ROBERT WUHL

20 QUESTIONS

Creating one of the funniest shows on television, Robert Wuhl (pronounced "wall") is a one-man band of talent. His HBO series, "Arliss," which aired its second season this summer, may be so good because Wuhl does the lion's share of the work. He created the show, produces it and stars in it. And though he has won good notices as an actor and two Emmys as a writer (for two of Billy Crystal's Academy Awards shows), he has put himself out on a critical limb with "Arliss."

Wuhl grew up in Union, New Jersey, the middle child of three and a self-proclaimed smartass. "I was part of the gang with the guys," he says, "but not with women. I didn't date at all." Instead, he sneaked into the drive-in. His movie heroes were Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Ernst Lubitsch and Woody Allen. He studied drama on the "seven-year plan" at the University of Houston, where artist Julian Schnabel was his roommate. Too bored to get a degree, he went to New York and became a stand-up comedian. Wuhl caught Rodney Dangerfield's attention and became a joke writer for him. In 1979 Wuhl headed to Los Angeles. Though he says he always wanted to produce and direct lather than perform, he has played memorable roles in such movies as "Hollywood Knights," "Bull Durham," "Batman," "Good Morning, Vietnam" and "Cobb." He wrote, directed and starred in the independent film "Open Season." "Arliss," shot on many locations and featuring a soundtrack that ranges from the Four Tops to Antonio Vivaldi, is a satirical, pseudodocumentary peek into the big business of sports. Athletes and owners, including Shaquille O'Neal, Hank Aaron and Jerty Jones, have appeared on the show. It has become the cool thing to do. "Plus," says Wuhl, "I get good seats at the World Series now. That's a nice little perk."

We dispatched two writers-- David Rensin and Julie Bain-- to talk with Wuhl on two separate occasions.

1.

playboy: Do you think that professional athletes should serve as role models in the post-Dennis Rodman era?

wuhl: Most pro athletes are young-- and they have money. Why are we surprised when they get into trouble? It all comes down to family and influences. On an episode of Arliss, we've featured a flamboyant, bisexual bowling champion named Turkey Reeves. He is the Rodman of bowling. It's absolutely great. Am I going to tell someone he shouldn't go out partying, or that he has to go to church? People are ultimately responsible for their own actions. Take the Dallas Cowboys' troubles. It's not a new problem. I remember playing at a Dallas comedy club in the early Eighties. One of the Cowboys comes into my dressing room. This 6'13" guy pulls out a vial--no, not a vial, a test tube--of cocaine. He says, "I'm just going to do a quick bump." He takes his huge thumbnail, which he has grown for this purpose, holds it down by his waist and [inhaling'] I swear I could see the stuff fly through the air and up his nose. It was like a cartoon. Then he dies a few years later. There's nothing we can do about it.

2.

playboy: It's impossible not to compare Arliss tojeny Maguire. Who did a better job with the basic premise? wuhl: I wrote Arliss in 1992. It was in the can before Jeny Maguire even finished shooting. But I called Cameron Crowe--we used to play together in a Softball league--and said, "OK, it's a Tom Cruise movie: He's going to get the girl. I'm going to get laughs. What else do I need to know?"/my Maguire is well written. It doesn't play down to the audience, it has good, smart female characters and it's a damn good romantic comedy.

3.

playboy: In the opening montage of Arliss there's a shot of you swinging a golf club left-handed. Could you tell us some of the advantages of being a southpaw?

wuhl: Left-handers use the right side of the brain--which proves that lefthanders are the only people in their right mind. Left-handed pitchers are often referred to as crafty. They're not crafty; they just see things differently, in a more musical way. In baseball, hitting is timing; pitching is upsetting that timing. Timing is also music. Whether it's a baseball game or a movie or a show, I see the whole thing as a musical score. Once Neil Simon and I were talking, and he referred to somebody who was working on a show who didn't "hear the music." I knew exacdy what he was talking about. You're hearing this rhythm in your head [snaps his fingers]. The whole story has a rhythm. It's all in the timing of the score. I look at each show as a score. It has a beginning, middle and end. Where are the grace notes? Where are we coming up, and where are we going down? Being left-handed, I see it a little differently, is all. Everybody is going this way, and I see it that way.

4.

playboy: In a scene from Arliss, you're walking on the beach in a designer suit to check out the volleyball scene. Two gorgeous babes in bikinis brush by you, and you say, "Cocoa butter on Italian gabardine--that can't be good." What would it take to get you to forget about the suit?

wuhl: If the girls weren't running away [laughs], if they were brushing up against me for a reason and if it were a more private place than the beach, then I wouldn't mind it so much. I sincerely hate the beach.

