A TiFaux original interview with Maria Bamford
I’ve made it a policy to try to not talk to my idols if at all possible. There’s always the chance that they’ll end up being jerkfaces and then I won’t be able to enjoy what I had previously loved about them. So far, I’ve been pretty successful. I’ve given in to shaking Sam Beam’s hand before a show once (it’s okay, he’s totally nice), but other than that I have generally stayed away.However, I recently had the chance to talk to Comedian of Comedy Maria Bamford. I wasn’t that worried about talking to her because I thought (correctly) that she’d be sweet and funny. For the purposes of our interview, I asked her about her awesome SuperDeluxe.com series — The Maria Bamford Show. It’s a one-person sitcom where she plays all the parts — her mom, her dad, her friends, her love interest.
Here’s the first episode:
For all of youse guys in the DC area, she’ll be doing stand-up at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse this Friday and Saturday. You have no excuse to not go. I’ll give you a ride.
No, I won’t.
TiFaux: How did you get hooked up with the folks at Superdeluxe?
Maria Bamford: The guy Dan Pasternak, who’s the producer who decides about all the shows. My manager, Bruce Smith, is the manager for a lot of comics and [Dan] was meeting a lot of comics and hearing their ideas.
I had a one-person show that was a one person sitcom. Because I always wanted to have a sitcom, but I could never seem get on one. And so when I got on one, it was kind of not what I imagined it would be. So I made my own one person sitcom.
The premise was like that of a lot sitcoms where the person has a breakdown and then they move home and (adopts a bright, cheesy voice) they’re just themselves and they have a great time. And the meet their high school sweetheart where there’s a liiiiittle tension. And so this was my own version of it where I kind of had a meltdown or a psychotic break and I end up living in my parents’ attic. Doing my own sitcom.
TiFaux: A lot of the material is adapted from your stand-up routine, do you like the creative challenge of putting it on film?
MB: It kind of all mixes together. Sometimes I do something for the show and then think ‘okay I’ll put that in stand-up.’ A lot of times it works the other way around. My stand-up is already a lot of little scenes anyway.
Truth is, it’s a really fun experience for me and the guy who edited it, Damon Jones, and directed the whole thing. He really did a lot of the creative stuff for the Web. I wrote it, but decided where I would sit, which is half the beauty of it.
TiFaux: I really liked the musical episode. How did you decide to do that and what was that experience like?
MB: Well Damon is in the Groundlings, which is the big sketch group here [in Los Angeles]. It’s really competitive.
He does a lot of musical theater and both of us liked that song — Kermit the Frog’s “why are there so many songs about rainbows?” I kind of wanted to do that, but have it be about mental illness and other horrible things. I liked the idea that everyone has horrible, dark terrifying problems. Even if they don’t have mental illnesses, they have weird things that they’re doing (laughs) — I just liked the idea that you’re not really alone in the world. That’s why I wanted to do a musical.
(pauses)
Or we could’ve been bored (laughs). That could’ve been it.
TiFaux: I saw there was a Mother’s Day episode and your mom got a starring role. How’d she like that?
MB: Well, she got paid handsomely for it. She got paid three hundred bucks. She liked that part and she enjoys that people know about her. I think she enjoys the part where it seems like I’m a success (laughs). Like if people know about me, then it means she’s done a good job as a mom. I think that’s maybe part of it.
But she’s never watched it, she will not watch herself.
TiFaux: Why is that?
MB: She just doesn’t want to see herself. She gets nervous about it. I don’t know why.
TiFaux: Where do you film the show?
MB: In Damon’s house in Burbank. He also wrote and produced a show for Comedy Central called “Halfway Home.”
TiFaux: What’s the process for the show? Do you start with a premise and then shoot ideas off each other?
MB: I would write what the idea for it was and then I’d run it by him. A couple of times I didn’t run it by him, we just made something. But then I just write out a little script. It wasn’t anything too complicated.
Damon and I would talk about it for about ten minutes when I got there, then we shoot it. It didn’t take too long — we just get ideas as we go. It’s super fun. It wasn’t really hard at all — just really fun.
He had to think of all the shots and stuff. He had to do what I think would be the hard work — I just goofed around and looked into the camera.
1 comment March 10th, 2008