20 Questions: David Spade

Now in his fifth season as a regular on "Saturday Night Live," David Spade has elevated backbiting and sarcasm to high comedy. To be sure, he slams both celebrities and working stiffs, including flight attendants and the employees of a major clothing chain. Spade himself "bailed from college to do stand-up," rising to be, as he puts it, the "number two or three comic" in his native Arizona. He insists that he was voted the top performer on the state's comedy club circuit in absentia. By that time he had followed the stand-up trail to California. When "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels scouted the West Coast for new talent, he discovered Spade and fellow "SNL" cast members Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider residing in the same Hollywood zip code.

Spade, 30, blossomed into an "SNL" star with characters such as the Hollywood Minute reporter, Dick Clark's fiercely protective, fictional receptionist and a service-with-a-sneer flight attendant who works for Total Bastard Airlines. Following the lead of many other "SNL" performers and alumni, he has set out to make a career in the movies. Spade appeared in "Coneheads" with Dan Aykroyd and in "PCU," a satire of one of Spade's favorite subjects, political correctness.

Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker met with Spade at his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "He has arranged his living room as an office and conducted the interview from behind his desk in a formal manner," reports Kalbacker. "Like many executives, he works surrounded by pictures of his family and friends. There was also a picture of him with supermodel Christy Turlington. He used the word trophy in connection with that photo."

1.

[Q] Playboy: You've built a reputation with your portrayal of an obnoxious flight attendant. Do airlines exact revenge by shortchanging your frequent-flier miles?

[A] Spade: Yes. Only half my boarding passes have my number of frequent-flier miles on them. The airlines say I can always make photocopies and send one to their home office. Yeah. You know what? I just put you on mute. I'm not doing anything other than putting this boarding pass in my pocket. Then there's that horrible experience when they're bringing the food and they ask, "What would you like for lunch?" And you say, "The chicken." And they say, "All we have left is the peanut butter omelet." When I get off, I glance at them and I just know that dead look in their eyes. "We've got your money, now get off our plane." They just can't help it. They always blurt out a big "Ba-bye" through gritted teeth. They're psyched when you leave.

2.

[Q] Playboy: Can you offer any advice to aspiring comics, actors and writers who want to get past receptionists who over-protect the boss?

[A] Spade: When you call, say, "This is Bruce Willis. Can I talk to Lorne Michaels, please?" They'll say, "Yes, sir." That's the only way it works. My receptionist character is based on when I was in Hollywood and tried calling Lorne Michaels, my boss. He had said, "Call me when you're in California. I'll be out there next week." I called and had the balls to ask for Lorne at his own office. A brutal mistake. It was almost funny to them. That was the best part. "Hello? OK. And you are?" I said, "David Spade." "And this is regarding?" I was bombarded with "This is regarding?" And I said, "Well, I just want to talk about--" "And you would know Mr. Michaels through?" I said, "I'm on his show." The answer: "Right." At the time of that call, I was a writer. They don't know the writing crawl at the end of SNL. I couldn't get anywhere.

3.

[Q] Playboy: Are you determined to assist those who follow you into show business?

[A] Spade: Yeah. I try to help everyone. With the receptionist character, I single-handedly changed the way people are treated on the phone in Los Angeles. Entertainment-business receptionists and secretaries knew about the sketch, and the phrase "And you are?" was almost taken out of their language. It sounds so much like a joke. But you get the same attitude with different words. I do the sketch as Dick Clark's receptionist. I called him once and his real receptionist made it clear that I was hated. I was the one who had made her life hell. She got 50 calls a day from all over the country just to hear if she would say, "And you are?" I finally met the girl who fielded calls at Lorne's office. She felt bad.

4.

[Q] Playboy: On The Larry Sanders Show, the producer, Artie, played by Rip Torn, called you a "pissant," a "rat bastard" and a "little prick." Deal with it.

[A] Spade: I am a rat bastard. That really stands out to me. Pissant is a little rough. Little prick is something my dad called me every day of my life, so I'm immune to that. Rat bastard is more fun. I love Rip Torn. Every time he was on during that episode he said something different about me: "That little fuckface." It's great. I love that. It's so perfect.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Be a lamb and tell us you're a dear thing.

[A] Spade: I am a lot nicer than I am in those sketches. The flight attendant, receptionist, Hollywood Minute reporter--they're all semi-meanspirited and sarcastic. I don't want to be known as someone who has just one note. Because I have two. And I want people to see my other one--the gay guy. The gay thing is hard because you get in trouble if you do it too much one way. I didn't write the receptionist as gay. But a lot of people thought he was femmy and gay. Which is kind of true. He's femmy because he's so organized and so anal.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Cross-dressing seems to be growing in popularity. What do you wear under your Gap Girl drag?

[A] Spade: Pantyhose. If I wore boxers or briefs it would ruin the fun of wearing panties. I'm really into it. One time we did a dress rehearsal at 11 o'clock and Lorne was reading the notes about each sketch. Everyone was dead silent, because he really had to get those notes out before we went on the air. And he said, "The Gap. Spade, shave your arms. They're (continued on page 148)David Spade(continued from page 119) hairy. Farley, shave your legs before air." And I thought, Does anyone think we're really girls in this sketch?