5.

playboy: You're someone who likes to challenge political correctness. Identify one of its frontiers.

wuhl: Political correctness has never been a strength of mine. I am constantly going up against it--I like seeing the reaction. On an episode of Arliss, we use the dreaded C word. And we build on it. It's really funny. I guess nobody goes to British cinema. I mean, in Britain they call guys cunts. "That bloody cunt." It's all you hear. Go see Trainspotting; it's every other word. If a guy's an asshole, you call him a prick. It doesn't mean all guys are pricks. Nobody has a problem with it. However, if a woman is an asshole, you can't say she's a cunt. And you can't call her a prick, right? If you say, he's genitalia, or she's genitalia, is that better? Are we all happy now? It's just a word.

6.

playboy: In another episode of Arliss, there are many references to "shaved nude dancers." Is this a reference to some cast party event, or is there some genuine enhanced appeal? wuhl: Well, it's (continued on page 96) ROBERT WUHL (continued from page 93) one less obstacle. And it's one less time you have to floss.

7.

playboy: Regardless of your mood, who can always make you laugh? wuhl: Besides my dog Phoebe? Woody Allen makes me laugh. He's in a class by himself. I saw Network again recently. I had forgotten how funny it is. Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, William Holden and Faye Dunaway are great. The Awful Truth, with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, is my favorite screwball comedy. And The Thin Man. My favorite movie, excluding Woody Allen's work, is Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, with Jack Benny and Carole Lombard, which is just about perfect. It's dark, funny, burlesque, romantic. It's also, by the way, a movie that died at the box office. As for TV, my taste goes more to Sgt. Bilko and Car 54, Wlieie Are You? The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a great show. I'm not an / Love Lucy fan. But I liked William Frawley. At least somebody was funny on that show. I've always liked character actors. Gale Gordon cracked me up. Bruce Willis was exceptional on Moonlighting. Today, Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show are well written. But that's about it. The state of writing in comedy is dreadful. TV is basically a feminine medium, especially comedies. You don't see an edgy guy in most TV comedies. It's all that warm and fuzzy shit.

8.

playboy: Is there a masculine humor, and is that why you decided to write a series yourself?

wuhl: I love creating situations that raise moral questions, and at the same time I can do really broad comedy. For example, what do you do if you have a lifelong friend who's an athlete who maybe hits a woman? Say he gets drunk one night and this girl comes along who is all over him, picks him up. And the next day she files a charge. What do you do? I love these hypotheses. In another situation, Arliss' assistant, Rita, has an affair with a client. There's the whole issue of why she shouldn't date clients. We have a huge fight about it. I say to her, "You know, this client brings in $400,000 a year, and you take out $50,000. That is reality." She's absolutely ready to leave. I say, "If the sex is that good, maybe I should fuck him!" This guy is not such a lovable character. That makes him more interesting. But for Rita to merely have boyfriend troubles, that's sitcom time. I don't give a fuck about people's personal lives. I care about the business of what they do. I'm really into professionals and their crafts. I don't care about little Johnny's homework assignment. Been there, done that. There are 10,000 shows about personal lives on TV. There's one about the business of sports.

9.

playboy: Describe the joys of being married to the same woman for a long time.

wuhl: It will come to me eventually [laughs]. It's continuity. It's not being married to the same woman, it's being married to the right woman. This is the person you enjoy spending time with. Nobody is going to give you everything. My wife is this Berkshire, New England-Katharine Hepburn-Kennedy liberal-hippie chick, somewhere to the left of Lenin. She designed our house, and everything is in its place, very neat. That is not me at all. I believe in anarchy within a framework. But she makes me a better person. She has taste. She taught me to buy clothes. You don't stop growing. Plus, I'm never home. There you go, that's what it is. It works for us. But the next one could be totally different [lauglis]. You know how big a fan of Woody Allen I am. I notice he has gotten a lot funnier since he's been with a young girl.

10.

playboy: Rate Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 funniest people alive--Robin Williams is number one. Jay Leno isn't on it. And it doesn't mention you. wuhl: Wow. I wonder how Jay can sleep at night. People love lists. We're doing a thing on Arliss about lists. But Entertainment Weekly named it the worst new show of the year last year. The worst! Think of all the unwatchable shit on TV. Even if you don't like Arliss' stories, you have to notice the production values, the look, the music. So much for Time Warner's corporate synergy.

11.

playboy: Is Tiger Woods an agent's dream come true?

wuhl: Tiger Woods could be the real thing. Please give the kid a break. Look at what he's doing for the sport. It's like watching Michael play basketball. These are artists. Why don't we just enjoy the artistry?

12.

playboy: How would your life be different if David Keith didn't exist? wuhl: I wouldn't be told how good I was in An Officer and a Gentleman. I had always wondered if David gets mistaken for me. I was in a Miami hotel and sure enough, the elevator doors open and in he walks, and he says, "I can't tell you how many times I get told how good I was in Batman."

