David Spade talks about his fake problems. AMA.

Why haven't you licensed your own line of gardening shovels?

That's a great idea. I'm going to stop this Q&A and go and do that right now. And I'm going to give you no credit. :)

When will we get to see Joe Dirt 2?

Well, I was trying to answer that earlier, we're putting it together now and seeing if we can keep it as funny and with the music we like for a lower budget. All the movies you hear about being made now keep running into budget problems, this and that, and it sounds boring, but it's just a new world, where they can't make those $15-30 million comedies anymore. It's either $3 million or $200 million, there's almost no in-between, so everyone's adjusting to either a summer tentpole Avengers-type movie, or learning to get down and dirty and gritty and making a smaller movie. I just don't want to burn the fans and want to make it good, so me and the other writer are combing through the sequel and trying to make it make sense and have good music and be funny within the parameters. So hopefully it will be soon, or it will be too pointless.

Hey David, I grew up with you and Chris Farley's movies, and probably have most of them memorized. I'd like to know if you have any good stories that we may not know about the two of you?

Wow. There are so many Chris Farley stories to tell. I try not to overdo it, because they are very personal, but they are so funny, people should hear them. I just told one on Howard Stern this morning that was ridiculous. But I will say here's one: Me, Him and Adam Sandler were walking to dinner, during SNL, and this cute girl was getting in a cab, and we commented how pretty she was, so Chris ran over and climbed in the cab with her, and said "hey, you goin' downtown? Let's share a cab!" and she started yelling at him and kicking him. And he finally came back, and we said "Chris, if they don't know who you are, you are just a crazy fat guy trying to climb in a cab with them."

And then we all laughed, it was very funny to us. He would do stuff like that for us every day to make us laugh.

My god, you're funny. Has portraying a llama left a permanent llama-like impression on you? Do you ever wake up and think to yourself, "Oh, no. It was the llama dream again"?

I have to say that the only good reviews I've gotten in my movie life were for The Emperor's New Groove. I really, really liked that movie. It was very hard to do (which sounds crazy, because it's only the voice) but the backstory was, it was originally called Empire of the Sun. And it was myself and Owen Wilson as sort of a prince and a pauper trading places type thing. And we got a year and a half into it, and Michael Eisner from Disney looked at a rough cut and said "I don't like it." And they got rid of everybody but Spade, and they had this dopey llama idea. It sounds like they just made it up on the spot, and he liked it, and somehow those guys put together a whole new idea, and it was really funny. And that movie is another one I hear about a lot, a lot of positive feedback, and I know I've said that about 2 movies so far, but believe me, there's 15 that don't get mentioned a lot. So I'm well-aware of the ones that people don't like.

[deleted]

I like the fact that you think you're the only one who remembers I was on Just Shoot Me! It was just on 8 years ago. Well, it wasn't like it was the show I Love Lucy, it wasn't that long ago. But I had a great time on that show. That was a really fun time in my life. I left Saturday Night Live, and was happy after about 2 years of that show, I realized we were going to stick around, and it was happy to have the monkey off your back, when you leave SNL it doesn't mean you're not going to do anything else in your life in show business. So to leave it, and then get something else that kind of clicked, and I could make money at, and was really fun to do, was great. So if I didn't have Just Shoot Me, I wouldn't have had a lot of stuff. I would have never gotten a cover of Rolling Stone, I never would have gotten the house I had, and I got to work with fun people and do a show that I was proud of.

Well, there is a little known fact that the creator of Just Shoot Me, Steve Levitan, went on to co-create Modern Family. So it's sort of, if you look at both shows, maybe there's similarities in the humor, but maybe not. But I love Modern Family.

Did Chris Farley really rip your jacket in the "fat guy in a little coat" scene from Tommy Boy?

That's a good question. Chris was always doing that bit to me at work. We shared an office, and you had to walk through our office to get to Chris Rock & Adam Sandler's office, so these 2 microscopic offices were back to back, and Chris' desk was behind mine, and he didn't really know how to write, or read, really (kidding!) but he would come in bored, because I would have to write my sketches to try to get on but they would always let him on, so he would get behind me and be bored, everyone would write him sketches, and he would say "Davey… turn around" and I said "if this is Fat Guy in a Little Coat I'm not turning around, it's not funny anymore." And he would say "no, i've got a whole new thing I'm doing."