7.

[Q] Playboy: You played the manager of a fast food restaurant in the movie Reality Bites. Do you claim a special understanding of jobs in the service sector?

[A] Spade: Yeah. I would never make fun of people who have normal jobs, office jobs. People tell me, "Oh, I work for Xerox and it's boring." But I totally respect the jobs that keep this country working. In Arizona I worked as a busboy and a dishwasher. I wasn't good enough to be a waiter. But I like the fast food industry. When I used to say I couldn't get a job, my mom always said, "What do you mean? McDonald's is hiring. Your grandfather works there. What's wrong with McDonald's?" For Reality Bites, the manager of a real Wienerschnitzel taught me to pull the hot dog out and pour the--the chili sauce--on it, pull the fries and walk around to the window. I picked it up in about four hours. So I have that to fall back on.

8.

[Q] Playboy: Did your love of the fast food industry inspire you to audition for Reality Bites?

[A] Spade: I called the director, Ben Stiller, and said that Winona Ryder is my favorite, and I asked him to give me a small part in the movie. So I got to meet Winona and sit on the set with her all day. She was so sweet. She knew more about SNL than almost anyone I've talked with. Winona would say things like, "Remember the Cindy Crawford thing on your second Hollywood Minute? Did she get mad? I heard she was mad." She knew everything about Gap Girls. It was really flattering and cool. She told me she was too nervous to host but that she would like to be an extra in a sketch. And I haven't had a better day since. If you can ever get in the same room with her, she's a cool person.

9.

[Q] Playboy: Have you begun to pull your Hollywood Minute punches now that you're aiming to break into movies in a big way?

[A] Spade: I don't think that's why I'm pulling punches. I may do one more. The beauty of Hollywood Minute in the beginning was that this fresh-scrubbed all-American kid--who no one really knew--was up there blindsiding people. Semi-mean and also semi-funny. I'd get personal. My ex-girlfriend always wanted me to make fun of Cindy Crawford. She'd say, "Why don't you make fun of Cindy this week?" And I'd say, "I already did her. I don't know if that's fair." "Do it again," she'd say. "Kick her. She's still breathing." And Cindy, who I see now and then, is very cool about it. I started meeting all the stars, and now I'm one of them. That's why I slowed down doing Hollywood Minute. I do phone commercials now. I'm doing movies.

10.

[Q] Playboy: Do you phone your mother or father collect?

[A] Spade: It's too cheesy. First of all, I have Sprint, not MCI. But I can't get into too much trouble saying that because the commercial is not about long-distance calling, it's about collect calling. I used 1-800-Collect once because I wanted to see how it worked. It's a computer voice that leaves a blank so you can say your name. This girl I was seeing would call me collect all the time and she'd say, "Fucker, fucker, fucker, fucker." And so the phone would ring and the voice would say, "Collect from 'Fucker, fucker, fucker, fucker.' If you want to accept, press one." Of course I would accept it.

11.

[Q] Playboy: You and SNL colleague Chris Farley are teamed in the forthcoming movie Tommy Boy. Would the film's insurers happen to be concerned about Farley's health habits?

[A] Spade: The River Phoenix Insurance Company? I'll tell you how crazy he is on the set. The first day of shooting we were both nervous. And he drank 26 cups of coffee. He averages about 20 a day. It's pure insanity. Smoking and coffee. He had nine doughnuts during one flight. I don't like where it's headed. I lost seven pounds the first two weeks, and he gained 15. Lorne said, "When you go through the movie frame by frame, all the weight is still there. It just shifts from Spade over to Farley." There were memos from Paramount. People are terrified of what is happening. Believe me, I'm worried about him because I love him and think he's great.

12.

[Q] Playboy: We couldn't help but notice that photo on your bookshelf of you and Christy Turlington.

[A] Spade: We were together in a restaurant. I actually hang out with celebrities first, best friends second. I'm replacing all my friends with celebrities. "It had to happen, Jay," I told Leno on The Tonight Show. Take out the best friend who saved my life on a fishing trip. Put in Charlie Sheen. Take out the guy who donated bone marrow for my mom's transplant operation. Put in Kato Kaelin. Go back to Arizona and see if Charles Barkley is busy.

13.

[Q] Playboy: What's the key to your impersonation of Kato Kaelin?

[A] Spade: The key was the fear that he would be caught doing something wrong. There was even an inner monolog about the money and pussy he was about to come into once he got off that stand. I saw him on Hard Copy and they said, "Kato Kaelin always had a sense of humor." Then they showed some footage of him at a party and all the girls were saying, "Oh, Kato, you're the best." I thought, OK, he's funny. He's got that going for him. I picked up on how serious he got. He looked scared. He wanted either to answer the questions right or lie right. His eyes would dart right, then left. His cheeks would puff out and he'd squint and lean forward and go, "Uh. Uh." I like doing Kato. They didn't do the wig right. I think it should have more black roots, white on top.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Are you current on your student loan payments?

