When I excitedly announced to a couple of my friends that Dave Foley would be coming to Side Splitters in April to perform stand-up, I was met with blank stares. Who? A little piece of my heart died as I explained that he was the star of my favorite television show of all time, NewsRadio, and one of my main celebrity crushes when I was seventeen.
The reason Foley may never have become a household name here in the States (he and his most widely known show, Kids in the Hall, are both Canadian), may be the same reason he's so great. His performances hang on subtlety. It's not just what he's saying, but how he's saying it, with an inflection in his voice or a sideways glance. He's subdued, not bombastic, the consummate straight-man. Even when wearing a dress and wig, he comes across as unassuming. He comes across as real.
So real, in fact, that when I phoned for our interview, he wasn't on a set somewhere, or in a posh restaurant but at Target, shopping for 3D movies (Life of Pi and Hugo). As we discussed his stand-up, another Kids in the Hall reunion, Canadian humor, the secret of the universe and the possibility of a career in drag, Dave spoke openly and graciously, without pretense or ego. Below is an excerpt of our conversation.
CL: You're going to be in Tampa in April for a couple of nights at Side Splitters. Can you talk a little about the stand-up you're going to be doing. Do you have a lot of things planned out or is it more improvisational?
Dave Foley: It's pretty planned out at this point. I know pretty much what I'm going to say. None of it's written down anywhere, it's all developed from night to night over the last year. It's pretty locked in at this point. But with stand-up you never quite know what to expect either so you have to be prepared to go off track.
I read in a past interview you described your stand-up as filthy, with a smattering of sex and left-wing opinions. Is that still pretty much par for the course?
Yeah, that's pretty much it. That's pretty much what happens when anyone talks to me ever. The stand-up is basically like if you've had a conversation with me for an hour. I'm the socialist obsessed with sex. So there.
You said you don't have anything written down. Was there ever a point where you sat down and brainstormed ideas you could potentially talk about and then let it roll from there?
I'd book a show in L.A. to do 15 minutes and then the night before the show I would try to think what I was going to talk about but I wouldn't write anything up, I wouldn't write a routine. I would just have a basic idea of what I wanted to talk about and what I thought was funny about a subject and I would go up and try it out and see if I could fill 15 minutes.
When you're doing stand-up, you're on your own, but what was your writing process like with Kids in the Hall or some of your other various projects when you've worked with other people?
Kids in the Hall was a mix of writing collaboratively where we'd just hang out in an office until somebody came up with an idea and then we'd flesh it out together and type it up and then other times you'd have an idea yourself and deliver it to the group and sometimes it would be all five of us and the writers all pitching in to an idea.
Do you like that collaborative process or do you find it hinders you in any way?
It can be a lot of fun but it can also be really frustrating, if the others don't like your idea and you have to fight for it. Being in a group like Kids in the Hall is fun because it was being with four other guys who all made me laugh. When you're coming up with stand-up, you're not necessarily trying to make yourself giggle, so it's less fun to do.
But the actual performing is still fun, right?
It's fun to be in front of a live audience. You get to see a different venue and you get different opportunities to be funny. And that's the thing: it's fun to be funny.
If it weren't fun, why would you want to do it?
Well, there's money too. And sometimes girls are nicer to you if you're funny. That helps.
I read that's why you got into comedy — for girls.
That's basically why any straight man does anything.
Oh! The secrets of the universe are being revealed right now. I should have known that, but I wasn't aware.
Everyone got into this industry for girls.
Kids in the Hall have gotten back together for several projects in the 2000s. Do you have anything new in the works?
We're talking right now. We're trying to find a time for the five of us to get together and do some writing and figure out what ideas click. Everyone has been eager to do something together for a while so it's just sitting down and figuring what it's going to be.
Is there any hope for a NewsRadio reunion of some sort?
That has never been discussed but that would be great. [Laughs.] I would love it if that happened. But I don't think it's ever been discussed by anyone.
You might want to bring that up to people then, because I think a lot of people would really like to see that happen.
Yeah, I would love to see that happen. I still see most people from the cast once in a while, but it would be great to do something again all together.
And what projects do you have that you're working on yourself?
I'm going up to start making a TV series in Canada in April. It's called Spun Out and it's about a PR firm. I play the guy who owns the firm. The pilot got picked up for 13 episodes, possibly 22 episodes for Canadian television, so I'm going to be up there for about 4 months.
People talk about the notion of there being a British sense of humor and a couple of months ago I interviewed another comedian, Kathleen Madigan, and she's from the Midwest, so she talked about having a Midwestern sense of humor. Is there a Canadian sense of humor?
I don't know! I guess there is, despite not being able to define what it is. Whatever Kids in the Hall is, that's definitely Canadian, but we weren't like anyone else at the time. We were very influenced by our upbringing, so I guess there's more of a melding of American and British sensibilities since we're exposed to both cultures fairly heavily.
When my friend found out that I was going to be interviewing you, the one thing he wanted me to ask was why do you look so good in a dress?
It's just a fortunate side effect of not looking so good as a man. I lack any sort of emphasized masculine features, so that made it easier to be a woman.
So have you ever considered a career in drag, then?
God, I hope not! That would just be a horrible way to make a living.
You don't want to lip-synch to Madonna?
No, that would not be my dream gig by any stretch of the imagination, but it was certainly a fun experience doing it as part of Kids in the Hall.
And NewsRadio.
Oh, yeah! I did it one time in NewsRadio, which was just a complete reference to Kids in the Hall.
Dave Foley will be performing Thurs., April 4 through Sat., April 6, at Side Splitters Comedy Club, 12938 N. Dale Mabry, Tampa, FL 33618. Tickets cost $18. For more information, see http://sidesplitterscomedy.com/schedule.asp.
This article appears in Apr 4-10, 2013.