Thumb through this week's dead-tree edition of the Scene, and you'll find an excerpt from my interview with filmmakers/comedians/weirdo luminaries Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, aka Tim and Eric. The impetus for my chat with the duo? They'll appear tomorrow, Sept. 11, at OZ Arts Nashville as part of the Film:Masters series, where they'll discuss Christopher Guest's brilliant 1996 bar-setting mockumentary Waiting for Guffman. (Also part of the Film:Masters program will be Sandra Bernhard talking Purple Rain and The Black Keys' Patrick Carney talking Caddyshack; more on that in our Fall Guide film section.)

In my 15-minute chat with Tim and Eric, we discussed the influence of Guest and other filmmakers, the duo's reputation as pranksters and more. Since I wasn't able to fit the full interview transcript into the print edish, see our full, uncut conversation below.

Can you tell me much about the Film:Masters series and why you’re doing it, and why specifically you’re doing Waiting for Guffman?



Eric: Yeah, we came from film school, and we want to give back. Honor the art. We also love Nashville, and also this movie is one of the — Spinal Tap, and then this movie, I think, were the two films that Tim and I really bonded over when we first met each other 20 years ago. Maybe actually Waiting for Guffman came out a little bit after our friendship started, right Tim? And we saw it in the theater?

Tim: Yeah, I think — I don’t know the year on that. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s available online, that information. If you do the math, you’d be like — we would’ve met ’94, ’95. And that movie probably, I’m gonna guess ’97. Verification on that please!

Eric: I think we saw what Christopher Guest was doing —

Tim: ’96!

Eric: ’96. I think we saw it together at the TLA [in Philadelphia]. I feel like we did.

Tim: Not at the TLA, ’cause that would’ve been a place to go see bands. What you’re trying to find is the Ritz 5, I think. Yeah, we just couldn’t get enough of that movie, and we watched it several times once it came out on video. I think we really identified with some of the really weirder, smaller elements of it. There’s a few moments — what was that guy’s name that we met in LA that has a small part in it. The guy that just starts screaming, “Corky!” His name escapes me. He doesn’t stick out as the biggest part in that movie. He later went on, and he had bigger parts in, like, Best in Show. But moments like that were just what destroyed us. We’re just in awe of all those guys and girls in that movie. It didn’t occur to us that we could ever do anything like that, but I think it set us on a course for doing the kind of stuff we do now.

Do you feel specifically you have a lot in common with Christopher Guest, or identify with him as far as artists and filmmakers who blur the line between what’s real and what’s sort of an act? Did you get some sort of inspiration from the way he does his mockumentaries?

Eric: Yeah, we got tons of inspiration from the way he played the characters that were not so over-the-top, Hollywood-style comedy. It definitely felt like a more artistic film, because of the documentary style. It’s kind of like what The Office based their whole show on, was this mockumentary kind of vibe, where people could just sit and improvise. You could tell they’re improvising these moments, but they’re such genius improvisers.

Tim: And there was also like a darkness to it, and kind of a sadness. It definitely doesn’t have a happy ending. These are sort of sad characters that you know aren’t going to get what they want ever out of life. A lot of uncomfortableness and cringey — putting people in uncomfortable situations. I mean, the scene where he has to ask for more money from the city council, and his perception of what he needs versus what they have is so [laughs], so opposite from each other. That could be a very dramatic, serious situation. A really uncomfortable situation. And I think a lot of people are turned off by his movies and our work because they do make you feel uncomfortable and unpleasant — they’re unpleasant experiences. For whatever reason, we both think that’s hilarious. It just makes us cry laughing.

Right, all of his characters seem kind of lonely in a way that it seems like most directors would be afraid to do that, afraid to show you that. Like, “Well that won’t get a laugh.”



Both: Right, yeah.

Have you found that when you do something like this — say, an interview about a film — that people sort of expect it to be part of some spoof or goof? “Oh, it’s the Spaghett guys, they’re not going to do a straight interview.” Do you find that people have a hard time understanding you outside of that context?

