{"id":769,"date":"2016-08-11T16:02:01","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T20:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/?p=769"},"modified":"2016-11-09T00:12:31","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T05:12:31","slug":"dot-minicast-interview-flashback-with-billy-connolly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/2016\/08\/11\/dot-minicast-interview-flashback-with-billy-connolly\/","title":{"rendered":"DoT Minicast: Interview Flashback with Billy Connolly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/billyconnolly.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Billy Connolly<\/a> is a true legend in comedy. Rambling, profane, and hilarious, he allows himself to go wherever his brain will take him onstage. I&#8217;ve spoken with him a few times over the years, starting with an in-person interview in 2007 when he played the A.R.T. stage in Cambridge and again for the Globe in April. This minicast puts together a few outtakes from those interviews in which Connolly talks about his beginnings in comedy and his admiration for a working class sense of humor, a theme that came up often. <\/p>\n<p>Connolly just announced <a href=\"http:\/\/billyconnolly.com\/tour\" target=\"_blank\">more dates in the UK for his High Horse Tour<\/a>, and if you&#8217;ve met him somewhere along the line, he&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/billyconnolly.com\/upload\" target=\"_blank\">looking for videos from fans to include in a new TV special about him<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>As a bonus, I&#8217;ve posted a partial transcription from the 2010 interview below the minicast. <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/4584350\/height\/90\/width\/640\/theme\/custom\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/autoplay\/no\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/direction\/backward\/no-cache\/true\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/87A93A\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"640\" scrolling=\"no\"  allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\nBilly Connolly Interview: 2010 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Billy Connolly\u2019s charisma and inventiveness have made him a legend in he U.K., where he regularly tops \u201cbest comic\u201d readers polls, even though he has lived in the States for roughly years (he\u2019s lived in New York since 2008, and lived in L.A. before that). He\u2019s been a pirate in the Muppets version of <em>Treasure Island<\/em>, a zombie in <em>Fido<\/em>, and faithful servant to the Queen in <em>Mrs. Brown<\/em>. He\u2019s also been an action star in both the original <em>Boondock Saints<\/em> and the sequel, and a Lilliputian in the updated version of <em>Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em>. And he was almost Doctor Who once.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You\u2019ve said that sometimes you forget what you do for a living and it\u2019ll only come back to you once you\u2019re onstage.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I do that very often.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is it something you\u2019ve learned to combat? It seems it came at you again in 2008.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, it\u2019s a weird thing that I have to trust myself that it\u2019s always there. You know? Because there\u2019s no way to check up on it. And the more nervous you get, the less you remember. It\u2019s a terrifying set of circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>I remember, at Astoria [Theatre] once, the promoter was in the back of the car, and my roadie was beside me in the front. And we were driving up to the gate in Queensland, and I said to the roadie, \u201cHow do I start?\u201d And he said, well, you usually say such and such. I said, \u201cOh yeah. What do I usually say after that?\u201d And he told me. I went, \u201cYeah, yeah. What was the punchline?\u201d And he told me and I went, \u201cOh, yeah, of course!\u201d The gig was hugely successful, and I came off and he said, \u201cMy god,\u201d he said, \u201cI was terrified. I thought you were mentally ill, asking your driver. Was that for my benefit?\u201d I said, \u201cNo, I was being absolutely serious.\u201d As I get nervous, I forget everything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You should have your driver or your roadie up onstage with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, yeah. And I take notes and I never look at them, because they mean very little. It\u2019s not like a diary. They\u2019re just jottings, little dash jottings. So when you look at them, you get very, very little information. Or you get half a page of information, but you get on and talk for two hours. Half a page, a thing that says, \u201cThe army.\u201d Thank you very much.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I remember we did a TV interview while you were here, and you pulled it out and read a few phrases and had no idea what the hell they meant.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] That\u2019s right. I\u2019ve got loads of those books. I actually like the books themselves, you know those wee notebooks you buy in bookshops, the wee black ones. Hemingway used to use one. I forget what they\u2019re called, but I\u2019ve got loads of them tucked in pockets all over the place. They\u2019re absolutely useless. To make anything of it you\u2019d have to round all the notebooks up and put them together. My wife\u2019ll publish them when I\u2019m dead. I\u2019ll do that for journalists. Sometimes I\u2019ll just read out the list. I\u2019ll take a list onstage and read out the stage, and it\u2019s nothing like what I just did. I can\u2019t explain it. I\u2019ve never been able to explain it. It\u2019s a kind of organic affair.