A Conversation With Paul Feig, Creator Of "Freaks And Geeks"

[AKA]

A Conversation With Freaks And Geeks Creator, Paul Feig

By Brian Jacks
UGO

I'll say this loud: I love Freaks And Geeks. The show, following the adventures in adolescence of two groups of teens (the Geeks and the Freaks) in suburban Detroit, Michigan in the early 1980s, was critically acclaimed and almost universally adored by the people who actually saw it. Of course, the problem was that hardly anyone actually saw it. Baffled as to how to market a high school show for adults, NBC slapped the series around timeslots like a hockey puck, before eventually canceling it after airing 12 of the 18 taped episodes. The man behind this genius creation was Paul Feig, an actor and independent filmmaker who originally hails from Michigan. Serving as co-Executive Producer along with Hollywood veteran Judd Apatow, Feig used the awkwardness of his own youth to spawn some of the funniest and most truthful characters ever brought to network television.

With Freaks And Geeks now arriving on DVD, courtesy of Shout! Factory, UGO spoke to Feig about the series in one of the most in-depth interviews you'll ever read.

UGO: How influential was the petition in getting the show on DVD?
PAUL FEIG: Very influential. In order to get this out, and get all the music cleared—which we demanded that they do—that was going to cost a lot of money, and so they needed to have a guarantee that there was a definite amount of interest out there. So being able to show them a list of 40,000 people who said they would buy it, they were able to go "Okay, we'll sink the million dollars that we need to into the music clearances and the four months of legal guy on the phone talking to every record company." So yeah, I don't think it would have happened without the petition.

UGO: Do you know how many of those petition signatures have translated into sales?
PAUL: I know it's definitely getting up there, so they're very pleased at the moment. I know we're selling out all over the place and they're getting restocking orders all over the place.

UGO: Are we going to have a Family Guy thing where they bring you back for another season?
PAUL: [laughs] No, that's the nice thing about being an animated show is you could come back whenever. But no, it'd be a little bit different; we'd end up getting John Daley to smoke cigarettes to get him back down to his original height.

UGO: You could have them in graduate school.

So why Shout! Factory?
PAUL: Because they get it. We had a few other places over the course of the last four years that would kind of go, "Yeah, we'll put them out, but you'll have to replace the music and we don't really want to do much packaging," and all this, and it was like, what's the point in that? And also, there was no way we were going to let these out without all the original music, because, you know, they do that all the time now on DVD. As a fan of other stuff, and having bought stuff and it's different, you feel so ripped off. And especially with our show, the music was like another character.

UGO: You'd end up with the characters listening to MC Hammer.
PAUL: Exactly. It'd be like saying, "Oh, could you just cut Bill out of the whole series?" So Shout came forward, and these were the guys who used to do Rhino, and their packaging has always been brilliant. And the fact that they not only wanted to clear all this music, but brought that ethic of wanting to let us make it look great, that was the big difference for us. And the fact that we were able to do this special edition; they paid for this crazy yearbook that we made.

UGO: How did you decide what would be on the regular DVD set and then what would be included with the special edition?
PAUL: It all basically came down to, for the regular edition—let's assume you're a person who's never really seen the show but has heard it's good—what would you be interested in, outside of just what is on there already? And so, it was like for each one, we'll pull some key deleted scenes that we really liked, that we wish were still on there and that would have worked had we had more time per episode. And so kind of put all that on the regular edition, and then stuff that people would find fun as they get to like the show—bloopers, and behind-the-scenes, and then all of the commentary tracks.