13.

playboy: Describe the body you wish you had. And would you ever do a nude scene?

wuhl: Geez, I wish I had Julia Roberts' body next to me right now. Obviously it would be nice to have a perfect body. Not Schwarzenegger's, but that of somebody who's in really great shape. Whatever--as long as I can keep my own dick. I want to keep my own dick. As for a nude scene, sure I'd do it. Especially if they paid me. Your dick gets 12 feet long on the big screen. It's very impressive.

14.

playboy: What rumor that you would like to set straight has haunted you in the press?

wuhl: In Hollywood Knights, my character could sing through his ass. I cannot do that. I talk through my ass constantly. I do it very well, in fact. But I can't fart a song. That story is getting old.

15.

playboy: You're devoted to rotisserie-league baseball. How do you respond to the detractors who characterize it as a nonsexual circle jerk? wuhl: The get-a-life league? It can get obsessive if you allow it to. Circle jerk? I've never participated [pauses]. Look, it's a game, obsessive but fun. Baseball has become a game of statistics, and this is a way to have fun with numbers. Also, you get a deeper understanding of the game in certain areas--if you don't count defense, or intangibles such as leadership and character qualities. It takes away some of the team loyalty factor, but how much loyalty is there in professional baseball anymore? Players, owners and franchises are always changing. Rotisserie league allows you to be your own general manager.

16.

playboy: Are there any other sports worth watching?

(concluded on page 143) ROBERT WUHL (continued from page 96) wuhl: Sure, but baseball is the only one worth talking about. Can you imagine spending 15 minutes discussing pro basketball? "I got five better guys than you. I win." End of conversation. Baseball is different for many reasons. First, there's no clock. Each team gets 27 outs. The pitcher can stick the ball in his mouth, I still get 27 outs. Sooner or later, he has to pitch to me. Each game has its own rhythm, its own tempo. It's a much more musical game. Baseball is a game of gen-eralists, whereas football, especially, is a game of specialists. In baseball, you see average-sized human beings--Darryl Strawberry, at 6'6", is a giant--doing the hardest thing there is in the world: hitting a baseball. There's a constant game of strategy with the pitcher and the catcher. You play in a beautiful place, and you can bring the family. At a Raiders game, it's a two-tattoo minimum to get in. As Bill Veeck once said, "Baseball is one of the few orderly things in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, not even the best lawyer in the country can get you off."

17.

playboy: Describe the male and female

criteria for buying a chair.

wuhl: A guy sits in a chair and says,

"This is comfortable. I like this chair." A woman sits in the chair and says, "This chair will go well in our living room." Or, "This chair will be adorable in our den." Or, "This chair does not fit what I'm trying to do." When guys want to buy a new car they talk about the performance. When women are asked what kind of car they bought, they say, "Red."

18.

playboy: What do men really want? wuhl: Men have five basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, pussy and strange pussy.

19.

playboy: Julian Schnabel was your roommate at the University of Houston. Assess his influence on you. wuhl: It was my first time away from home. Julian was a kid from Brooklyn who wound up in Brownsville, Texas, when his parents moved there. He was a little fat surfer dude in his own world. A real hippie. Always had great women. And was always, I thought, out of his mind. He turned me on to pot. That was in 1969. He also opened me up to music. He had incredible confidence. I learned a lot from him. He called one day and asked if I'd read about him in Time magazine. I hadn't so I bought the issue. Well, they'd slammed him. So I called back and said, "Hey, Julian. . . ." And he said, "Aw, who cares? My paintings just went up $25,000 apiece."

20.

playboy: Schnabel has written his autobiography. When will you write yours? wuhl: I don't know. But I've got a title. My first movie was Hollywood Knights. But to this day I haven't seen a complete script. I was concerned, of course, at the time, but the director, Floyd Mutrux, kept saying, "Don't worry, Rob. We're going to do it for rock and roll." I said, "That's great, do you have a script?" [Smiles] I wasn't scheduled to shoot the first day, but I'd worked on the character and to get over my jitters about never having been on a movie set before, I went to the location to watch. It was pandemonium. By noon, they were over budget. Tempers were flying, and Floyd kept saying, "Come on, we're going to do it for rock and roll." Finally, I heard the executive producer call the producer over and tell him, "OK. Enough is enough. This shit stops. Tomorrow we're getting a new caterer." So, I've always thought that would be a great title for my adventures in Hollywood--Tomorrow We're Getting a New Caterer.

the man who gives us arliss assesses tiger woods, rotis-serie-league baseball and the allure of shaved nude dancers

I notice Woody Allen has gotten a lot funnier since he's been with a young girl.