<\/p>\n<p><strong>John Lennon said once that the Beatles would write lyrics just to see what the critics would make of them. Just to confuse them and see how they would over-analyze them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, yeah. I remember. Because John, at the time, I was around at the time, and the <em>Melody Maker<\/em>, the weekly music newspaper, would come out on a Friday, but you could get it in London on a Thursday night around midnight, and John Lennon said, I love Thursday nights around midnight. I go down to Piccadilly and pick up a <em>Melody Maker<\/em> and see what my lyrics are about.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You should release some of those lists now to see what people make of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah. Maybe we should make a poem of them, and a drawing. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019d be a Lewis Carroll type of \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, it\u2019d be nothing as pretty as that. It\u2019s a bit coarse. It\u2019s kind of coarse, I think. But it\u2019s good to look back. Sometimes I\u2019ll read [something], my god. Sometimes you think you\u2019re not moving along, you\u2019ve been doing the same thing for a long time. Then you look at your lists, and you\u2019re way beyond them. It\u2019s kind of confusing. I\u2019ve never really been in total control of it. And frankly, I don\u2019t want to be. A lot of guys, you look at them and you can tell the stuff, they\u2019ve written it. They didn\u2019t think it up \u2013 well, they thought it up and wrote it down in a methodical way, and it\u2019s got that written feel to it. I hate it when you\u2019re watching a comedian and you think, he has said this a million times, these same lines.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I guess the trick is to write something and perform it as if you haven\u2019t.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve never written anything, it just happens. I\u2019ve attempted to write it afterwards so as I might remember, but I\u2019ve never gotten round to that either.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you get the feeling that what you\u2019re doing is still rebellious, the way it was earlier on?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a great deal of rebellion involved in it because there\u2019s a great deal of rebellion in me. I\u2019m still angry about everything, you know? I\u2019m still angry about war, about politics, and the fact that we haven\u2019t moved along as a species. I still get angry when I watch television and people are trying to justify being in Afghanistan and telling us it\u2019s a corrupt regime. You\u2019re sending your sons to defend a corrupt regime. That still makes me angry and rebellious.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do joy and anger fit together?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re relying on just the anger, you\u2019re up a gum tree. You\u2019ve had it. But then anger can become fun. It\u2019s like, if you\u2019re giving your children a lecture on how to behave and you fart in the middle of it, they won\u2019t believe a word you say. It\u2019s just one of those things. Everybody will fall about the room and nobody will give one shit about what you just said, no matter how important it was. Because comedy and vulgarity, like I deal in, is just like that. It takes its own stand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You said something last time we spoke that\u2019s stuck with me, about profanity not being cursing and not being swearing \u2013 it\u2019s profanity or vulgarity, it\u2019s not cursing or swearing.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A lot of people don\u2019t know what language is, you know? To curse or swear you have to invoke gods. And I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t believe in them, so how can I invoke them? I\u2019m neither cursing nor swearing. I\u2019m merely being profane. And I don\u2019t give a fuck what you think about it. If you don\u2019t like it, go watch someone else. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Were you surprised that <em>Boondock Saints II<\/em> finally got made?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, I wasn\u2019t. It had so much good will riding along for it from so many good people, you know? It just had to be done. And of course, it had that extraordinary drive by Duffy, by Troy Duffy. He\u2019s just a driven man. If it didn\u2019t happen, somebody would\u2019ve got hurt. [laughs]<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is that kind of thing fun to play? The action roles?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s amazingly good to play, especially with a cast like that, where you\u2019ve all done it before and you all know and like each other. And I can say with my hand on my heart there\u2019s nobody in the movie I don\u2019t like. I like them all and they all like me. We got on like a house on fire. And so we all met in Toronto to do the second one, it was like \u2013 well, I\u2019ve never been to a school reunion, but I imagine that\u2019s what they\u2019re like. \u201cOh, good to see you! You look like you\u2019ve lost weight.\u201d All eating and laughing and getting on with it. And everybody was so together and knew their part so well.<\/p>\n<p>Not only that, Troy had done amazing things. He had hired fans as extras. Dedicated fans who had been writing, and he said, \u201cDo you want to be in it?