But then, for the special edition, it was like, 'Okay, what do the hard-core fans really like, that a normal audience might not particularly care about?" And that became stuff like the museum appearance, which was an hour-plus of the cast talking, and the three table reads, which are pretty technical but are strangely compelling, I must say. They're actually really fun to watch. For me, it takes me back because I remember sitting there working on the scripts, watching them read. And then a lot of raw footage...it just became all the stuff that a normal person who just kind of knew the show or who just discovered it would buy and go, "What the hell is wrong with these guys? Why'd they put all this crap on here, and why would they think I would care?" But where the fans go, "Oh, good, we want to see everything you've got." So that kind of became the criteria. And then also with the yearbook, we had so many behind-the-scenes pictures that we never knew what to do with, so I was like that'd fill a yearbook. So that was a lot of fun to do.

UGO: Who wrote all the notes at the beginning of the yearbook?
PAUL: That was me. What happened was, I had always said that it's gotta look like my old yearbook with all these signatures and stuff. So they said, "Alright, fine, you write them out and we'll have the art department kind of draw them or whatever." So, I said 'Okay.' But to sit down and type out all the inane things that people write in yearbooks was impossible. Because everybody wrote such stupid things with such terrible grammar and spelling that it took me weeks, and I eventually went, "I can't do this!" So finally, I just got so fed up that I went, "Okay, I used to be an artist and a cartoonist," so I grabbed my pad of paper and a bunch of old pens and said, "Screw this, I'm just going to do this." And I just had an absolute ball, because what it ended up being for me was putting the post-mortem on all the characters, and getting to be them one last time. It was really quite fun.

UGO: How did the collaboration work on the DVD set between you and Judd? Who did what?
PAUL: Well, Judd really did almost all of the DVD stuff because I was out promoting my movie at the time that's coming out in October. So I wasn't around.

UGO: That's I Am David, right?
PAUL: Yeah. So we would kind of confer back and forth. But Judd and his assistant, Andrew Cohen—who was the driving force behind organizing everything on this and doing all the logistics—then what they did was bring on three of our bigger fans. One guy had a graphic design company, another guy is just a really head's up kind of artist, and another girl, Tammy, is an attorney, and we kind of put the word out asking who wants to go through every second of footage that we have and try to find cool stuff, and she volunteered to do it. So she sat in a room for three-plus weeks and went through it all, and then they all got together and cut it all together. So that was a lot more Judd and them. So what I did as my penitence is I took the yearbook and did that.

UGO: We all do what we can.
PAUL: Exactly. But it was fun. He'd call up and tell me what was going on, and to say, "Don't forget about this thing" or "Let's put this scene on." Because what happened, at the end of the day, we all had stuff that we remembered from shows that we always had said, "God, if we can just get this scene on something or if we can get this moment." Like there was a scene at the beginning of the episode where Sam breaks up with Cindy, where she's making him sing and dance to "Come Sail Away," and it was just so funny. So I was like, "That's gotta get on a show or DVD." So we had a lot of fun.

UGO: Do you think Michigan has a distinct culture? Aside from us saying "pop?"
PAUL: I think it does. I'm a big defender of the Midwest out here, where in Hollywood how many times do I have to hear the phrase from an executive going, "Well, I get it, but they're not going to get it in Iowa." And it's like, you know what? They get plenty in Iowa."

UGO: My editor-in-chief says the same thing about Kansas.
PAUL: Yeah, Kansas or Iowa. They don't dare say Michigan or we'd kill them. To me, the Midwest sensibility, and I feel it's really a Michigan thing too, we are really kind of addicted to honesty, in that things that feel too big and over the top and fake, in entertainment, it doesn't ring true. There's nothing worse than being in Hollywood and trying to do comedy, because they're all "It doesn't feel like a joke. You need more jokes." And it's like, well, what is a joke? Does that mean I need my kids talking like Neil Simon, and they're all getting pithy one-liners off? To me, a joke is funnier when somebody says something ridiculous and Bill just kind of stares with his mouth open. But if you write that down, "Bill stares," people say, "Well, that's not funny." No, it's hilarious if you do it. So I just attest that all to honesty, as opposed to the Jim Carrey-school, which is just so big and over the top. And that's fine; it's funny. But to me, that's not as funny as really underplayed humor.