And then I'd turn around, and it would be him in my Levi jacket, and he would say "Fat guy in little coat! Don't you give up on it!"

And so when we did Tommy Boy, we were just looking for jokes and scenes to make them better, and we decided that was funny to us, maybe it would be funny to there people. So we put "Fat guy in a little coat" in and he sang it (which was funny, and not the plan), and then we had to cut the coat in the back to make sure it would rip. So that was a long answer for the question of "did he really rip it." We had to make sure it would rip, and sound funny, so we had to help it a little bit.

Hi David, back in the 90s when I was in college I worked at Pizzeria Uno on Columbus and 81st street and I sometimes saw you walking down the block and I always wanted to say "Hi, I love SNL!" but I never did. ... So here goes, "Hi!" . . . I also loved Just Shoot Me, it was a shame how it was suddenly cancelled.

I remember that place. Haha well you should have said Hi because I'm not that horrible, and I always say hi to people. I think I come off more of a dick on TV. People used to always ask George Segal if I was an asshole, and he would say "I tell them, surprisingly, you're not." He had to always throw in surprisingly. I think because I'm sarcastic and stuff, I get a bad rep. The only time I get a little sideways is probably pictures during dinners or conversations.

Some people actually sit with me and that sometimes drives me crazy, when I'm at a dinner, but no one seems to realize when I'm in a booth having dinner, and then they just sit down and start talking, and I go "ooh." But I can't even almost get myself to say anything mean, because they all mean well, it's the worst thing, and if they're drunk, drunks are tough to deal with, because they're your #1 fan until you finally ask them to leave. Then not only do they hate you but they want to beat you up. So when they come up and they are tentative, and say "can I get a picture or autograph" and you say "yes," they are reading you, they are getting feedback, and you say "yes," and then they say "Can you call my friend, and leave a funny message" and then you can keep doing all of that, and then they say "Can you cross the street and say hello to my friends" and you say "no" and they say "What an asshole." I think if I were Brad Pitt, or Johnny Depp, I couldn't even handle it.

I think at my level, I can handle it, people think I'm a friendly frat guy, I've been out with Sean Penn where they are silent around him and they all come up to me because they're scared of him. It'll never sink in, but when they come up to you, most people are very very sweet. Most people are very very sweet. You just get the ones that are a little too drunk or a little nervous (which is funny too, because a lot of people have sweaty hands, and when they come up to me it's like shaking hands with a sham-wow) and then when they take a picture, they put their arm around you and their sizzling arm pit rams your shoulder. It's actually funny because all my friends know it now and watch for it now.

Hey, David! long time fan here! I have 2 questions actually, both regarding one of my all time favorite movies, Joe Dirt. How was it like working with such big name people, such as Christopher Walken and Kid Rock? What are they like off set? And how did you act a character "so ingrained with white-trash DNA" so well? like how did you prepare for the role? Thanks and Cheers from the Hoosier State!

Thank you, first of all, because I loved the Joe Dirt movie also. It's the one I hear about the most, right behind Tommy Boy. I grew up in Arizona, and the co-writer, Fred Wolf, grew up in Montana, and we'd see guys like that all the time. Shirts off, carrying gas cans, questionable life, never knew where they were going or coming from, and I grew up with my brother Harry, a cage of rattlesnakes in his room, and guns, and craziness, in a small copper-mining town outside of Scottsdale, AZ.

So I lived a lot of this stuff, and think it's really interesting, and funny. We wrote a sequel, and we may wind up doing it on Crackle.com, because they want to be the first web address to do a sequel to a movie. Because Sony owns them, and it's a Sony movie. We're trying to find a way to make it for the budget, but we really want to do it. And keep it good.

I would ask Christopher Walken and Kid Rock to be in it again. And to take less money, if at all possible, than the amount they took the first time.

