Wednesday, 15 April 2009 16:55
"My muse is a tiny, fairy-like creature from Gnardgnanesh: a country that only exists if you wish it to. He's about 4 inches tall, greenish, and resembles a little twig."
- Thomas Lennon, to FHM.
- Thomas Lennon, to FHM.
That - is just the kind of man that Thomas Lennon, aka Lieutenant Jim Dangle of 'Reno 911!' - is.
Endearingly ridiculous... yet affably logical.
Logic of the kind, that can only be made sense of by the kid inside... who never grew up.
These school holidays, let Thomas Lennon as Ned Gold in '17 Again', entertain you with all of the paraphernalia that only a Silicon Valley King could fill his mansion with. We are talking characteristic lightsabers! Vulcan ears... and some Zac-Efron-pow-wow.
Never intending to work in comedy at all, Lennon still considers himself a "dramatic actor". Lennon "very accidentally, joined a comedy troupe in college." Lennon says, he "still had no intention of sticking with it. I absolutely thought I’d be doing Shakespeare and things like that. But no, it either didn’t pan out or did pan out depending on how you look at it. I consider that it did pan out."
"... my job for about a month, was go to a parking lot in Hollywood and have a lightsaber fight with Zac Efron... "
You will want to watch '17 Again' because...
LENNON: One, while it’s a very simple, kind of classic story.. it’s a very smart version, of a very silly movie. At first I thought, ‘Well, it’s a body switch comedy.’ But it’s an incredibly smart version of that, with really funny people in it. It’s also a version with Zac (Efron). I was surprised coming in because I didn’t know anything about him, other than he’s a teenage idol and that he can walk down the street and girls go crazy. But he’s also beyond that, a very naturally gifted actor and a very diligent, hardworking guy who is the first kid on set every day. Not at all caught up in himself and a really funny improviser. So, it turned out being way more fun than I thought it was going to be. I think people who have only seen Zac in the 'High School Musical' stuff will be very surprised. He’s the real deal. He’s as funny as any improviser I know... and most of the people aren’t improvisers.
With so many 'funny' people on set?...
LENNON: It was a very tightly scripted film. There were a couple of scenes that were improvised. But Burr Steers directed it, and he directs you almost like you’re doing a drama. He’s a very serious guy. And while he’s a very funny person, he’s deadly serious about the craft of directing and he makes you do the scenes a lot and gives a lot of notes. I think you can see it because the performances in the film are really good, and I think that’s because of Burr.
On the set of '17 Again'...
LENNON: It was a lot of fun on set. Let me tell you right now! As a 38-year-old man, when you wake-up and you’re like, ‘I feel like I look pretty good today and my hair looks kind of good and I feel alright about myself today'... You wouldn’t feel that good about yourself after spending twelve hours standing next to Zac Efron. Suddenly you’ll start to feel like, ‘You know, I feel a little chubby and weird looking. This is not the best hairdo on me.’ Don’t stand next to a teenage supermodel all day long. It’s bad for your self-esteem.
Just another member of the 'Efron fan-club.
LENNON: I think for him it’s a blessing because he can totally take it with a grain of salt and he’s not all caught-up in it. For me, it probably would’ve been a bad idea at 21 to look like that and be so charming and dreamy. I don’t think it would’ve been such a great idea for me.
Lightsaber duels with the 'Efron!
LENNON: I’m a big 'Star Wars' fan. It was really cool. It was a great job because we had a very diligent stunt coordinator, and we rehearsed that lightsaber fight for like a month before the movie just because you have to be careful. If you give Zac Efron a black eye, that would be terrible. So, we rehearsed it for a very long time. And I’ve got to say it was really fun because my job for about a month was go to a parking lot in Hollywood and have a lightsaber fight with Zac Efron... which if you can get that job, that’s a very excellent job to get and doesn’t come up that often.
Apologies to, Kevin Federline.
LENNON: That’s right. Maybe I should officially apologize to Kevin Federline for making so many potshots at his expense. I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy.
Watch out K-Fed. Zac is stealin' your style....
LENNON: The thing is that even though Zac dressed in that funny outfit that's supposed to be funny, he still looks cool. He came to set and he’s like, ‘Look! This is my kooky outfit that I wear in the film that’s supposed to be funny.’ And nothing really looks funny on him.
LENNON: That was one of those fun things you do on a movie where they spend like three weeks teaching you. I wasn’t good with a stick shift, so they taught me how to drive the stick shift Lamborghini for about three weeks. Then the actual day that we got to set, the Lamborghini that they have was an automatic. It was very fun and it went really fast. That was a strange day just driving around.
Favourite thing?
LENNON: What I love about my job is, I like acting in films. Acting to me, honestly is sort of a hobby. I have another full-time job. I mostly write films. So honestly, I really act in films as a change of pace sometimes.
Is your writing influenced, when you actually have to speak the dialogue?
LENNON: Oh, yes, absolutely. Also, I think it makes you better when you go back for the next thing you’re writing, when you’re out doing scenes and you see what works and what doesn’t work, and things like that.
Do you re-write while you act?
LENNON: Sometimes. And sometimes you can make things better just with a little bit of finessing, or some improvisation will make a scene feel new and less sort of stilted sometimes.
'Reno 911!'
LENNON: It’s obviously not for everybody. It’s a cultish sort of comedy show. There are a lot of strange things on 'Reno 911!', strange things that cops absolutely adore. Many cops say – and I know they’re not kidding when they tell me this – that it’s the most accurate police show on television. Absolutely true. I think to cops, our show feels more like what their day-to-day life is like as a police officer than say 'CSI' or one of the procedural shows where they’re solving a crime in fourty-five minutes. We very seldom solve a crime on 'Reno 911!'. We very seldom even try.
Improvise, improvise! / How do you keep a straight face?
LENNON: We laugh a lot on the show. Basically our theory on the show is, it’s easier to shoot a scene than argue; 'Hey, would this be something we should shoot?' So we shoot everything pretty much. And we shoot very, very long days and our cameras are rolling probably three or four times more than the average production. Maybe more than that. We just shoot non-stop, which you can tell because on our DVDs there’s often takes of a scene that’ll be uninterrupted thirty-two minutes long with no stopping.
But isn't endless comedy exhausting? Is after-hours, all doom and gloom?
LENNON: I’ve never tried just sitting around frowning at home, but I do think it’s kind of a good idea. No, it’s not exhausting. Reno’s not exhausting. The outfit is a little uncomfortable. It is refreshing at the end of the day to get out of that outfit. When I picked the outfit I did not know that the show would go for six seasons, possibly more. I thought I was picking it like: 'I might wear this for a year or two'.
Nice legs.
LENNON: Thank you very much. But then that requires a lot of work. You’ve got to do a lot of lunges and Stairmaster.
Will we spot any 'Reno 911!'-style improvisation in '17 Again'?
LENNON: Oh, absolutely. There are a lot of scenes with me and Zac in particular, where we would do the script and then very loose versions of it again. And he absolutely is as fast as anyone we would have on 'Reno 911!' and as comfortable improvising. I really laughed when he told me that I looked like Clay Aiken, which is not in the script. That was totally unscripted. And I think there’s a scene where he’s eating all this strange food really fast.
If you, were 17 again...
LENNON: Well, obviously if I could do a body switch and turn into Zac Efron at 17, I would go that way!
'17 Again' is in cinemas from April 16.
[ photo credit: Seth Olenick ]