UGO: A lot of Freaks And Geeks' comedy seemed to be based on expressions.
PAUL: That's just what's funny in the world. We were very draconian with our directors about not having...you know how TV now is; they try to make it look like movies with the camera is always moving and flying around. And that's fine, because it creates this kind of false energy. Everybody thinks if you don't do it everyone will get bored, and they will get bored if the show's not good. But for us, it was all about just hang on these kids. Just shoot clean singles of all these kids and just don't move the camera and let it sit there, because what they are doing is so funny that if we're going to screw around with the camera or have it moving around we're going to miss something that's fantastic. So then we would get into the editing room and just have a blast finding weird moments where either the kid didn't know they were on camera or let their guard down, or got something caught in their teeth. Those are the moments we would always look for. They eventually knew if they tripped or whatever it would always end up in the show, because that's real life to me. That's the awkwardness of being a teenager, so why do you want to find perfect moments?

UGO: Seth Rogen has some hilarious facial expressions. He just oozes cynicism.
PAUL: Oh, yeah, he's just so funny. We met him up in Vancouver at an open casting call. He came in and just the minute he started talking we just went out of our minds because he was so funny. And ironically, he was telling us that he had an acting coach up there who was basically telling him he would never work because of his voice. She was like, "You have to change your voice because you'll never work with the way you mumble and stuff." And I was looking at him saying that's the worst acting teacher in the world. You know, it's just so real.

Then what happens, when you [find] somebody like that, is they're so much fun to write for. The jokes practically write themselves. I knew in the pilot I could write, "Who's your dad? Hitler?" and it would be so funny out of his mouth.

UGO: How much insight did Linda Cardellini give into the writing for her character?
PAUL: Linda was so much that girl that she didn't have to do much; she just inspired. When I first wrote the pilot, I based a lot of the characters on people I knew. But the Linda character was one I just completely invented. I didn't know a girl like that, although I'd seen them around. So she was like a total invention, and was somewhat like me in my 30s. And I kind of had a picture in my head of what she should look like, and when Linda walked in it was like, "Oh my god, that's the girl." It was like this weird moment where she popped out of my head. So she was always so great to write for, and so willing to go with us on different stuff. And she'd let us know if something didn't ring true.

UGO: Was she the sister you wish you had?
PAUL: Yeah, totally, because I was an only child.

UGO: So who taught Linda how to look stoned in that marijuana episode?
PAUL: [laughs] Well, I think she's been hanging it up with Jason [Segel] and those guys. But that's what's so great about Linda. All great comedic actors, or just regular actors, have this governor inside them that knows how not to go too big, but they know how to go right up to the line. And she's great at that, and all the kids on the show had that. They knew not to go too big. So that's why you didn't get a lot of fakey, crappy performances, because the kids—like Martin Starr—just knew what was funny. And that's not really even how he is in real life. He just had this thing. He knew how to put on that geeky thing, and we'd always just marvel, because he could just physicalize it.

UGO: It's funny thinking of them out of character, because I know Martin and Seth were roommates in real life, so I was trying to just visualize that.
PAUL: Oh, I know. In real life, Martin is very cool. He's like this really cool guy, and very athletic. When we were shooting the episode with the rope climbing, Martin was like right up the rope. And then when we were doing the Halloween one before that, when he was dressed up like Lindsay Wagner, he had his shirt off at one point. And I was like, "Oh my god, Martin, you've got like huge guns. You've got to stop working out, man." He didn't look like a geek; he was all buffed out.