Christopher Walken was great, and he always had funny things to say. He worked on a movie called MOUSE TRAP and explained how it's different working with an actor dog than an actor mouse. It was one of the best conversations I've ever been involved with. And Kid Rock was my idea and I didn't know him, so we called him out of the blue, and he liked Tommy Boy enough to take a leap of faith and do this. He's very cool, and he's actually a very nice guy, which no one would believe, especially me. But he's one of my few showbiz buddies that I still talk to a lot.

What's your very best life advice?

Life advice? Oh boy.

I don't know, it's a tie between "Keep on keepin' on" and "Life's a garden, dig it."

But I don't have any great secrets other than I think I have to believe it all happens for a reason, because whatever happens, even if it's hard to get through, it ultimately seems to work out. Sorry if that's too heavy for everybody.

Hey David! Thanks for coming to reddit. I'm sure you've battled hecklers before, but I bet no one's ever shot you in the face with a laser. UNTIL NOW!!! Link

Tweet it at me too!

[deleted]

That reminds me that sometimes when I'm out, like in Las Vegas, this is a funny story that no one is asking, but it reminded me that I have such a sort of reputation that these girls come up and flirt, and they can't believe I don't flirt back, I had twice in one weekend these ladies come up to me and say that they're married but I was their "freebie." And I go "oh, that's so nice" and they're all like "no… but you're my freebie. Like there's no strings." and I'm like "great" and they're like "wait, you don't get it do you" and I say "Yes, I get it. I just don't want it." I think I have a vote in this too! And they're so hurt, mostly angry, they think that I'm going to grab anything in site from watching Grown Ups that they think I'm like that character, so it's awkward.

But I love my fans, and especially kids, it's always so fun to see a kid come up to me somewhere because they are nervous, and hilarious, and always very cute and polite.

Where's the strangest place that somebody has recognized you?

Wow. This is a good question. My brother was in Fiji, and he walked by a hut that had some like, it was a cave, and it said it showed movies in there and it said "This week: Tommy Boy." And he's 6,000 miles away, and someone asked if he wanted to see Tommy Boy and he said no.

Was the joe dirt wig actually itchy? haha I keep scratching my head when I watch that movie... It seems like it was quite uncomfortable.

That's funny. The Joe Dirt wig was itchy. And one time, I walked away from the set at a TV studio when we were doing some Dennis Miller stuff, and I got lost, and I had my janitor's uniform on, and the security guard wouldn't let me back into where I was supposed to go, and I didn't have a cell phone, so I had to sit there for 15 minutes until some PA came to look for me, and I had to explain to them that I was dressed as a janitor with a wig on, and that was an actual story, that sounds fake but it was funny to me. Long story short: I loved the wig, I thought it was hilarious, it was hard to wear all summer but it cracks me up. I think it's in some vault somewhere in the Smithsonian right now, surrounded by guards.

Do you have any odd hobbies we wouldn't suspect?

I collect booze in my stomach some nights? But when I was a kid, I was into coin collecting, rock collecting, and chess.

I also played bridge, and whist, I think is the name. It's a weird game.

Hello Mr. Spade! I’m a fan of your work from Brighton, UK.

How do you deal with criticism you receive? (such as the razzie awards). Does it or has it ever affected you on a personal level?

Also did you get clearance from the band for “Def Leppard Sucks!” in Joe Dirt?

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

First thing: the Razzie awards, I will say, they don't really bother me. I think they go after Adam a lot on purpose, to try to drum up some attention, like Jack & Jill nominating him for actor & actress, that's like a mean trick by the Razzies to try to get more press for their own organization. But most of my favorite people have won Razzies, so I'm not that worried about it.

And this is a GREAT question: when you do a movie, and you use a song, or a band, or an image on a t-shirt of a band, there's a quiet clause stating that you can't say anything negative about them. And it's sort of just understood if they're selling you a song, or letting you use a t-shirt, you're going to be respectful. So that line was not in the script, but I asked Kid Rock to yell it to me when I ran off, so I could make an extra whimper, like that was a real dagger. And so when we did it, we couldn't put it in the movie yet until I talked to Def Leppard's manager to make sure that was okay. So I called someone, cuz we originally couldn't put it in, and said "hey, is there any way we can do this" and i had to explain that Kid Rock is the bad guy, he doesn't like Def Leppard, but the good guy does. And they were very cool because they got that and let us use it.

