20 Questions: Dana Carvey

It was in the fall of 1986 that "Saturday Night Live" viewers first encountered the Church Lady, that frumpy Satanphobe who regularly pillaged celebrity guests with her dismissive utterance, "Isn't that special?" and who performed a peculiar terpsichoreal rite dubbed the superior dance. The lady in question was no lady at all but boyish funnyman Dana Carvey, whose turns in drag contributed to a resurrection in ratings for a show many had consigned to perdition.

Producer Lorne Michaels had spotted Carvey working in an L.A. club and invited him to bring his repertory of characters and impressions to a then-rebuilding "S.N.L." Church Lady, though not performed in drag in Carvey's stand-up act, was part of a motley crew that now includes Hans, the muscular Austrian Fitnessführer, burned-out rock star Derrick Stevens, Ching Change, the Oriental live-poultry aficionado, George Bush and Jimmy Stewart.

An overnight success after ten years in comedy clubs and what he terms "misfired sitcoms," Carvey assumed the "Saturday Night Live" star mantle previously worn by Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi and Eddie Murphy. Carvey is now treading what he calls the "clichéed comic-career track" those comedians followed: clubs to television to movies. Earlier this year, he starred in "Opportunity Knocks," and he's currently filming "Beverly Hills Ninja."

Warren Kalbacker visited Carvey at his New York apartment between "S.N.L." rehearsals. He reports: "I set up my tape recorder and the telephone rang. It was for me. Fellow 'S.N.L.' cast member Jon Lovitz was calling to warn that Carvey was a 'compulsive liar' about his prowess at pool. I'd never done an interview in which the truthfulness of the subject was impugned right at the start. But I decided to go ahead, anyway. As Carvey's weight lifter Hans might say, I'd hear him now and maybe believe him later."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Who hustles whom at the pool table?

[A] Carvey: When Jon Lovitz and I play, it's the Church Lady versus the Liar. I strip him of his manhood. I'm the teacher; he's the student. Basically, I destroy him. It's probably a way of channeling career competition. We found this twenty-four-hour pool hall on Sixteenth Street. It's a good way to wind down. We're paid to be animals on the air and we're always up till four or five after the show. And on Sunday, you're a total zombie. No matter how much you think you're relaxed about the show, it always fucks with your head.

2.

[Q] Playboy: What deadly sins are committed backstage at Saturday Night Live?

[A] Carvey: There's fighting, jealousy, competition and aggressiveness--but apparently less than with any other cast. People from other years tell us we get along great. It's a more harmonious group. Lorne Michaels master-planned that. He passed up a lot of people who were maybe more talented than us but who might have been constantly pissed off at one another. We've really come together as a cast in the past year and a half. We have a certain sense of pride. Everyone said the show sucked, pull the plug. And then we came in and hit pay dirt.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't Dana Carvey special?

[A] Carvey: I hate people who think they're superior and special. I know what it's like to be on your hands and knees and ordered around and treated like an idiot. When I was a bus boy at the Holiday Inn near the Circle Star Theater in my home town of San Carlos, California, I waited on Michael Jackson and the whole Jackson family for a week. I was there in the hall with pancake syrup all over me and they'd say, "Hey, come here and get this tray." I always took Michael a plate of raw carrots before he went on stage. He would never look up at me. Actually, they were pretty good tippers, usually fifteen percent plus. But if they forgot to add on a tip, I'd sign a big one for myself. No big deal. Now, whenever I hear a Michael Jackson song, I get a craving for carrots. I don't know what that means. I guess it worked out real well for him, kept his body-fat percentage real low. Which is what I envy most about him.

4.

[Q] Playboy: Do you worry that the Church Lady might possess the soul or, worse, the career of Dana Carvey?

[A] Carvey: It was a concern. It was like I was the Church Lady. I played a stand-up concert one night and looked at the marquee and it said, Church Lady. And I was doing an hour of stand-up as myself and maybe five minutes of Church Lady. I couldn't prevent it; it was working so well. And it was helping the show. But I definitely had a complex about it. And for an entire year, she basically disappeared. During that time, I did Hans and George Bush and George Michael and appeared in Wayne's World. People now seem to know me a little more, so I don't feel so overwhelmed by the Church Lady anymore. I enjoy doing her more now. And the Church Lady can comment on the religious and political issues that loom about; say, if she has Ozzy Osbourne and Cardinal O'Connor on her show discussing satanic influences in music.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Has the Church Lady achieved life everlasting?

[A] Carvey: She's immortal. She's too stubborn to die. She's relentless. She's powerful. When she's on the show, there's a definite bump up in the ratings. She's a real lady. She's not a man in a dress. There are some like her in trailer parks in Arkansas.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Describe the contents of Church Lady's medicine cabinet.

