Kristen Schaal has a very distinctive voice, and not just the one she uses to co-star on hit animated shows like Bob’s Burgers and Gravity Falls. The comedian has made a name for herself as a daring and experimental standup artist, whose 2013 Comedy Central special Kristen Schaal: Live at the Fillmore was actually an elaborate prank on the audience, who had no idea she was bombing on purpose.
So when the opportunity arose to interview Kristen Schaal for her new movie A Walk in the Woods came along, we leapt over to the Four Seasons Beverly Hills to sit down with the inspirational comedy figure and find out all about her experiences working with Nick Nolte and Robert Redford, and get the true story behind the legendary Comedy Central standup special that was so damned good at being intentionally bad, that she may never get to host one again.
A Walk in the Woods is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Crave: But we are here to talk about your movie. So did you audition for this, or did they say, “We need someone to annoy Nick Nolte and Robert Redford? Kristen Schaal!”
Kristen Schaal: That’s totally what I assume, is that I am on this sort of direct dial for annoying characters in Hollywood. Yeah, I got the call. I got the call.
Redford’s a fan? He finds you very annoying (in a good way)?
Right. I don’t think Redford, I was on his radar at all, but Ken Kwapis’s assistant was a fan of Flight of the Conchords so she pitched me and he told me, “You have her to thank for getting your name,” so that’s too bad, but I did thank her! [Laughs.] Yeah.
Broad Green Pictures
So you’re off in the woods, and you’re just stuck there with Nick Nolte and Robert Redford. What do you do?
Well, you just sort of wait for them to open their treasure chest of stories, because they’ve lived such rich lives. I mean, Nolte was so funny. He’s got so many stories, and including one… [In Nick Nolte’s Voice] “Oh, you’re from New York? I started in New York. Don’t Tell Momma, you know? We had to have a secret with Grabowski or Gratowski or whatever it was. My secret was I put a cork up my ass for the whole run of the play. That was my object and my secret.” You had to have an object and a secret so he shoved a cork up his ass. I mean, that’s just so great.
That’s good. Are you going to adopt that? When you hear great stories from such legends, it’s like, “When I should I put a cork up my ass…?”
I know. Am I doing everything wrong?
It really does make you think.
Because I did not get that in my theater training.
No? Times perhaps have changed slightly.
Well, a secret and an object, most people would… just the fact that he stuck it up his ass… I would have… yeah, he’s great. They’re both wonderful, and Redford is so kind. They’re both just very kind and charismatic gentlemen.
Broad Green Pictures
It doesn’t matter how small or big the role would be, if I got to do even one scene with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte, that would be a dream job. I don’t care what I’m doing. I’m in.
Oh, I know! I know. I was so thrilled, and the best part is my parents like lit up for the first time, and they’re…
For the first time? Never before?
Yeah, they don’t understand what I do. “I’m doing The Heart, She Holler on Adult Swim. Maybe don’t watch that one, Mom and Dad. It might not be for you.” They’ll watch it and they’re still supportive and lovely, but this was like “Whoa” for them. Because Robert Redford and Nolte are like, they’re their icons growing up. So it was a big coup to get it.
Did you have to do all your own hiking or did you have a stunt hiker?
I did not have a stunt hiker. It was just me.
Did you have to actually go on the Appalachian Trail? Because you could have totally faked that at Eaton Canyon or something…
Yeah, I think it was not actually the trail. I think it was like next to it, yeah, but it was still sort of rough and tumble. Like there was some hiking in, and there was horses and camels sometimes and…
Camels…?
I think they did have a camel. Not when I was on set, but to help carry all the gear. Like, base camp’s really far away. People were roughing it for sure, and it was very inspiring to see Nolte and Redford… who are not young, I think that’s fair to say…
I think that’s fair, diplomatic and 100% accurate…
Yeah, sort of getting in there and being in this movie.
Comedy Central
So you also do voice-overs, and are you still going to be a correspondent on The Daily Show? Has there been any talk about that?
Yeah, I think. I mean I’ve been asked to be, and I would like to. I won’t be for a while, mainly because I’ll be doing Last Man on Earth. We started filming last week so I’ll be knee deep in that, nose deep. So I won’t be on The Daily Show, if I’m on it, for quite a while.