Are you friends with the other guys from the Grown Ups films? It looked like you were all were all generally enjoying yourselves.

We are all very, very good friends. And have the best time on those movies. It's very genuine and we all crack each other up.

David! Do you have any movie projects on the horizon that feature you as the lead? I liked Joe Dirt, and you were great as a voice actor in The Emperor’s New Groove, and a supporting character in the Grown Ups franchise.
Awesome interview on Howard today, especially the coke story! Chris

Hahaha! I think the next thing I'm doing is the voice in Hotel Transylvania 2, I thought that movie came out really well and especially Adam and Selena Gomez did a very good job with it. It was a very sweet, funny movie. The next one comes out next year. And there's talk of a Grown Ups 3 next winter. So other than that, I'm doing standup in Las Vegas at the Venetian a lot, and also trying to write a show for myself, which takes longer than expected.

Hi!!! I'm a big fan. Don LaPre was hilarious. My question: what's the dumbest way you've ever hurt yourself?

Ever hurt myself? When I was younger, like 13, 14, I was always skateboarding, and I would get hurt all the time. I had a ramp in my backyard that I would fall down from a lot. And a skatepark opened near us, and one night my brother took us, bought us 2 hours of skating, I went to the big pool and tried to learn aerials, and I got hung up and fell backwards, and broke both wrists, and every told me to get out of the pool so they could skate. Then the skatepark owner made my brother take me to the hospital to get X-rayed, and he was so mad, he screamed at me the whole way, because he couldn't skate his 2 hours. So my stepdad was a doctor, and he saw on the X-rays that both my wrists were cracked, but he was buzzed, and we woke him up to check it out, and he didn't put a cast on 'em because 3 days later was my first day of high school, so I don't know what the thought was, but I was laying in bed whimpering like a girl all night (and this was before Vicodin was invented, so I had to rely on like, bayer aspirin, which ask anyone who knows what Vicodin is, it cannot compete). So I was in tears until the next day, when my mom made him put splints on my hands. So I went to freshman day of high school with 2 splints on my hands. That was ridiculous.

In real life who could get Brittany Daniel?

You? or Kid Rock?

Well, it was my movie, but he had a slight advantage, because he had a Rolling Stone cover during the shooting. Which is a real good move. So I had to compete with that. But she wasn't really interested in either of us. But after the movie, we wound up dating a little bit. I always had a big crush on her. And we have remained good friends. And if we do another movie, I'm sure she would do something in it.

If you could shrink down to 1/4 of your size and lay on yourself like a cat, where would you lay and why?

I've already been shrunk down to 1/4 of the size I should be!

But if I was a cat, I would go on my feet, because I never take my shoes and socks off, so my feet are like, 13 years old, there's not one mark on them, so it's a good spot to hang.

Hey David! Thanks for doing this; I've been a fan for many years. I have so many questions, but I'll just ask: what is your favorite memory of Chris Farley, and did you learn anything from him that you still incorporate in your craft today?

Wow. Well, I have to say, I think about him all the time. We had such a good time for so long, and we were crammed together for so long, that we did have our squabbles, but I think people misunderstood me not going to that funeral, it was nothing about that it was just too… emotional, and I wouldn't be able to handle it. But I still hear songs, of all things, I know it sounds stupid, but there are songs that I hear, and they remind me of him. And just different situations. And I see his brother Kevin a lot, and he reminds me of him, and makes me laugh, because the whole family has the same mannerisms in some ways. But overall, just good thoughts. And when I see other celebrities, they always have a good story about him to share.

I think he was another guy that had great comic instincts and would do everything right off the top of his head, even if it wasn't the smartest thing to do at the time and got him in trouble. I don't think I will ever be 100% like that, because I'm slightly more reserved, but I did respect the fact that there aren't many people like him, he's very unique, and that kind of comedy is hard to come by.

i need to know to calm my mind, but are you the voice of Maxwell the Pig?? help a brother out kind sir

No. People think I'm the voice of some cereal, and I'm not. And I'm not Maxwell the Pig. And on the Emperor's New Groove TV show, they have a soundalike, it's not me.

But I like doing voiceover stuff, so after this next Hotel Transylvania, maybe I'll do some more.