Adam McKay began his comedy career as an improvisor in Chicago, co-founding the Upright Citizens’ Brigade and starring in the seminal Second City revue “Piñata Full of Bees.” For most people, that would be enough, but from there he headed East to Studio 8H, eventually becoming SNL’s head writer. After co-writing and directing Anchorman and Talledega Nights, McKay c0-founded the viral juggernaut Funny or Die. In 2005, he answered some questions for the bright-eyed go-getters at The Yale Record.
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Record: Were you a funny kid? What sorts of jokes or pranks did you do growing up? Have you always wanted to go into comedy?
McKay: I was more of a punk wiseass than a “funny†or “witty†child. I found amusement in such pithy activities as crank phone calls or banging on people’s doors at night while making monkey sounds. I watched loads of TV. Barney Miller, Police Squad, Taxi, Soap were my favorites. As a second grader I literally remember thanking God for the Three Stooges. So it was hardly Mort Sahl in training. The only reason my tastes changed from throwing snowballs at cars to writing scripts was because it’s warmer inside and snowball throwing doesn’t pay well (although better than improvising).
Record: Your résumé includes Chicago’s Second City Improv Troupe and the Upright Citizens Brigade as well as writing and making short films for Saturday Night Live. What made you decide to move from improv to writing, like on SNL? Is there a particular form of comedy you enjoy the most?
McKay: I started as a standup while in college in Philly. I was okay at best and not too happy with where my material was headed in order to get paying jobs. A friend of mine had come back from Chicago, where he had studied this thing called “longform improv†with a teacher named Del Close. He told me it was a form where you can do literally anything that comes into your head. That was that. I sold everything and moved to Chicago. Out of those classes and performing at the I.O. Theater with a group called The Family, I met all the future members of the Upright Citizen’s Brigade. We started by doing interactive improv where we would do scenes with the audience and staged pranks. Once we took a whole audience back to my apartment. Another time I advertised my own suicide and then threw a CPR dummy off a five-story building. Horatio Sanz was arrested after leading the whole audience into the streets with torches and plastic guns to start the revolution. There really was no transition or leap from improv to writing. Improvisation is writing. In fact, when it comes to writing for actors, there is no better training. By the time I went to Second City I had done thousands of scenes and had a decent sense of heightening and finding the game in the scene. It helped a lot. So though I don’t improvise much anymore it’s the foundation of a lot of what I do. Del Close rules like “Always play at the top of your intelligence†and “Use your third thought†are golden. As far as what forms I enjoy, I like the faux-documentary style of Christopher Guess and The Office. It’s totally loose but structured, allowing improv and strong structure.
Record: You just directed your first feature-length film, Anchorman, starring Will Ferrell. Say a little about that.
McKay: It’s the most fun I have had in a long time. There’s no way the movie can match the experience of shooting it, so I’m reconciled to some level of disappointment when its released. We ended up with three and a half hours of material because of all the improvisation we did. Thank God for DVD. I wrote it with Will [Ferrell], so it has his unique sensibility and voice. But Will is so cool—he (and I) stressed a strong ensemble. So there are many other fun performances: Steve Carrell, Fred Willard, Vince Vaughn, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, etc. It is however a very, very silly movie. Though I argue “writing dumb†is the hardest thing to do well. Homer Simpson is the character I always point to. He’s brilliantly dumb. Hopefully our movie is smart-dumb as well.
Record: Yale is a very politically active campus, and sometimes I have a pang of guilt—which quickly passes—that I write for a humor magazine instead of saving the rainforest or marching in protests. What do you think the role of comedy in society is? (continued on next page)