I guess my point is that you’re super ridiculously busy. What is your passion right now? What’s the thing that keeps you going, like, “Yeah! Last Man on Earth!” or “Yeah! Standup!”
Yeah, Last Man on Earth is really the thing I’ve been so happy to be a part of because it’s my first time having a big role, and it’s also one of the first characters I’ve played on television where the other characters in the story are happy to see me and not trying to get away from me. So that’s been such a refreshing change [laughs], and working across from Will Forte is just such a dream job. Something that I really feel like I have so much to learn from him and also that we’re on the same level too…
You have something to teach. Be fair.
Yeah, I feel like I’ve sort of met my match, comedy-wise, and I can’t believe it. I’m so excited.
Fox
So you’ve probably answered this question a million times before, but what are your comedy influences? If you can pin them down?
Sure, like I would always say Andy Kaufman is someone that I’ve studied a lot, and ended up doing the Andy Kaufman Contest and winning and becoming friends with his family. So that, just reading everything he did, and I went to the Museum of Radio and Television in New York and I would watch all his television appearances, like Friday, The Friday Show? I forget that show…
I think it was just Fridays…
Just Fridays, yeah! Just everything he did I would watch. I still feel like he was ahead of his time. And then like Steve Martin is someone who, ugh, you wish you could be as good as. I would say those two.
I saw this comedy special you did, [Kristen Shaal: Live at the Fillmore], and it had a very Kaufman-esque slant to it, how it destroyed itself over time.
Oh mine?
Yeah, yours! I was really admiring it. You really let yourself crash and burn.
I know. [Laughs.]
Comedy Central
Did people “get” it? Are there still people who don’t understand what that was? Because there are people who go “Brilliant! You’re a genius, Kristen Schaal” and there are other people in the back going, “What? Is it bad?”
Yeah, it was really made for the people who “get it” get it. I knew it would be a small audience and I didn’t care.
Good for you!
[Laughs.] Yeah. But yeah, I mean Hollywood Reporter came out the next day just being like, “Kristen Schaal Bombs!” They just just missed it…
Completely missed it.
I thought it would be clear once the little girl gets on stage that it was orchestrated, but at the same time it was… Yeah, I’m proud of that special and it’s not going to be big and I know Comedy Central wasn’t thrilled. Well, Comedy Central also aired it at midnight on a Monday, so yeah, not a lot of people watched it.
I DVR’ed it.
Yeah! They were so afraid. I mean they were nice to let me try it but they were very afraid of it and so they held it till April Fool’s Day, so that’s why I got the Monday and the numbers were low and I probably won’t be doing another special on Comedy Central! [Laughs.]
That’s not fair…
Ah, that’s life.
Well, I thought it was really incredible.
Thank you.
“Subversive” makes it sound like you’re push an agenda on people, but you’re subverting the comedy paradigms.
Yeah, I feel like everybody’s seen a standup special so many times, and especially on the Comedy Central stage in this format. I thought it would be fun to just turn it on its head a little bit, and especially have one moment, just like even 30 seconds, where the audience at home is like, “Did you just see that?” Like when I started messing up the airplane bit. Just one moment when they’re not exactly sure what they’re watching, because you don’t get that anymore! Everything has been safe and made ready and I guess I wanted to have that 30 seconds.
I was hosting Hot Tub when it aired, on the East Coast, and I remember I was checking in between acts, my Twitter feed, and the first 20 minutes people were loving it. “Good jokes,” “Great,” “Fun fun fun,” and then I watched it completely stop for like a minute and a half. Like nobody had anything to say. And I was like, “I did it! I did it.”
Do you want to pursue that more in films? Are you writing anything like that? Or is film a safer milieu, and you have to play to the conventions?
No, I’d love to create more stuff. I would say that would be my next goal is to sort of write a TV show and a movie and stuff. The thing is it was a fight to get that special made, as you can imagine. Everything, like you’re saying, that’s twisty and unique and weird and odd has a very, almost nonexistent chance of getting made. [Laughs.]
It’s very hard.
So that’s sort of where I’m at. [Laughs.]
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