[A] Carvey: Her medicine chest would be really stripped down. Probably aspirin and good tartar-control tooth paste. Toothbrush and Listerine. There might be a four-by-six picture of Minister Bob that she keeps in the Band-Aid box. One time, she saw him mowing the lawn in his tight little Bermuda shorts and she started feeling tempted by Satan. So to suppress her satanic desires, she popped a butter-rum Life Saver and sucked like there was no tomorrow.

7.

[Q] Playboy: What implications for the future of America do you see in Wayne's World? Will Wayne and Garth be able to compete with boys from Stuttgart and Yokohama?

[A] Carvey: For every Wayne, there's a computer geek who's probably going to compete. Right now, these guys don't have any issues other than Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe. Wayne is a pretty good bullshitter. He's pretty smart. I have not analyzed where he's going to be in five years. Garth is just the best friend. He will get along in life because he is so loyal. He'll be a great company man someday. He'll have a little haircut and a little lunch pail. And he'll do exactly as they say. He'll get to work real early. He'll leave for work two hours before he has to be there.

8.

[Q] Playboy: You've admitted to pride in your comedy and envy of Michael Jackson's low body fat. Are you tempted by lust?

[A] Carvey: It's not an issue. I'm never in a position to think about it. I really don't find myself attracted.... Mickey Rooney told me that money makes a guy handsomer. I guess he would know. But my wife met me ten, eleven years ago, so that's the great advantage. When she met me, I was a bus boy, but I was a damned good bus boy. She's probably a little more attracted to me now, but she would be with me even if I were still a bus boy. I'd have a different perspective if I were single, but I'm not. I guess some people don't change their perspective after they get married. They see something and decide they're going after that. Well, no. You can't.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Besides resisting temptation, is there a secret to a good marriage?

[A] Carvey: Good clean cotton panties and Jockey shorts are underrated as aids to a good marriage. My wife and I hand-wash our underwear in the sink each night before dinner. It's a ritual. That really, really fresh clean cotton smell helps us relate to each other better. My wife and I are reclusive to the point where we're accused of being agoraphobic. Don't go to premieres. Never go anywhere. Ever. I'm always tired and cranky. I just like to watch TV.

10.

[Q] Playboy: If Robin Leach guided us through your life, what would he breathlessly describe?

[A] Carvey: He'd show my palatial one-bedroom apartment on the twelfth floor of a building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and my sprawling two-thousand-eight-hundred-and-forty-two-square-foot house on a flat half acre in California. I used to live next to Pat Benatar, but I never interacted with her. And there's my car. I have a Volvo, because I just want a machine to get me from point A to point B. To me, a car is a place to listen to music. I have an eight-thousand-dollar stereo system in it. When I sell the car, I'll advertise it as a stereo system with car included. I've got video games. I was into Super Mario Brothers until I started having trouble with my eyes. I decided it wasn't worth rescuing the princess to lose my eyesight. So I decided to lay off. I have Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz over and we jam with acoustic guitars. We re-create side one of Rubber Soul. We're so good that people in the next room are convinced that the Beatles are back.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Do you do bathroom humor in the Carvey bathroom?

[A] Carvey: All comedians like really blue humor off stage. The only jokes that comedians laugh at are crude and gross and usually homophobic. Everything else has been done so much it's generic to us. They like stuff that's very shocking. Maybe Andrew Dice Clay is the wave of the future.

12.

[Q] Playboy: We understand you learned to run before you learned stand-up.

[A] Carvey: My whole act from the age of fourteen to twenty-one was distance running. I was all-Conference. But I never got into wearing a letter sweater. I started running in 1969, when you would get out there and people would shout, "Hey, who's chasing you?" or "Look, the guy's wearing underwear!" And you had to go to a sportinggoods store to buy cross-country shoes and the clerk would ask you to describe them to him. Maybe they had a few pairs in the back. Nowadays, it's like a social club, all exhibitionists in their tights. I go running around the Central Park Reservoir. You can see Madonna out there. And David Letterman and Tom Brokaw. I run because it's a really great legal high. I get a real good buzz. And I run really, really hard. I don't enjoy jogging or trotting. I keep getting injured. I like to torture myself.

13.

[Q] Playboy: A manufacturer gave you athletic shoes. Are you considering a product endorsement?

[A] Carvey: They sent me some shoes to pump it up. But Hans and Franz wear Austrianarmy-issue boots from 1954. Those are the only shoes they'll wear, and they weigh seventeen pounds apiece. They think that Air Jordans and all those other shoes are for [in accent] looser girly men. A looser girly man is like a man, but he's a little looser. His buttocks are like marshmallows. He should thank his lucky stars there's not a campfire around, because I'll roast his marshmallows as sure as I am Hans.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Was it tough growing up as a boy named Dana?

