Fans of
'Arrested Development' might not be too happy with David Cross after they read this interview. Why? Because he has doubts that an 'AD' movie is ever going to come to pass.
"(I)t's not going to happen," Cross told me the other day when I spoke to him about his new stand-up special,
'David Cross: Bigger and Blackerer,' which premieres on the new cable channel Epix on Saturday (Friday night) at midnight ET.
"Way too much time it's been (since the show ended)," he told me. "I mean, there's so many people involved. Everyone's doing their own thing, you know. And everybody's aged. It's just not going to happen. I'm sure I speak for everybody when I say we'd love for it to happen, we'd love to work on it, but just I don't think... not going to happen."
In the special, which Sub Pop will release on DVD in June, Cross talks about all his usual hot points: religion, the health care debate, politics... and airplanes. If you don't get Epix, the channel is
providing a free pass to see the special online. The first thing I was curious about: the pre-teen kid who came out and did a piece of his act at the start of the special.
Who was that kid, by the way, that came out at the beginnig of the special, doing a piece of your act?I have a different kid in each city. And that kid just nailed it, and had this great attitude, and his parents were really cool. So I didn't want to fuck around on the TV taping. We flew him in from, I think he was in Portland. I can't remember exactly which town he was in, but wherever he was, we flew him out from that city. It might have been Chicago, I'm not sure. But we had a different kid in every city.
Do you have to find parents who aren't horrified at the thought of him going out on stage swearing like crazy, or do you just not tell them what he's going to be doing?
I was shocked at how, not only how amenable they were to it, but even just to the point of going "He can say dirtier words if you want them, that's not a problem." Just pushing him. I mean, every town, no matter where we were, there was somebody who was like "Oh, he's very excited, he's been rehearsing it, he keeps calling me c**t...hahahaha." So...
Are you ever concerned, when you have topical references like the health care debate in your standup, how it might age later on?
Definitely. But I get past that with the idea that I don't care, really. And you're welcome to fast forward (past) that part. But you know, it's pertinent now and. certainly when I was doing it in September, it already started to age in a sense, but no, I don't care.
Is there something that happened between then and now, especially as the law was being passed, that when you looked at it, you thought, "Damn it, I wish I had been able to address that in my special?"
Sure, yeah. I mean, there are other aspects to the tea party movement that I would have liked to have addressed. I suppose I made a subconscious decision not to, because I easily could've, but I didn't want either the special or the show itself, the evening, to feel too weighted in one area. You know? I'm more conscious now than I used to be about speaking what I consider self-indulgent with that stuff. You get X amount of time before the audience; it's not about (them) agreeing with you or not, it just goes "Alright, move on."
You mentioned that you're at the age now where just really don't really give a rat's ass about people being on the hard left or the hard right, because America was always like that. What was that moment for you when that happened?
Yes. I guess, I don't know that there was a specific moment, but you know, seeing how the hypocrisy... that's not even the right word... the complete convenient amnesia of what, and for people both on the left and right, what position they had just taken with Bush, whether they were pro-Bush or anti-Bush. And then when Obama got in office, they had just switched.
People who were calling Bush "fascist" and "Hitler" are upset because people are calling Obama "fascist" and "Hitler," when they're both wrong. And people on the right who were saying, "You can't criticize the President during war time..." The fucking second (Obama) took his hand off that Bible, people were going "this guy is the worst guy ever, we need to veto him." He had hardly been in office for five hours. It's just like, you just spent eight years doing the opposite of what you are talking about, and what so upsets you. And that's both left and right.
In my lifetime, Obama is the most optimistic (president). I mean, Clinton, there was optimism there, but not even close to the level that people had with Obama. And then, you know, within, I guess it was three or four months maybe, you're like, "Oh
right, he's a politician. All that stuff he was saying, oh he said that to get elected. Ah, I got it, I got it, I got it." At that point, you know, that's where I came to that feeling. There wasn't any like a-ha moment.
When people run into you what part of your career do they remember most?It really does depend on the demographic. I'd say, though, the most mentioned thing is 'Arrested Development.'
Even more than 'Mr. Show?'Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe not people who come to see me do standup, but as far as people who recognize me and say "Hey, man, you know, you're funny in that thing," it's usually 'Arrested Development.'
How many times have you had to answer questions about the reunion movie at this point, by the way? Including today?Um, I would guess like somewhere between six and seven hundred times.
Is there anything going on with that at this point?I think what I will tell you, it's not going to happen. It's not official, but I just don't think it's going to happen. Way too much time it's been (since the show ended). I mean, there's so many people involved. Everyone's doing their own thing, you know. And everybody's aged. It's just not going to happen. I'm sure I speak for everybody when I say we'd love for it to happen, we'd love to work on it, but just I don't think... not going to happen.
Has the buildup for it been so great that it would have been too much for what the results were? This is the most built up reunion I've ever seen on TV.
Yeah. Well, that's the way to do it. It would be great to do it on TV. Like kind of what they do in Britain. If they have a successful show, the comedy shows at least, they'll have a Christmas special. The actors and writers will all get together and you know, create a one-off kind of Christmas special thing.
Like 'The Office' did.Yeah. I mean, they do that a lot in the UK, you know, with the sitcoms. So like 'The IT Crowd,' 'Gavin and Stacey,'
'Extras,' 'Office,' you know, stick with these Christmas shows. So that would be a good way to do it. I think it would feel odd on a big screen. Anything over 42 inches.
What would feel odd about it on a big screen?It would just feel, I don't know, it's hard to describe. But it's ah, it would feel strange and foreign to see these characters on a movie theater screen, I think.
So you say you're doing some scripted stuff. What's coming up, besides the standup special and the DVD?I've got a TV show that I'm developing in the UK called
'The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret' that is going to be airing in the United States on IFC in October.
Right, Will Arnett's in that, correct?Yes. It's gonna be good. I'm very, very happy with the scripts.
What was the impetus for doing it for British TV first?I was over there doing standup, and these two women from a company called RDF Media approached me about would I be interested in developing a show, either by myself to co-wrote with a UK writer, or to develop it with a UK writer to do for the UK that eventually might be able to be sold as well to the States. So it was their idea.
Are you writing towards a British sensibility, or are you just writing toward your sensibility?Mine!
Just yours only. Do you think it'll translate just fine, is what you're basically, what you're thinking?Well, I'm writing with an English writer named Shawn Pye, so we're writing it together. I basically kind of wrote most of the Pilot, but he's, you know, from, which we're reshooting most of. So we basically have co-written this whole thing.
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