Janeane Garofalo

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Seriously funny
Former quirky romcom queen Janeane Garofalo has braved the last few years as Fox News' token leftie punchbag. James Kettle meets the fiery comedian as she faces down a new adversary: Edinburgh hecklers
James Kettle
The Guardian,
1 August 2009

Janeane Garofalo is talking about how it felt to have her head blown off by Trey Parker and Matt Stone in Team America: World Police. "I didn't like that at all," says the actor and comedian. "I didn't see it, but I know about it. The only upside to it was I was given far more credit for being famous that I've ever been given in my life." A long-standing opponent of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration, Garofalo was portrayed in the movie as an empty-headed harpy, joining Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins as appeasing stooges to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il. "What am I getting my head blown off for? For speaking out against an immoral, illegal and unjustified invasion and occupation? What they did was cowardly. To try and get yourself off the hook by saying we're equal-opportunity offenders, it doesn't mean shit to me."

It's very easy to caricature Janeane Garofalo as an outspoken, self-important leftie liberal drone, and Parker and Stone aren't the first to have done so. But when you speak to her, what you hear is not windbaggery but carefully-argued polemic, put for the most part in an extremely gentle and reasonable way. Her modus operandi isn't about shrill grandstanding, just politely but firmly cutting the crap.

What really moves her to anger aren't slights against her ego, but the more fundamental evils of hypocrisy and intolerance. Over in the US, she's recently found herself at the centre of one of those five-minute media storms, in this case due to her claims that the "Tea Party" demonstrators against Obama were nothing more than "teabagging rednecks". She's absolutely unrepentant. "Fucking redneck douchebaggery. Unmitigated douchebaggery. Why are they holding signs that say, 'Whatchoo talking about, Willis?' These people are called 'racially sensitive', what they should be called is racist, backward motherfuckers."

Unlike many left-and-proud celebs in the States, Garofalo has in the past been unafraid to put her head in the lion's mouth and make appearances on the uber-rightwing Fox News Channel. "Fox News is like an infection. Unfortunately, there are people that get their news there, and they vote." Garofalo used to be booked by Fox News as an easy target, a token leftie to be shot down. "They only book people who are easy to mock and marginalise. I kind of thought, 'Someone's got to do it.' But talking to those assholes is a drag. It's a drag meeting the same assholes from high school when you're 40."

A dislike of conservative policies and attitudes doesn't exactly chime with Janeane's most recent TV work as FBI agent Janis Gold in the not-exactly-liberal dystopia of 24. How does she square that circle? "Initially when I was asked to do the show I had reservations about it because of the politics. And I thought further and realised, I don't have a job. So I put my reservations on the back burner. And I did enjoy working there, it was one of the most enjoyable jobs I've had." There was nothing that made you go, 'Whoa there'? "Besides all the torture? Sure, that made me go, 'Whoa there.' Luckily they allowed my character to voice her distaste for the violation of the constitution, but then they'd have Jack yell at her." Garofalo isn't bitter about it, but doesn't think she'll go back. "Objectively speaking, I don't think my character served any purpose. I don't think they needed Janis Gold."

Instead, she's back in the world of stand-up. While she doesn't romanticise the UK compared to her home country ("the British media and the American media share a lot of the same failings"), Garofalo seems to be enjoying the change of scene as she prepares for a two-week Edinburgh run. Despite a live career that goes back to 1985, this will be her first time on the Fringe. I ask her if she's prepared to be this year's exotic American import, following in the swaggering steps of icons like Bill Hicks, Denis Leary and Doug Stanhope. The idea seems to unnerve her a little. "I feel that if that were the case it almost sets the bar too high, you know what I mean? That people would think, 'Wow, this American comic, we expected more.' Let's hope for the best but keep the bar at a moderate level, how about that?" Garofalo's recent walk-off at the Latitude festival - reports say she bombed, her people insist she was drowned out by music - might help diffuse the sense of expectation.

Garofalo is fond of a lot of modern British comedy. She's met Ricky Gervais, and has a passion for the work of Armando Iannucci - she has watched her videos of The Day Today "over and over and over". Yet she herself played a part in shaping that school of comedy, via her central involvement in the hugely influential Larry Sanders Show, where she played acerbic booker Paula. She tells me that Gervais claimed to her that he based the character of David Brent on Sanders's foil, Hank Kingsley.

Larry Sanders was Garofalo's first high-profile work, and it led to a string of movie roles during the 90s, in a series of (and she's the first to admit it) largely unmemorable films like Reality Bites and Romy And Michele's High School Reunion. She'd play "the part-frumpy, part-cool best friend". So closely identified did she become with this role that film execs and journalists began to talk about "the Janeane Garofalo type" as a phenomenon. For Garofalo herself, it was a mixed blessing. "You're only asked to do one thing and then they say you're not versatile."

One positive thing about this whole period was the establishment of her long-standing working relationship with Ben Stiller. Over the years they've written a book together, collaborated on unsung masterpiece The Ben Stiller Show and appeared alongside each other in movies such as The Cable Guy and Mystery Men. Garofalo believes he's very much underrated as a straight dramatic actor, and says another of his strengths is his "bizarre" work ethic. "I have a much more casual attitude towards discipline and working, which I think can in part explain the vast differences in our career trajectories." She clearly has a lot of respect and affection for her friend. "Of course, if he isn't working, he hits the gym. He wants to look his best. Like, that's a whole other thing I don't want to do. And then he takes his shirt off. It's ridiculous; he shouldn't have that body for comedy. It's difficult to relate to Ben when he takes his shirt off!"