[A] Carvey: Everyone said, "I know a girl named Dana." And I used to say, "What about Dana Andrews?" But no one had ever heard of him. That was when I was eight years old. So for about two weeks, I went by the name Tom. Tom Carvey. Then I got a telegram from the nine-year-old Tom Hanks that said he was going to be a movie star and that I might want to switch back to Dana. So I switched back. I like it now. But Dana Delany bugs me, because for a while, I was the only working Dana I knew of. She's a lot more famous than I am, so I'm a kind of secondary Dana. Maybe we'll star in a movie someday. It could be called The Two Danas.

15.

[Q] Playboy: You've admitted to never dating in high school. Are you now living the revenge of the nerd?

[A] Carvey: I didn't feel like one, but looking back, I surely was one. If you're a nerd, you don't know it. I hope I still am a nerd in a way, or a geek. There's nothing more uncool than someone trying hard to be cool, so it's probably good to keep some nerdiness about you. Wear it on your sleeve proudly. I have a weirder side to me than what I present. It will come out someday. When Steve Martin saw me doing Church Lady, he commented to Lorne Michaels, "What kind of a mind comes up with something like that?"

16.

[Q] Playboy: Did little Dana Carvey have an attitude problem in school?

[A] Carvey: I never had an attitude. But my characters do have heavy attitudes. I use the term attitude because I have to call what I do something. I don't really tell jokes. I don't sit down with a yellow pad and think, Hmmm, a woman in a dress. Isn't that special? You plug into any source: another person, a picture or a movie. It gels in your mind and then comes out later. I was on stage in a comedy club and just started talking about those teachers in grade school who were very condescending. The first time I did the Church Lady, it was about making a paper sailboat in class and about how hers always looked perfect and she'd say, "Looks like mine is just a little bit superior to yours. Now, isn't that special?" The superior dance is a product of my sense of humor. It's an "I'm better than you" strut. Church ladies are real competitive. My mom would always be made to feel bad, because she'd go to the church potluck dinner and take a bowl of Fritos and a church lady would take a sixty-quart turkey casserole and be real self-righteous: "I brought a sixty-quart turkey casserole that could feed the Lord's congregation."

17.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you'll perform at the White House during the Bush Administration?

[A] Carvey: Bush really makes me laugh. With him, the line between character and impression is blurred. When I do him, it's both. I like to abstract things and really get down to the essence. That's the fun and interesting part. There's a shortness of breath in the Bush character. Whether he laughs the way I make him laugh isn't important to me; it's an abstraction of his attitude. Even if he doesn't laugh like that, he wants to laugh like that. He's gloating. He loves to be President so much and he loves politics and he's just the guy at the barbecue flipping the hamburgers, talking in that offhanded kind of way. Geez. I'd like to be President right now. The Cold War has ended. The whole Communist bloc is falling apart. It's not as if Bush is instigating these things. Historical events have conspired and it's right in George's lap. And he's really great at summation: "Before Bush, Berlin Wall; with Bush, no wall. Not trying to take credit. Not saying I'm an Abe Lincoln up here." I don't know what's going to happen, but it's a great time to be President.

18.

[Q] Playboy: If Jimmy Stewart didn't exist, would you have invented him?

[A] Carvey: Jimmy Stewart is such a wonderful attitude to play. His rhythm. His gentleness. One of the favorite things I've done is appear as Stewart reading his poems on Mike Myers' Sprockets sketch. The writers came up with the basic idea of taking this all-American guy and giving him this sordid past: "I woke up in a puddle of my own sick after I'd been drinking some cheap crap called cho cho." I laughed so hard when I heard the idea. I thought it was a great way to use the character and there was a lot of detail in the sketch. The character was imbued that night; I was Jimmy Stewart. It didn't get huge laughs in the studio and I wasn't sure after I finished it. Maybe people were thrown by it and enjoyed it later. I've gotten letters. I have it on tape and play it for friends when I really want to laugh.

19.

[Q] Playboy: You starred in Opportunity Knocks and you're currently filming Beverly Hills Ninja. How disappointed will you be if your films appear in video stores before completing a decent theatrical run?

[A] Carvey: I was hoping my first film would open on video tape. Or, better yet, as a video game. Opportunity Knocks would make a great video game. I'm just an entry-level movie star. Seeing myself on a movie poster was creepy. There's a certain glossiness, a surreal, Stepford-wife quality. Where are the pores? Where are the blemishes? I think it's neat when they get defaced in a crude way. I like that.

20.

[Q] Playboy: A thousand points of light are shining out there. What cause have you adopted?

[A] Carvey: The only thing I would have gotten out on the streets about was the Moral Majority. They were starting to really piss me off. But I had the Church Lady to counter them. Be nice to your neighbors, try to recycle products and don't wear fur and you're pretty good with me. And don't talk when you're near me in a movie theater, because when I'm at the movies, I'm in church.

the man who launched a thousand skits recommends cotton under-pants and explains why he isn't so special