[A] Spade: It took me a long time, but I did pay off the loan and the interest. But it doesn't say that anywhere on my credit record. It fucked up my credit for seven years. One time I sent for my credit report, and this girl wrote back, "Are you the same David Spade from TV?" She wrote me this long letter, and at the end she put, "P.S. Your credit is denied." She didn't fix it for me. You know what I mean? She was a fan. She wrote me a letter, wanted me to write her back. But the bottom line was, "Oh, P.S. You have no credit and you won't have any."

15.

[Q] Playboy: Are you determined to remain a rat bastard?

[A] Spade: Yeah. I don't want to get like Eddie Murphy, where you just concentrate more on cool and less on funny: Eddie was one of my big heroes growing up, but I've given up on him lately. He's cool in his movies. He wears sunglasses in every scene. He's buffed. His hair is perfect. Not like a street guy who's sarcastic and funny. They always say the danger for comics is to turn into the romantic love guy who has chicks around him and plays a hardass. And they all do it because it sounds so cool. Just stay a somewhat normal guy, because once the audience senses that you think you're a big star, it all blows up in your face.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Saturday Night Live has taken its share of hits from the critics. Care to offer a rebuttal?

[A] Spade: Every writer who uses the title Saturday Night Dead should be punched in the neck. The show has been beaten up for the past year, and it's finally getting to me. It's our 20th anniversary, so we're getting a little more pressure, and right now it seems to be cool to say we're horrible. We're not as shipshape writingwise as we've been in the past couple years, but we're getting there and we've got good performers. I remember sketches like the hamburger place and the Coneheads and others that are looked back on as favorites. Aykroyd will be the first to say that those old ones did not kill. You taught the audience that this or that was funny. And when you look back at the reruns, you see those sketches were clever and they were well performed and well written. But they did not kill. And we were getting so beat up three or four years ago when Dana Carvey and Dennis Miller and Jan Hooks were around. We had killer writers. I admit the really solid writers leaving hurt us more than any cast members leaving. The problem is, we all need to write better. Since day one, we've gone through periods where about two sketches a week are pretty funny and the rest have trouble and no one knows why. It's just the way it is.

17.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us something we haven't yet heard about Lorne Michaels.

[A] Spade: He's a good dad. When his kid comes into his office, he lights up and forgets about work--and this is a guy with 300 things going on at once--and just focuses on his kid. The fact is, he almost fired me, but that's his business. I don't hold it against him. If I'm not producing for the show, he doesn't have someone take me behind Rockefeller Center and beat the shit out of me to straighten me up and add a little "funny" to me. I wasn't good for about a year and a half. I was lucky they kept me. I got lucky with Hollywood Minute. It lit a fire under me and Lorne pulled me aside and said, "This is a great thing for you. I think you're hilarious and this is a way it can be shown. So keep doing it." So he let me do it every two weeks. Which was a ball-buster to write.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Did you develop an attitude at an early age?

[A] Spade: Being shorter and going to new schools, I had to develop something. Humor was the only thing I had a chance at. I was smart for the first eight grades. When I went into first grade I was such a little smarty, they wanted to skip me to fourth. But my mom said, "No. He's too short." I was too short for first grade. So I went to second grade but a Vietnamese kid and I walked down the hall to fourth grade for reading and math. I was into chess clubs and I was the reading champ and spelling bee champ. I didn't really have a social life. Then when I got to high school I was cool by association because my brother was cool. I adapted horribly to my sudden coolness. Then everyone from my old school who came into high school said, "Wait, you don't understand. He's a geek. He's a nerd." I had to turn smart into funny somehow.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Arizona is famous for its natural beauty. Do you commune with the great outdoors when you visit?

[A] Spade: I commune in my own way. Plus, I'm a bigger star there than I am in New York. But as long as Charles Barkley is there, I can never win the star contest. I remember I was riding with Barkley to a bar one night and he was going about 110 through Phoenix. And he had the convertible top down. I'm the one who had to wear the hat because my hair was flying. And I said, "Dude, you're going to get busted." He just rolled his eyes as if to say, "I'm basically the governor of this state. No one is going to mess with me." It's true. They wouldn't do anything to him. He's the king.

20.

[Q] Playboy: Is there a reason why the word ex comes up so often in connection with your girlfriends?

[A] Spade: I have everything going against me. I'm single. I have a job. I'm straight. And I'm nice to women. All the girls I know hang out with gay guys. I'm always the friend. They say, "You're so great. I'll talk to you later. Thanks for dinner. Now I'm going to go fuck my boyfriend." Sometimes I go out with a girl and it's like a scale. On my side I'll say, "I'm nice. I'll be funny. I'll make sure you have a good time. I'm good with kids. I'm sensitive." And over on her side, she's going, "I'm hot. I'm wearing a miniskirt. I'm wearing heels. I'm losing you."

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