By now, you should have heard of Louis C.K. even if you're not that involved in the comedy world. The comedian has transformed into something bigger than comedy, a giant ginger fog horn that calls out everyone on their bullshit, but in the most rational and entertaining way possible.
Tonight the season three premiere of Louie airs on FX at 10:30. You owe it everything to yourself to watch it. It's totally gangbusters, my friends, and worthy of the constant critical praise that it receives.
Louis C.K. talked about his many hats for the show (executive producer, director, star, occasional editor) while enduring occasional bagel troubles. As anticipated he was smart, funny and earnest, something that every good comedian needs to master and understand. Here's some of the best moments I had yesterday:
On the inception of the show:
I was doing just my standup, and I was in L.A. and taking some meetings about doing a T.V. show, and FX approached me about doing a show cheaply and with a lot of freedom. So we tried the pilot that way. I told them if they could just give me the money and let me try to do the pilot my way, it would be worth it. So they gave me a very small amount of money, and I made a show with it that they liked. So that’s it. That was the model we’ve been working on since then.
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On upcoming guest stars:
Melissa Leo—F. Murray Abraham comes back; he’s one of my favorite guys ever. Robin Williams does a thing on the show later in the season. Jerry Seinfeld is on the show. There are a lot of guest stars that are piling up, and I’m excited about it.
On separating fact from fiction:
The show has really broken off into fiction much more in the last year and this year, and so it’s really not drawing from my life so much anymore.
This ex-wife character is completely not anything like my real ex-wife. When I was drawing from my own life, I didn’t want to have the story be about an ex-husband and ex-wife.
My daughters have seen parts of the show, and, like, the first episode, the first pilot episode, had a whole disaster on a school bus that came from—it came from a jumping-off point of a real thing that happened with my daughter. So she enjoyed watching that. This isn’t on HBO, so there are some scenes my kids can watch.
But the kids on my show are vastly different than my kids in real life. They’re really not even close as characters, so it’s really, like, just a different life. There isn’t so much of a parallel anymore.
On embracing Reddit, selling through his website and the internet in general:
Well, I guess as long as those tools are out there, I’ll keep trying to use them for future, but I don’t know when I’m going to—right now I’m doing standup, and I’m doing this show, so that’s a lot. Next time I try something, I’ll probably keep trying to find these ways of doing it, yeah.
| Related: Louis C.K. made $4.5M in two days |
On getting Susan Menke as an editor on the show:
It’s been pretty great working with Susan [Menke]. The editing was the one thing that was really starting to suffer with my overload. I feel like I was turning in episodes that could’ve been cut better towards the end of last season—more like the middle of last season. There’s a part of the season where I’m, like, shooting and cutting at the same time, and that’s really difficult. But this year, I spaced everything out. I wrote all the shows ahead of time, which I hadn’t done before either. So I kind of tried to make three sections of production.
Susan is a great editor. She edited all these Woody Allen movies that I loved. So, to me, if I could get somebody who could improve what I do and bring a new perspective—that was the goal. She’s done that. She cuts differently than I do. I’m still editing. I’m still in there with her, and I usually do a cut after she does, but she has a great eye.
On being a father:
They’re my best friends, and therefore I talk to—I spend more time with them than anybody else in the world, and so we all know each other, and we laugh about the same stuff.
My show is an adult version of the same humor that I share with my children. They know whenever they see me on the show or onstage acting really angry, they just think it’s hilarious because I’m not really like that. If I was an angry, detached, jerk of a father, then my show would probably be some kind of a nightmare for my kids, but they just think it’s funny because Daddy’s not like that.
I mean, I get mad like anybody else does, but being able to laugh about getting mad is very healthy, and my kids know that. We share a lot. And really, I can only speak for them to a limit. They are my kids, but when they turn 18, you can ask them.
Don't forget to set your DVRs for Louie tonight and check out our recaps here!
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