But that's what's so great about these kids. They are actors. A lot of people sometimes go, "Well, they were just like the kids," and no, they were acting. But we tailored the things to be close to their personalities, and then let their personalities tell us where to take the characters and how to write for them. Which so many shows don't do. So many shows are so fascist about like, "You can't change that word...you just say it the way we wrote it," and it's like, what's the point in that? And that's good if you've got mediocre actors, but if you got kids who are bringing this amazing personalities and choices, to not be open to that is insane. And Judd and I would always be sure that one or both of us would go down for every rehearsal just to see it and make sure it's working, and to make sure everything's working and not over the top, and change it if it was. And we'd change stuff a lot, because we'd say, "Okay, that felt fake. That doesn't feel right." And sometimes we'd say to the kids, "What would you say there?" There was a real nice collaboration between everybody.

UGO: Why wasn't Busy Philipps credited in the open title sequence?
PAUL: Well, she was originally just a guest star in the pilot, and when we were shooting the opening credits—which was when we shot the pilot—it was very aggravating, because we wanted to put her in. We already knew we wanted to make her a regular. So we're all set to do it, and then all of a sudden, all this s--t came down from the top brass saying stuff like, "You can't, because she's not under contract." It was this whole legal thing. We were so mad, and we still kick ourselves that we didn't just shoot some film on her, like who would have known? So for me, that's still a real sore spot. And I also feel weird that, because of that, she didn't get in a lot of opening pictures that we did. And so, like in the regular DVD edition, there's a real dearth of pictures of Busy in there. But that's why, with the yearbook, I can make up for it.

UGO: Busy was another one where you could read a lot from her expressions.
PAUL: Oh, yeah, she was amazing. You know, when she first came in, she came to read for Lindsay, and it was like this is so wrong. But then when I was just looking at her, it's like "God, this girl...there's just something about her that's so tough and scary, but cool and lovable." So it was like, 'Hey, do you want to read this part?"

UGO: Like Tony Soprano.
PAUL: Yeah, totally. And the minute she read the Kim Kelly part, it was like, wow, we found her! No question whatsoever.

UGO: There's a pretty heavy Mystery Science Theater 3000 contingent involved with the show. How did that come about?
PAUL: Well, I'm a gigantic Mystery Science Theater fan, and have been since day one. So I started to befriend those guys way before I did Freaks, and Joel Hodgson (creator of MST3K) and I became really, really close friends. So that's a great thing when you have a show, you can try to hire people you like, and it was just my goal. I wanted to get all those guys in there. And then we had Josh Weinstein (original voice of Tom Servo) producing and on the writing staff.

UGO: They were the only other Midwestern show.
PAUL: Boy, yes, totally. And see, that so captures that Midwestern sense of humor, which is really super smart. All these people who think they won't get it in Iowa and Kansas...

UGO: So how painful for you was the process of divvying up teams in gym class?
PAUL: Oh, it was awful. I was such a bad athlete. Judd and I have that so much in common. To this day, I'm just awful. I have no coordination whatsoever for sports. And I also have no competitive spirit for sports. I do for other things, but not for sports. Throughout my life, I've tried to convince myself I could be athletic. I got into baseball at one point; I got into tennis and racquetball. And then I'd get out there and go really hard for the first five minutes and then suddenly go, "I don't care. I'm tired, I'm sore, I'm lousy at this." So I'd just completely lose any motivation. Sports and I don't get along.

UGO: Yeah, I was the "easy out" in Little League. The guy every pitcher hoped would come up.
PAUL: [laughs] I thought that was my name for a while. "Easy Out!" "Hey, it's me!"

UGO: Did you really wear a jumpsuit to school?
PAUL: I did, I did. Unfortunately I did it in my junior year and not my freshman year, so whereas Sam could be exonerated for being young and foolish, I was older and knew exactly what I was doing, and it was almost as big a disaster.

UGO: What tricks did you have to avoid showering in gym?
PAUL: Lingering around the locker, and kind of taking my time, or having to talk to the teacher about something, or being sick. Yeah, they just gave up on me eventually.

UGO: Wasn't worth the effort.
PAUL: No, it really wasn't. We just had this one gym coach who was so weird. He'd just stand there with a clipboard and watch. I'm still convinced there was something ungodly going on there.