After Edinburgh (and a couple of London shows in September) Janeane's future is somewhat up in the air. She's happy to carry on gigging, and is hoping for more TV work - she's currently attached as the lead to a drama series, but says it's "very early days" and the pilot is yet to be accepted ("I wish I had a more interesting thing to tell you"). She's happy to wait and see what turns up, really. Oddly enough, one thing she would like to receive is a further communication from Messrs Parker and Stone. "I ran into them in the street, Trey and the other guy, and I said to them, 'The least you could do is send me a puppet.' And they said OK, took my address down ... and never sent me a puppet! So while Team America bothered me, the fact they didn't send me my puppet, that bothered me even more."

• Janeane Garofalo appears at The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh from 8-15 Aug, and the Bloomsbury Theatre, London on 28 Sep (two shows)

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Comedy in the half-empty glass
Janeane Garofalo: 'Obama's election can only be a good thing. It keeps throwing up more and more issues. '
BRIAN BOYD
irishtimes.com

THOUGH BEST KNOWN for acting roles in The West Wing (as campaign adviser Louise Thornton), 24 and The Larry Sanders Show (as the slightly crazed researcher, Paula), Janeane Garofalo defines herself as a stand-up comedian. Performing on the US comedy circuit since she was in her 20s (she’s now 44), she was always hearing about a fabled festival in Scotland which could make, or more likely break, a person. “Doing the Edinburgh festival became this big thing for me,” she says. “I would hear all the stories from other American comics – a lot of horror stories about their time there – and it was always something I wanted to do. Unfortunately the festival always coincided with acting jobs I had, but this year I made it over.”

Rather rashly, in hindsight, she decided to perform at the UK music festival, Latitude (of a similar ilk to the Electric Picnic), before going up Edinburgh. She lasted only 10 minutes on the stage before walking off. “It was just terrible. I just sucked,” she says. “I’ve no one to blame but myself. Performing in a tent during the day is just not for me. It wasn’t the audience’s fault, it was mine. So I decided just to leave. It’s a horrible feeling.”

It didn’t leave her in a good frame of mind for Edinburgh. “I was so worried about the festival – I know there’s about a million shows on and the audiences can be very tough, but it went very well.” An early review in the all-important Scotsman newspaper was pretty horrific, but other reviewers were favourable and picked up on her quick-witted scattergun approach.

In the US, Garofalo’s political activism has made her something of a household name. As a left-wing liberal, she was a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq and regularly appeared on TV programmes to debate the issues around the invasion. She is a bright and articulate political spokeswoman who appears to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of whatever political issue she is talking about, but she is not, she stresses, a political comedian.

“That would be a very misleading description of what I do as a comic,” she says. “I don’t even view myself as a female comedian. I like to think my material is gender-neutral and I don’t see myself in any way as an American comedian – I’ve always felt more like a global citizen.

“There is going to be some politics in there because I do deal with current events – but how much I do varies a lot from night to night. I think politics is part of the fabric of our lives all the time, so it’s hard to say what is ‘political’ and what isn’t. I find it hard to talk about my set because these things never really transfer well into print, but there’s a lot of personal and very confessional material in there. All of what I talk about is true and has happened, but there is some embellishment obviously. Sometimes there’ll be something that has just happened to me, or there will be something in the news that will change the shape of the show – but that all depends on the night.”

Garofalo delves into sex, drugs and rock’n’roll territory on stage and is happiest when pointing out the ridiculousness of some aspects of contemporary culture. Fast-paced and self-deprecating, she once said of her material: “I prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half-empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.”

Inspired by the likes of Bill Hicks and George Carlin (both great iconoclasts), Garofalo began as a comic while still at university. “Then it became something I just kept doing around the clubs afterwards. It wasn’t until a few years later, when I was 27, that suddenly all these opportunities as an actress presented themselves,” she says.

She realised a dream of sorts when she got to join the famous Saturday Night Live programme, but left after a few months, disillusioned that the only roles she was getting were subsidiary ones. She has worked the actor/comedian route since and says the name recognition from her TV work helps get audiences into her stand-up shows. “The only thing there is, people think they have some idea of who you are – but they don’t at all,” she says.

Programmes such as The West Wing and 24 have given her large-scale exposure, but there’s no glamour there, she says. “With acting, it’s not like you can want to be in a programme or aim to get to a certain place – you just do what you’re offered.”

On the election of Barack Obama, American comic Rich Hall said it was a sad day for comedians, joking that “in a year’s time either I’ll have no material or I’ll be a racist”. Garofalo sees no such danger and says comics can thrive in the Obama era. “Firstly, the standard of political journalism in the US is so poor that that’s always going to be a rich area for any comic. Secondly, the right wing in the US has, since Obama’s election, become even more belligerent and aggressive than they were under Bush. I still describe myself as a taxpaying citizen of a managed democracy – because in the US it is only a ‘managed’ democracy.”

She is still in the political news in the US for remarks she made last April about the Tea Party protests, a series of gatherings across the US organised by people opposed to Obama’s economic reform package and his healthcare bill. Garofalo referred to the Tea Party protesters as “racists” saying: “This [the protest] is all about hating having a black man in the White House.”

Her comments were widely criticised, not least among commentators who believe that any criticism of Obama should not be swatted away simply as being “racist” in origin. “There are some people who just can’t cope with the idea of a black president,” she says. “For me, both as a political activist and a comedian, Obama’s election can only be a good thing. It keeps throwing up more and more issues.”

* Janeane Garofalo performs in Dublin, alongside Al Madrigal, in the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on Sept 23 as part of the Bulmers International Comedy Festival, which runs from tomorrow until Sept 27; bulmerscomedy.ie