Comedy has its share of overnight success stories, but one of the most memorable is that of comedian, actor and presenter Tom Green.
Green, who performs as part of the Comedy Festival, went in the space of one year from living in his parents’ basement, where he assembled a pioneering low budget comedy show for Canadian public access television, to being picked up by MTV, featuring on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 2000 and marrying Hollywood actress Drew Barrymore.
The marriage to Barrymore lasted six months. At the same time Green was diagnosed with testicular cancer and took a critical panning for his feature Freddy Got Fingered.
But Green survived and continues to have a diverse career. The fact he’s been performing stand-up for the past four years is a case of returning to his roots. He first tried stand-up at age 15 and he still has the same approach.
“It’s a fluid thing. I like to keep things spontaneous. I do have things that I talk about in my show that are consistent as well. It’s not just where I get up on stage and wing it, as much as that sounds romantic to what comedians do,” he says.
“But the fact of the matter is I have a very distinct message and point of view in my show. That’s something that’s important to me. It’s not just to go in and get laughs, but also get to the audience to think about the world and question what we do and the way we behave.
“Sometimes we do some pretty stupid stuff as human beings.”
Green having a serious message beneath his comedy may surprise people familiar with him only in movies, including Charlie’s Angels and Road Trip. In those, his style is in-your-face and leaning to the surreal.
Some of his best known television skits were pranks, including placing a cow’s udder in his mouth and drinking from it, eating human hair and putting a severed cow’s head in the bed of his father, who was a fan of The Godfather.
But fans of The Tom Green Show, Freddy Got Fingered and elsewhere – much of it now on YouTube – would have picked up that, beneath it all, Green, even at his grossest, is also subversive.
“I’ve always been aware that there’s a large proportion of people out there in the world that are looking for something that’s different. It’s pushing boundaries and not the standard, mainstream.
“This is why we love comedy. My show was outrageous and maybe pushed things a little further than some comedy, but still the main reason we watch all comedy is to be surprised. I like pushing things further and I liked to do so in my stand-up.”
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The concept of filmed pranks or improvised situations is more than 60 years old, but in the 90s Green’s approach was pioneering. Often he held the video camera as well as interacted with people, prefiguring Jackass and Borat.
“When you do things a little bit ahead of the curve it’s difficult. Usually what happens is history doesn’t really come in and embrace something until it’s a hit. When you are doing something for the first time you can be greeted by odd stares in the industry and it can confuse people,” he says.
At 17, Green was also in a rap group and for a time considered it as career option over comedy. “I bought a drum machine and a computer and hooked it up to a keyboard and made electronic music in 1989 before anyone knew what a drum machine was. That was the only reason we got a record deal – we were the only rap group in Canada doing that, especially for a bunch of white boys. The Beastie Boys were around but that was before Eminem.”
His willingness to take risks has also meant Green embraced the internet early on. Today, his online talk show, Tom Green’s House Tonight, can attract audiences of 8 million an episode – higher than when he was on MTV.
“It’s easier to produce. With television you didn’t really own the show or have control over what you do and deal with a whole bunch of other people. This is very exciting.”
Green rarely talks about his divorce from Barrymore. Even his 2005 autobiography, Hollywood Causes Cancer: The Tom Green Story, doesn’t dwell on it. He’s more likely to talk about testicular cancer where he had graphic footage of his surgery for the show The Tom Green Cancer Special.
“I could talk about it for hours, all the things that have come out of it. I’ve had thousands of people who come up to me personally, or [via] online, email or letters, and said that that special I did literally saved their life. They had tears in their eyes thanking me with their mother at their side. This happens every week. It’s amazing to me the power of MTV. Young people went to the doctor who normally wouldn’t have gone to the doctor because they would be embarrassed.”
Green was also the first actor to accept in person the Golden Raspberry Awards when Freddy Got Fingered won worst picture, actor, director, screenplay and on-screen couple.
The fact critics hated it still hurts. “For me, it’s been massive. Everybody loves it. I never have anybody come up to me and say, ‘That movie sucks’. I have about a hundred people come up to me a day and say it’s their favourite movie.
“It’s a perfect example of how the media can get things wrong. Obviously I made a movie where I did something very specific. I was attempting to shock and freak out the mainstream movie-making establishment by doing something that was just completely over the top and smashing the conventional mould of the Hollywood comedy.
“I did all that and it made people uncomfortable. The movie’s supposed to make people uncomfortable – and a lot of people who write reviews of movies are, at the end of the day, pretty normal people.”
THE DETAILS
Tom Green performs at Auckland SkyCity Theatre today, Wellington’s Opera House on Sunday and Aurora Centre, Christchurch on Monday.
www.comedyfestival.co.nz
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