Gene Wilder: The Lost Interview

When we lose a cul­tur­al icon, we go look­ing for them imme­di­ate­ly. In August of 2016 – when news broke of Gene Wilder’s death – most of the world, it seems, ran to revis­it Young Franken­stein, Blaz­ing Sad­dles, The Pro­duc­ers, Willy Won­ka & the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, and maybe even Rhi­noc­er­os. In my own case, I went look­ing for Wilder inside a hall clos­et con­tain­ing a tow­er of old mag­a­zines. Some­where in that clut­tered mosa­ic of stacked peri­od­i­cals and moth-nib­bled scarves was his voice. Inside my head, I could already hear it.

In April of 2005, it was appar­ent­ly per­fect­ly nor­mal to put Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on the cov­er of a mag­a­zine and include an inter­view with Gene Wilder on the inside, buried some­where around page 84, tucked in right before a chat with the band Spoon. Did it sell? Who knows – we weren’t count­ing clicks back then. But as the edi­tor-in-chief of the now sad­ly defunct music mag­a­zine Fil­ter, I, along with a Spar­tan crew of tal­ent­ed and tire­less writ­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers and art direc­tors, would stay up late and think of ridicu­lous ideas and no one stopped us from fol­low­ing them through. We would laugh out loud at what we’d done while copy­edit­ing the Table of Con­tents – a list of illog­i­cal choic­es that some­how con­gealed into a per­fect thing. Or, so it seemed at the time.

In deal­ing with death, we also tend to become rosi­ly nos­tal­gic. I was about to write that the mag­a­zine we were mak­ing was like Gene Wilder in some way, or, made in the same spir­it as he made his films. The fact is, on 28 August – the day before Wilder’s death – I wasn’t think­ing about the actor or my old mag­a­zine at all. I hadn’t watched any of Wilder’s films or thought about him much in years, even. But that fact nev­er lessens the blow of an unex­pect­ed death and the feel­ing is a kind of regret. One moment you are liv­ing in the same world with Gene Wilder and now you are not. Before you know it, the mem­o­ry of him shines and blos­soms like the colours in Willy Won­ka, you cel­e­brate the work, and you rum­mage through your closet.

My mem­o­ry of him, or doing this inter­view, isn’t much. This was a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion – he was in Con­necti­cut and I was in Cal­i­for­nia. But read­ing back over this inter­view, I clear­ly recall how it end­ed. At some point, we had been going back through each of his films, and he sud­den­ly just stopped. Wilder said polite­ly that he had a car wait­ing and he was head­ed to the air­port. In my eager stu­pid­i­ty, I said, ​‘Oh, well, I only have a few more here.’ (We hadn’t even got­ten to Sil­ver Streak.) It’s how he said good­bye that has stuck with me all this time. ​‘Well, that’s just fine. You can stay, but I’ve got to get going.’ And he gen­tly hung up the phone.

LaGam­bi­na: Being famous for being fun­ny. I’d imag­ine that’s a unique kind of burden…

Wilder: The only bur­den is that peo­ple think I’m going to be fun­ny when then say, ​‘Hel­lo.’ And that is a bur­den. I say, ​‘Thanks for the com­pli­ments. Thank you for say­ing, ​‘Hel­lo.’ But I’m not that fun­ny in real life.’ Some­times I’m fun­ny, but it’s not try­ing to be, it just comes out. I’m fun­ny at home, with my wife, but it’s not planned. If in a restau­rant some­one comes up and starts talk­ing about, ​‘You’re the fun­ni­est guy ever.’ I say, ​‘I’m not, real­ly. I’m quite pri­vate, but I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the movies.’

What made you lean towards com­e­dy more than any­thing else? Was it one of those things that just hap­pened along the way?

No, it wasn’t an acci­dent. When I was eight years old, my moth­er had a severe heart attack and when she came home from the hos­pi­tal, the doc­tor took me aside and dropped his sweaty face against my cheek and he said, ​‘Don’t ever get angry with your moth­er because you might kill her.’ That scared the shit out of me. And the sec­ond thing he said was, ​‘Try to make her laugh.’ It was an unusu­al thing for him to say, I thought, at the time. But, from that point on, I con­scious­ly tried to make anoth­er per­son laugh, and I suc­ceed­ed. ​’Cause, you know, when you suc­ceed with your moth­er, it gives you con­fi­dence. And that’s how… I think that’s how it all began.

Then, I saw Death of a Sales­man in New York when I was 16. I went to the Morosco The­atre with my sis­ter and saw Lee J Cobb and Mil­dred Dun­nock in Death of a Sales­man. I was so over­whelmed by it. I thought I might want to be fun­ny, but I didn’t want to be a come­di­an, I want­ed to be an actor. A real actor. Per­haps a real com­ic actor, but an actor, not a come­di­an. It solid­i­fied that evening. I don’t want to go into any­thing now about the dif­fer­ence, but peo­ple can under­stand it, I think – being a come­di­an, stand­ing up and try­ing to be fun­ny. I just want­ed to be a real actor and if it came out fun­ny, that’s fine, if it was a com­e­dy. But I want­ed to act – I do act the same way if I’m doing a com­e­dy or a dra­ma. It’s just in a com­e­dy, I’d make com­ic choic­es, but I try to make it as real. Actu­al­ly, the more real you are in a com­e­dy, the fun­nier the com­e­dy is. So, that’s what I devot­ed my career to.

