By Fred Topel | Image property of respective holders.
Harry Shearer and Eugene Levy in For Your Consideration
Eugene Levy is in every other movie that gets made in Hollywood, which is the luxury of being a cameo player. You can pop in and out whenever they need you. But on the Christopher Guest movies, Levy gets involved in the creation of the story as well.
Interview: Eugene Levy on For Your Consideration
“Personally, I don't mind performing,” said Levy. “I did a lot of writing when I was younger, working on a TV show. It was fun. I enjoy writing with Chris on these movies. It's about the only writing I do anymore. The idea of sitting down, I lose patience too quickly. But it's fun. We have fun. We have laughs while we're doing it. It's a great kind of process. It's different. When you're on the set, it's a different kind of response.”
For Your Consideration is a Hollywood comedy from the Best in Show and Mighty Wind team. On the set of the indie drama Home for Purim, the cast gets wind of internet rumors suggesting Oscar buzz. Like previous Guest movies, the characters easily buy into their own hype.
“We kind of rounded the edges here. If you're trying to portray a more kind of accurate slant on the business, then you're dealing with times of nastiness that sometimes aren't necessarily funny and we're trying to keep our characters kind of on the funny side.”
Levy plays an agent touting his client (Harry Shearer) for best actor. It’s about the only thing that gets his attention, as he’ll always take another call if it could mean more lucrative business. The part was tailored to Levy, as these films usually are to the cast.
“Certainly with Waiting for Guffman, the idea came with the character Chris wanted to do fortunately. And Best In Show, you create these characters that just seem right for certain people. You know when they seem right for you and I think Chris had a good idea with Best In Show, when we were going through the bloodhound. Maybe it was the association with the bloodhound. And in the Mighty Wind, we knew what we were doing and certainly Chris did because he did the Folksmen. That was part of that thing. And we needed an amalgam of folk groups like the New Christy Minstrels so we had the big group and then we wanted an Ian and Sylvia duo and I think we kind of pegged me and Catherine from that.”
Each character gets a laugh just by walking into frame in For Your Consideration, since all of the hairstyles are inherently funny. “Hair can be brilliant. Judi Cooper-Sealy is brilliant. She's the hairstylist on these movies and worked with us on SCTV and she's quite amazing. We are kind of comic character actors so all of that stuff is important. I'll speak for myself. For me, I like these little crutches. I like a crossed eye. You need the hair even to discover the character, because I don't honestly know who the guy is until I see him and then voice comes and mannerisms come. But this was a great little wig, speaking of hair. I had another way to go with the hair so she got this wig that she was going to use for this other style and she kept this other moppy thing as a 2nd choice. My choice after combing and blowing, it just wasn't working for either of us and she said, ‘Why don't we try this other piece over here and here's what I'm thinking. We'll create a little bald pate down below and we'll brush and do a thing.’ I put it on and said there's Morley. ‘Hey, how ya doing?’”
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