David Wain

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

David Wain has accomplished quite a lot in the world of comedy in New York. He is best know for directing the comedic cult classic Wet Hot American Summer and for his work in both the perennial MTV sketch comedy series The State and the short-lived comedy Stella on Comedy Central.

Wain's latest work is directing the new comedy The Ten, which is now available on DVD. The movie's a series of ten vignettes loosely based on the Ten Commandments.

We recently spoke with David to have him dissect for us the many seemingly unusual aspects of the film. First on hand was whether there was any religious significance behind using the Ten Commandments as a base from which to structure his film.

'We were trying to write some funny jokes and that was our jumping-off point,' Wain explains, 'It was the structuring and thematic base for the stories, but beyond that, we don't have a religious agenda or particular theistic point of view. 'I think that's different. I think Life With Brian does skew religion, ours doesn't. And we use the Ten Commandments as a jumping-off point for ten stories.'

David insists though that his film is not the first to have used such a concept.

'Well, before the film there was a book actually, it was good book actually,' he says, 'The Gideons had placed in one of my hotel rooms and that's where we found the original and they were just listed there right in a row. So from there, we just took that and sort of expanded on it into a 90 page script and then we had a movie.'

Decalogue is a movie by Krzysztof Kieślowski, ten one hour films, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments,' Wain adds, 'It's a very dark, brooding drama and we stole that idea. The Bible we actually returned the hotel room after we finished theorizing it.'

We also asked the now 38 year-old director whether there was any moment where he felt the film went too far.

'No, we were just doing what we thought was funny.' David insists, 'In the way we did it, we thought it was funny. I mean we wouldn't have included it in our comedy film if we didn't think it was funny. I'll say this, for example, what's funny about a woman getting pregnant in Knocked Up' What's intrinsically funny about that' See, I would say the same thing about our movie. It doesn't have to be slipping on a banana peel to be funny. I think any topic can be funny if it's treated in a comedic way.'

We asked the director is he and the cast were laughing a lot during the shooting process.

'A lot of times,' David says, 'But I see that when you have fun on set, you get along, and people are having a good time, that that comes across on screen and I think that's what happens. I think we had a great time on set and everyday was a lot of fun, but there were times where it felt more serious on set.'

'Then it came out on screen, like a lot of the execution came out kind of serious, it was more the whole story that was so silly,' he adds, 'But for when Jesus and Gloria sing goodbye after having coffee in Mexico at a caf', I was very moved, I was like in tears.'

We asked Wain to discuss his relationship to his co-writer Ken Marino, who was his former co-star on The State and have regularly co-written together.

'We were roommates in college. It was fun,' he replies.

David also says he not only met Marino, but many of the people he would regularly work with in The State and beyond, including this film.

'Our group The State was done all through college,' he notes, 'We did shows and we made short films and we were touring and we were basically doing our sketch comedy group and we did on MTV. We did that in college more than anything else.'

'We graduated in 1991,' Wain adds, 'We're all in The Ten, we're not all as a group together as a ten much anymore, but we all still work together. Every one of us was in the Reno 911 movie. We're all in The Ten and we all do different projects together in different configurations.'

We asked Wain if he intentionally had anybody in mind from the show to play any of the particular characters in the film.

'The only person we wrote with anybody in mind is Kerri Kenney-Silver, the wife in the Arnold Schwarzenegger piece,' David says, 'We heard her voice and wrote it specifically for her, everybody else we just wrote it and we thought about casting afterwards.'

We also asked Wain took the opportunity to ask if there were any special extras on this DVD edition of the film.

'There was like, in the Arnold one, there was a much longer piece that works really well, but in the context of the movie, it just, it slowed everything down,' he replies, 'But we stripped away layers of jokes from that piece and cut it down, peripheral characters.'

'Our goal was to try to make it a 90 minute movie,' David adds, 'We have probably say another hour of material that would be pretty funny or at least another half-hour movie of material that we think is pretty funny, but sitting there for two hours, you get fatigue.'

Finally we asked is what it is about The State that has made him continue to be so tight-knit with his cast mates during his long career.

'I would rather work with those guys in The State, more than I would work with anybody else, because they are the best,' David insists, 'They really are great performers and I really do feel that way. They are the funniest writers and performers that I know, so why would you go outside that if you don't have to.'