Did it ever get to the point where you couldn’t make the choic­es you want­ed to make, because you weren’t allowed to do any­thing out­side of what you’d become known for?

No, that nev­er hap­pened. I might not have got­ten a part that I want­ed, which didn’t hap­pen very often, but those were when I want­ed to play in dra­mat­ic parts and some­one would say, ​‘I don’t want any come­di­ans in this.’ I’m think­ing in par­tic­u­lar of one film, from Joe Levine – he’s dead now, but he was the head of Embassy Pic­tures. They were going to make a film and the direc­tor want­ed me, the author want­ed me, the pro­duc­tion design­er want­ed me. He had dis­trib­uted The Pro­duc­ers, where I was nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award. He said, ​‘You’re a great actor Gene Wilder,’ but when it came time for this film, he said, ​‘No, I don’t want any come­di­ans!’ So that’s the only time I remem­ber that hap­pen­ing. In a com­e­dy, they want­ed me to fly and I did fly, espe­cial­ly when I was with Mel Brooks. He just want­ed me to take off. Also, with Richard Pry­or. Quite the oppo­site of restrict­ing me, they were hop­ing always that I would shock them with some­thing new. I’m think­ing of Sid­ney Poiti­er [direc­tor of Stir Crazy]. And Arthur Hiller [direc­tor of Sil­ver Streak]. And more times than not, I did. I wouldn’t say shock, but I hap­pi­ly sur­prised them.

Were you sur­prised at how much chem­istry you and Richard Pry­or had?

I was.

Where do you think it came from? Was it from the first day, or did it devel­op as you got to know each other?

When I met him in Cal­gary, in Cana­da, for Sil­ver Streak, he said, ​‘Hel­lo, hel­lo,’ qui­et­ly. We said how much we admired each oth­er. And the next day, we did our first scene – a lit­tle scene, out­side, a heli­copter, guns, police cars and a train – and he said some­thing and I said my line and then he said some­thing that was not in the script at all and I answered it with some­thing not in the script, in a nat­ur­al way. We did that for a few lines and then came back, end­ed up on the script lines, and that was how we start­ed our impro­vi­sa­tion­al rela­tion­ship. And at the end of the scene, when we had made a sham­bles out of every­one – all the prison guards and every­thing else – we both, at the same moment, start­ed hum­ming the Lau­rel and Hardy theme song. [Hum­ming the famous melody] dum, da dum da dum de dum… And when he hollered ​‘Cut!’ and every­one was laugh­ing, I said, ​‘Did you know you were going to do that?’ And Richard said, ​‘No. Did you?’ And I said, ​‘No.’ But we both did it, I sup­pose, because it appealed to the same silli­ness. That’s the way it always was when we worked. We nev­er talked about any­thing to do with impro­vis­ing, it just hap­pened. I didn’t do that with oth­er peo­ple. In a sense it was like a sex­u­al attrac­tion. That is, the chem­istry. You say, ​‘Why that woman and not this woman? That woman is much pret­ti­er, a bet­ter fig­ure, a bet­ter body, soft­er skin, what­ev­er. But I’m attract­ed to that woman.’ You say, ​‘It’s a mys­tery.’ Why? Chem­istry. It’s just the chem­istry. In that sense, that’s what Richard Pry­or and I had. I also had that with Made­line Kahn, whom I adored.

I nev­er seem to asso­ciate you with Los Ange­les or New York, real­ly. And you essen­tial­ly came out of the Midwest…

Mil­wau­kee, Wisconsin.

From there, which way did you ini­tial­ly lean – New York and the stage, or Los Ange­les and the movies?

Only New York. When I was asked by Gene Saks, who was direct­ing me in some­thing, he said, ​‘Why don’t you go to Cal­i­for­nia and get into films? You’re tal­ent­ed.’ I said, ​‘Yeah, yeah.’ But I would go there and some pro­duc­er would say, ​‘I hear you’re a fun­ny guy.’ And then they’d expect me to be fun­ny and I wouldn’t be. Give me the part and I would be, but not just to walk into an office and try and sell myself. I wouldn’t be any good at it. I said, ​‘The only way I’ll get into the movies is if some­one sees me in a play.’ Arthur Penn and War­ren Beat­ty saw me in a play – I don’t even remem­ber which one – and asked me to do Bon­nie and Clyde.

Peo­ple don’t believe me when I tell them you’re in that movie.

I’m there. It’s a very good, small part. That was my first one.

Was that a good expe­ri­ence for a first film?