\u201d Shit, yeah. So they\u2019d flown in from all over the place to be in it. Some of them had the actual tattoos and all that. So there was an extraordinary atmosphere about it. So they weren\u2019t like regular extras. There was a different feel about the place.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you get to see, in New York, there\u2019s probably a lot more comedy that\u2019s more accessible to you.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I tend not to. I sometimes go to Annabelle\u2019s, but it\u2019s very, very rare. And it\u2019s usually to see someone I\u2019ve no chance of stealing from.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you ever found yourself unwittingly \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, many, many times. Because a year later it rumbles into your head and you think it\u2019s your own.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do people call you on it?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, I\u2019ve never been called on it, but it\u2019s just dawned on me where I got it. Maybe I\u2019ve been doing it two or three weeks and I\u2019m like, shit! I remember where I got it now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s got to be an immensely disappointing feeling.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah. It is for a while, but there are so few things that are totally original. And this is the absolute truth, I can say this with my hand on my heart, and swear on my children\u2019s lives, that I thought I\u2019d said the most original thing ever. My wife was writing a book about me, and I\u2019d said I don\u2019t like going on holiday. I don\u2019t like those kind of hotel holidays, because that\u2019s my life \u2013 flying and going to hotels. And she said why don\u2019t we go on a cruise? And I said, oh, you\u2019re joking. And I swear this is true. I said to her, \u201cIt\u2019s like jail with an option of drowning.\u201d Right? It\u2019s a prison with an option of drowning. And I thought it was really funny and so did she. And tra la la.<\/p>\n<p>About a year later, I was reading something by Admiral Lord Nelson, and one of his guys had something almost identical. Fucking Lord Nelson! What was that, the 18th century, 19th century? Fucking hell! I didn\u2019t know that was possible. Sometimes you think you\u2019re being dead original and boom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Were you skeptical when you were asked to lend your voice to a satnav for Tom-Tom GPS?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Oh, I couldn\u2019t wait. I couldn\u2019t, because I had been doing a thing about it onstage. My Range Rover had a very posh woman [affects an upscale woman\u2019s voice], \u201cTalking like that, how do you do?\u201d And she called roundabouts \u201ctraffic circles.\u201d I was telling the audience about it, she goes, in a huff, if I take a wrong turn, she gives me the silent treatment. She won\u2019t talk to me for half an hour. So I said, put me on, I\u2019ll do one. And I did a spoof one onstage, you know. And I would say, \u201cTurn right\u2026 I said right, ya prick.\u201d And lo, out of the blue came the offer. John Cleese had done one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is the <em>Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em> your in live action or animated?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s live. But it\u2019s all green screen.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s interesting casting, making you a Lilliputian, considering your nickname is \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Big Yin, yeah. Like the giant. What a nice guy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The tallest Lilliputian.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[laughs] A giant dwarf. It was a kind of tiresome process, acting at a piece of plaster on a wall, or a mark or a laser dot on a wall. Talking to it. But it was made up by the fact that the cast were lovely and funny and everything, you know. And Jack\u2019s such a lovely wee man to work with.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you think comedy audiences have changed much since you started?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not as far as I can see. Although I don\u2019t get as many hecklers as I used to, and I\u2019m delighted to hear it. Earlier in my career, I used to get hecklers, shouting and bothering. They like to listen to what you\u2019re going to say. They know you\u2019re inventive and you\u2019re going to build something. So I can only speak for myself, but I tend to get people who are there to see me because they like me. SO I can\u2019t really judge on the broader audience the way a guy who does comedy clubs could tell you. He would be better to ask if the audiences are changing. Mine aren\u2019t changing. They people who like me come to see me and we all have a great time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you ever want to get back up on a club stage and do a smaller show?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, I don\u2019t, because I never did it. When I did the clubby stuff I was a folkie, I was a musician. I was in bands, and I was being funny between songs and stuff. And I have no desire to do that anymore. Although I did it Saturday with Steve Martin. We had a fantastic jam. Have you ever heard of a guy named Tony Trischka? He was there and Mark Johnson who invented this style called clawgrass. And a fiddler and a mandolin player, and a guitar and a bass player, out at Steve\u2019s house. Oh, it was great.