UGO: Have you heard from any of your old high school teachers who have seen the show?
PAUL: No, I really haven't...I'm trying to think. Actually, I heard from my Radio & TV teacher from high school, Mr. Tikolas, but I'm trying to think whether I've heard from him since the show was really on. What happened was we were in pre-production for the series—we had already shot the pilot—and I was in my office and I get a phone call from James Franco, who had gone over to my old high school to like check it out—the consummate method actor. And he ended up pairing up with my old teacher, Mr. Tikolas, who took him on this huge tour of the school and this and that. And then he calls me up and goes, "Hey, I'm here with an old friend of yours," so that was really wild.

But no, I haven't seen a lot of the people. I haven't really been back. I went back once right after Freaks went down because I had another pilot that was supposed to go but didn't, that was based back there. So I was taking a lot of pictures. But I haven't been back since then.

UGO: What high school did you go to?
PAUL: Chippewa Valley High.

UGO: Is that in Royal Oak?
PAUL: No, it was in Mt. Clemens. Unofficially, it's more like Clinton Township. It was right on the border of what used to be farmland, but which has been completely overdeveloped.

UGO: How'd you pick the songs for the show?
PAUL: There were so many songs from Judd and mine's past that we just loved, and then the other writers had ones. The big thing was what songs would serve the story, and serve the mood. They were always generally written into the script, because just to randomly throw songs into a show is kind of not great. And that's why we couldn't lose any of the music. But a lot of it was just getting to put your favorite songs in, and stuff that inspirited you. Also, so much of songs from our past we associate with moments in our life, whether it's happy or sad or depressed or in love. And so, that would just always play into it. We'd be like "Well, I want to write something about somebody who's really freaked out about sex, and I remember when I really freaked out before I had to go on this date, the Allman Brothers' 'Whipping Post' was on."

For me, my favorite is still the XTC song, "No Language In Our Lungs," because that was kind of my anthem because I thought it was such a great, heartfelt song and it seemed to fit. And then, "Groove Line," which I always felt was the only great disco song ever done. I remember all through the season, when I kept trying to do the disco show, everyone's like "Aww, disco sucks." And I kept going, "Yeah, but there's one great song." So I'm still so proud of that sequence in the episode that I directed. To me, the most fun was picking out the music.

UGO: Did you worry about how much the licenses would cost while you were picking songs?
PAUL: Well, we always knew there were certain songs we just couldn't pick, because of that. We couldn't get any Zeppelin songs, or the Beatles, or the Stones, or AC/DC, or anything like that. So we were always aware of that because the last thing you want to do is get your heart set on something and then lose it. But if I could have gotten Zeppelin in the show I would have been the happiest guy on earth.

UGO: You were trying to get Neil Young at one point, weren't you?
PAUL: Yeah, we actually got it in...we couldn't afford it, but he had agreed to let us use it. But then, when we were putting out the DVD, we were like, "Oh, good, we can get it back." And then suddenly his people wouldn't let us have it. He decided he didn't want it on there.

UGO: I found it interesting how even the show's original music was as good as the licensed songs.
PAUL: Oh, yeah, well Mike Andrews is so amazing. Talk about the other voice of the show...his stuff was so great. We'd drive the poor guy crazy because we were very specific about stuff that we wanted. He'd send something over that he'd be so excited about, and we'd be like "Ehh, can you redo that?" But he so nails it every time. I just marvel at the music when I listen to it now. And what was great about the DVD was getting to put his music over all of the menus in its pure form.

UGO: I was going to say, I was just sitting there listening to the menus forever.
PAUL: Yeah, and there's a few more that are lurking around in easter eggs and stuff. He really kind of saved us because we had another composer when we were doing the pilot and it just wasn't working. Just nothing was right. And [producer] Jake Kasdan had done Zero Effect and Mike had done the music for that, and he came down and the minute he met him I went, okay, this guy gets it. And then he started turning in his music and I was like, "Oh, man, that's so it." He scored like Lindsay walking across the cafeteria right before she goes up to Daniel for the first time, and I was like "That's Lindsay's theme! Make that her theme. That's the greatest thing I've ever heard." I can't speak highly enough of him.