Oh, I loved it. The most mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence was when I was film­ing inte­ri­ors, in Hol­ly­wood at Warn­er Broth­ers, and Arthur Penn said, ​‘Action,’ and I start­ed right in. He said, ​‘Wait, wait, Gene. Just because I say ​“action” doesn’t mean you have to start act­ing. It just means: we’re all ready. I see something’s cook­ing in you and it’s not quite ready to come out. Film is cheap, take your time and when you’re ready, you start act­ing.’ I did, and it came out very well and all that. Then, when that scene was over, the first assis­tant direc­tor came up to me and said, ​‘Don’t get used to that. You won’t find many peo­ple who work the way Arthur Penn does.’

You’ve been doing some stage work on the East Coast in recent years. Is there still any eager­ness to make films?

I’d rather be in a film, but the kinds of films that I want to do aren’t being writ­ten anymore.

I think that too, but I’m not sure if I’m just being nostalgic…

No, you’re not. I’m nos­tal­gic too! And ter­ri­bly dis­ap­point­ed. Once in a while a direc­tor or some writer or pro­duc­er will send me a script and I’ll say, ​‘The script is good, but I’m not right for this part.’ Or, ​‘I can see why you want me for this part, but the script is junk.’ The kinds of movies that I made with Mel Brooks, peo­ple don’t make those movies anymore.

Why not?

I don’t know if any­one would pro­duce The Pro­duc­ers today. I don’t think they would do Young Franken­stein. They might do Blaz­ing Sad­dles. They might. But I wouldn’t bet on it. They want what’s often referred to as ​‘edgy’. They’re think­ing about how much mon­ey it will make. No one has shot a foot of film, or even fin­ished the cast­ing, but it’s based on, ​‘How much do you think this will do?’ That’s just death. It’s got noth­ing to do with art. I’m not say­ing that you have to be unaware of the com­mer­cial poten­tial­i­ty of some­thing. I want a film to be pop­u­lar. If I do a com­e­dy I cer­tain­ly want it to be pop­u­lar. If it’s real­ly fun­ny, it should be pop­u­lar. But there’s no guar­an­tee of that sort of thing.

They’re doing anoth­er film ver­sion of The Producers…

They start next week. But that’s a musi­cal. That’s not The Pro­duc­ers as you know it from the film. It’s the same sto­ry, of course, and char­ac­ters, but dif­fer­ent – some of the char­ac­ters are even dif­fer­ent. It’s a won­der­ful musi­cal. Mel wrote great songs for it. Nathan Lane and Matthew Brod­er­ick are won­der­ful in it and it’ll be very good. I’m sure it will be. But that’s not remak­ing The Pro­duc­ers, that’s mak­ing it into a musical.

What are your feel­ings about the upcom­ing ver­sion of Willy Won­ka? I’m not even sure what I think about it, I asso­ciate you with the role so strongly…

Well, I’m glad that you do. I don’t think there’s going to be any rela­tion to the one that I did. First of all, they’re not call­ing it Willy Won­ka & the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, it’s Char­lie and the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, which was the orig­i­nal title of the book. And Tim Bur­ton did Edward Scis­sorhands and Beetle­juice and Bat­man. He’s not going to do any­thing close to what we did. I’m sure it’s going to be very scary and my bet, my guess is, it will be geared towards teenagers rather than for pre- teens. I think he wants to scare the shit out of every­one. And he prob­a­bly will. All kinds of spe­cial effects, visu­al effects, scary things – I’m guess­ing that. I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know.

Do you have any inter­est in see­ing it?

No. If they had made a remake of The Wiz­ard of
Oz first, I might have been inter­est­ed. But for some rea­son they passed that by and went right on to Willy Wonka.

As far as per­form­ers go, it’s near impos­si­ble to think of any­one doing comedic act­ing nowa­days who is doing it quite the way you were able to in some of your films. Peo­ple some­times men­tion Will Ferrell…

Real­ly? What has he been in?

I guess he’s most famous for Old School, or maybe Anchor­man. He was also on Sat­ur­day Night Live for a num­ber of years…

Oh, I don’t think I know his work…

I’m not sure what you’d think of him. I’m not sure if comedic actors are even the same thing anymore…

I don’t know if peo­ple doing com­e­dy today want to devote them­selves to doing a real per­son – a live, human being who also hap­pens to be fun­ny, but is act­ing in a way that is real­is­tic. It could be in a farce, it could be in a wild com­e­dy it could be in a gen­tle com­e­dy, it could be what­ev­er – I’m just say­ing, good act­ing is good act­ing. But if you’re going direct­ly for the joke bull’s eye, then you dis­tort your own tal­ent. I don’t know who works that way now.

You recent­ly fin­ished writ­ing your mem­oirs. Did you learn any­thing about yourself?

I’m more sure now of all I thought was true. I’ve found – after a long time – real love. That is, love that will last as long as I’m alive, with a mate that I wouldn’t have been ready for 20 years ago and now we’ve been mar­ried for 13-and-a-half years.

I think that’s what every­one wants, or hopes for.

I think so. But it’s been a long process to get there.