Eric: Well, I think when we’re doing something like this, kind of a straightforward thing about something we respect and love, you’re not going to get a goof. It’s when we’re doing the New Zealand Herald, that’s when 99 percent of that’s going to be a goof.

Tim: Yeah, I think years ago, when we were starting out and coming up and a little younger, we just had so much energy directed at trying to be confusing and funny in every way that we were represented, if it was an interview or something. I think after time, you keep doing that, it gets a little redundant and tiresome, you know? [laughs] And also, like Eric said, it’s the context. We’re here to talk about something that we think is important, that we kind of care about or whatever. It would be a waste of time to try to do a bit with you. But I think when we were out doing the Billion Dollar Movie press, we created this perception that we’re to be feared. People would come to an interview with us like, “Uh, boy I’m a little nervous about this, ’cause I don’t know if you guys are gonna bite my head off or what.” [laughs] But I think we’ve mellowed there a little bit with age.

Were you drawn to film really young, and were there some particular filmmakers — aside from Christopher Guest — who inspired you, individually and both of you?



Eric: Film was, for both of us, the ultimate goal. It was this ultimate, pure art form. It was better than TV, it was better than — I guess we only had TV at that point, because there was no Internet. I was into Stanley Kubrick kind of stuff, some artsy films.

Tim: Yeah, I liked anybody who seemed like they were telling their story and communicating their ideas as directly as possible. Woody Allen, for me, was big as a kid. Because I could see it was just this one guy making these movies, and he’s putting himself in them, and it’s just his view of the world. And Robert Altman and Kubrick and Scorsese. You know, it’s funny, because those sound like such stock answers. But when you’re growing up in the suburbs and you don’t have any Internet, those movies are really important. They’re in the section of Blockbuster that’s like “Staff Picks” or something like that. You didn’t have access to all that stuff like you do now, but they were still really important movies.

When you guys were on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast about a year ago, Tim, you said — and it was in the context of you guys talking about the sort of art you make — “We’re all fucked, and most things are garbage.” It seemed like you were saying that a lot of things insult the audience’s intelligence and talk down to us. Is that something you try to highlight and mock in the work that you do?

Tim: It depends what the project is. Yes, I guess. When it comes to making promos and DVDs and commercials, there’s certainly a place we go where we’re mocking this modern form of oversaturated screaming at you. With Bedtime Stories, we were trying to do a little grander of a theme, of life itself being kind of a challenge and horrifying at times.

Are you guys working on more Check It Out? Is that’s what coming up next?



Tim: Yeah, we’re getting into it in a couple weeks.

I want to ask you about your book Tim and Eric’s Zone Theory, which unfortunately I have not read yet. Is there much you can tell me about that?

Eric: It’s a wonderful self-help book that we recommend to all men. To buy it. It’s pretty simple. It’s been very successful. We’ve had a lot of success stories. It’s only seven steps. And we hope you get it and buy a couple for your friends, too.

But I have to buy the book to know what the seven steps are?

Tim: Of course!

It seems like there is genuinely a lot of thought in all the projects you guys go into. Do you find that people don’t expect you to have as much of a creative process as you do? Do they think you guys are always riffing, or when you collaborate with people, do they understand that about you guys?

Tim: I think that most people can appreciate it, but the people you hear from are oftentimes not the brightest bulbs. We were talking about this the other day. Sometimes you get nice feedback and considerate feedback. But most people don’t share that information. Most normal people don’t go online and — like, there’s certainly plenty of people I admire and have loved through the years, and I’ve never gone online to tell them that or wrote anything on a comment board [laughs]. Most people just experience your work and then have a busy day ahead of them. So we generally sometimes hear from that fringe category that can be very obsessive, and then also very negative, because that’s the type of person they are. That’s sort of an answer to your question.

You said you guys enjoy Nashville. Do you spend much time here?

Eric: We tour there whenever we tour the States, and I’ve been there a couple times just to visit friends, be in the city, eat the foods, get the hot chicken, go to Robert’s. I love all that shit.

Tim: It’s a really good time.