Because if he didn't find it to be funny, I'm afraid we would have to kill you." Kevin got all upset, sort of shouting, "What do you mean killing me? Why did you threaten me?” Then I had to take him aside, "Kevin, when they say, ‘Kill you,’ it's not a figure of speech. Those guys are the Mafia. Kevin had no Idea who they were. And he went, ‘oohh!!’”

Q: You worked in an electric store in this film. Have you ever bought some stuff in a cheap knock-off electric store that you later regretted?

Dave Foley: Yeah, I used to buy cheap stuff and it was usually a mistake. Usually, the stuff didn’t work very long or very well. I'm assuming that's all the products "The Strip" would be like—they didn't work very long or well (LOL).

Q: In the film, you are shouting to complain at that supermarket about the quality of the service that customers get for buying high-tech gadgets over there. Do you feel the same way?

Dave Foley: Yeah, it is ugly to see the surround sound system or our home theater system in above the cereal (LOL). Well, that's the new way of marketing, it's just show everything to the people in every environment. I know it's the idea of spontaneous purchase—you didn't think it through very much. But If you really won't to have much, those products might be fine.

Q: In the film, Rick, one of your workers played by Coley Christmas, also tried out as an actor in a TV pilot series. but he screwed up the audition. Have you had any similar experiences like that?

Dave Foley: Well, I've never been good at any of the auditions. But I've never wildly screwed up like in this film. Oh, I walked out on some. You know, in the early days, I went into the one of those commercial auditions where the audition itself is kind of degrading. One guy kept saying that "Do a impression, do like Jimmy Glick!

You know it's Martin Short's work. I told him I can't do another comedian's work. But he kept saying "Do a Glick for us!" So I said, “This is stupid" and I walked out! If they knew me back then, they didn't probably tell me that, but Martin Short was doing this character for so long in Canada, so they think it's perfect for a Canadian actor to do that impersonation, I guess.

Q: What do you think is the difference between Canadian comedy and American one?

Dave Foley: I don't know really. I mean I hear a lot of theory about that. I think Canada is exposed to much more British comedy--it's much more exposed to the rest of the world than Americans are. But they also heavily influenced by the United States, so I think it's a world of blended comedy, mostly British and Australian. We get all that stuff before it comes out in the United States. I grew up on "Monty Python" when I was kid; also some of the British radio and Frankie Howard stuff. So that all influenced me growing up. Some of them said that Canadians have more stronger senses of irony than American, but it's hard to say.

Q: After you've done two successful TV shows, now you focus mostly on film works, but did you ever think about going back to do a sitcom type of thing?

Dave Foley: I love to. I love doing TV. I recently did the "Julia Louis-Dreyfus" show, and it was really fun. I really love doing that. Looks like I might be developing [a Canadian TV show] with one of my old partners, Kevin McDonald to do Canadian TV, but definitely would love to do more American TV. In a lot of ways with comedy on TV, you can do better things than with film a lot of times.

Q: How about directing a film?

Dave Foley: I've done some directing. I directed the short films for "The Kids in the Hall" show, I directed a Christmas special for Canadian TV, and also an episode of "NewsRadio." So I'd like to do more of that.

Q: So what's next for you?

Dave Foley: After "The Kids in the Hall" thing coming out in January, nothing is planned yet, but a couple of films are coming out in the New Year: "Freeloaders" and "Suck."

Q: Thank you.

Dave Foley: Thank you!

End.