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you ever wanted to play music again?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yes, I get the urge, but I don\u2019t quite know what to do about it. I don\u2019t want to be a musician again. I don\u2019t want to be in bands. I don\u2019t like the arena. I don\u2019t want to go around to radio stations talking to fuckwits all my life. The music side of things is hell, talking to these music stations. These idiots who think they know what they\u2019re talking about who couldn\u2019t fucking play with themselves, you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>What would it look like if you did it? It would be hard for you at this point to go onstage and just do a set of music without doing comedy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t know. I think I would be driven to make it funny. Well, Steve\u2019s having a lovely time. Steve Martin\u2019s out touring with a bluegrass band. And he manages perfectly. But I don\u2019t know if I could. But over the years, I\u2019ve been trying to work out a way of trying to put my banjo back in to my act. But I can\u2019t find a place where I could stop talking and play. And I haven\u2019t done that. As soon as I stop playing I start talking again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Well maybe just bring it up with you, and whatever happens \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And just leave it on the floor or have it standing there, the way I used to. I don\u2019t know. I really don\u2019t know what to do about it. Then I start questioning why I\u2019m doing it. Am I playing it just because I can, am I showing off? What am I doing here? What is the point? Should I write something funny for it or should I just play it nice. I don\u2019t know what to do. I think too much about it. Sometimes you should stop thinking about it and do things.<\/p>\n<p>Your childhood comes up often onstage. How do you find something new in topics you\u2019ve covered to frequently?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s because they\u2019re not huge chunks, really. Usually they\u2019re just moments. They\u2019re a story of a particular day or an event. The entire event I\u2019m talking about didn\u2019t take a day, and I\u2019ve got 67 years worth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I suppose if you tried to start at the beginning, all hell would break loose.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bring on this huge, fat diary. \u201cThen is was Tuesday, a rainy day if I remember. 1942.\u201d [laughs]<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QilRAJV8d74\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Well, you are known for doing long stretches of material. You could probably beat your record for that pretty easily if you started out that way.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a thing on YouTube, and if you look it up, it\u2019s \u201cBilly Connolly Wildebeest.\u201d That was an ad-lib. On that night, I\u2019ve only done it like three times, Wildebeest, and that night that\u2019s on YouTube is I think the second time I ever did it. It was exactly the same as the first night, and it came in one piece. You might be amazed. It\u2019s very long. Sometimes ad-libs come complete. Big Chunks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is there anything else you\u2019re up to that I\u2019ve missed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not at the moment, no. I\u2019m having the time of my life just doing bugger all. Except I draw in the morning and I go for a cigar with my friends in the afternoon.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_547\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-547\" style=\"width: 175px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/department-tangents-podcast\/id1093377146?mt=2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"547\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/itunes\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"175,175\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"itunes\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Subscribe to the DoT Podcast on iTunes! &lt;\/p&gt;\n\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg\" alt=\"Subscribe to the DoT Podcast on iTunes! \" width=\"175\" height=\"175\" class=\"size-full wp-image-547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes.jpg 175w, https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/itunes-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 175px) 100vw, 175px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-547\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Subscribe to the DoT Podcast on iTunes!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Billy Connolly is a true legend in comedy. Rambling, profane, and hilarious, he allows himself to go wherever his brain will take him&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[493,494,495,430,60,223],"class_list":["post-769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-billy-connolly","tag-boondock-saints","tag-gullivers-travels","tag-john-lennon","tag-steve-martin","tag-the-beatles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Billy-Connolly-Color-2-Photo-Credit-Scarlett-Stephenson-Connolly.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lGwW-cp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1170,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769\/revisions\/1170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickzaino.com\/departmentoftangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}