UGO: Have you heard from any of the musicians whose songs were used in the show?
PAUL: Well, no, actually, but my wife just ran into [Styx vocalist] Tommy Shaw's wife at the gym she goes to, and Styx is going to be playing and she said to come and we can go backstage. So I'm about to. Oh, and when I directed an episode of Undeclared for Judd, I directed Ted Nugent. Fox ended up making them cut him out and reshoot it, but he made me a blood brother, man.

UGO: How did Claudia Christian get involved with the series?
PAUL: She came in for an audition. Judd cast her, because I was directing my episode at the time. I had always put into the bible for the series that Bill had a hot mom. And so Judd took it and ran with it, and got us Claudia Christian.

UGO: There's always one friend with a hot mom.
PAUL: Oh, totally. Our neighborhood was so much trouble because this woman in the area would always vacuum in her bikini and stuff, and we'd all just stand at the door.

UGO: She's going to be the one person you hear from.
PAUL: Yeah, exactly. Lawsuit.

UGO: Did she tell any cool Babylon 5 stories?
PAUL: Not that I heard. I'm sure she did. Of all the episodes, that's the one I have to admit I wasn't around for.

UGO: I constantly say that Freaks And Geeks was one of the most personal shows ever aired. Would you agree with that?
PAUL: Yeah, I definitely agree. When I created it, it was definitely my life, and then when Judd came onboard, he brought so much of his life into it. And then all the writers did too. What we did when we first assembled our staff was to lock them in a room for two weeks. I wrote up this big questionnaire of all these really super-personal questions, from childhood basically—what was the worst thing to happen to you in high school, what was the saddest thing that happened to you—and everybody had to fill them out. We just sat around for two weeks just trading stories. And so, out of that, came the garage door thing. It came from Jeff Judah's past; it really happened to him. [Editor's note: the specific episode Paul mentions concerns a character finding a garage door opener in his father's car that didn't belong to them].

UGO: Wow, that was real?
PAUL: Yeah, his dad was having an affair. He found the garage door clicker in his car and went around the neighborhood to find where he was. So, that to me, those are the only stories I really care about. I don't really care about those type of TV stories. There's only really so many stories in the world anyway, so why not get the real ones from people and then turn them into something good? So, yeah, it's so important to have stuff be personal that way. Because you just get stuff that you don't normally see, and you get characters doing things that characters doing normally do on television. There's such a set of responses that characters on TV have to certain situations that we're conditioned to think that's what always happens. That's why you can sit there and go, "Okay, I know what's going to happen next." There's just this thing that all writers kind of go into.

When we were doing our show, you'd come up with something and then go, "Wait, wait. Is that what you would do or is that what we've just seen done on TV a zillion times?" And you really break it out; nine times out of ten you go, "Yeah, I guess it is." And then you go, "Well, what would you do or what did you do." "Well, I did this." And you'd go, "Yeah, that's hilarious! I would have never thought to do that."

UGO: Real life is more unbelievable than fiction.
PAUL: Yeah, exactly. So much of movies and TV are just recycled reality, because people have grown up watching movies and TV and so everyone wants to recreate things they already saw in a movie. And that just drives me out of my mind. That can be fun, like if Tarantino does it or something, but still, it's a different thing. You're not getting any new perspective on the human condition from doing that. And I think you're also cutting yourself off from some really entertaining stuff. It's one thing to go, "Well this is real," but you go, "Yeah, but it's so depressing and heavy; I don't want to have to deal with that." But, what I find is generally the real stuff comes off way funnier. It's just funny, the things that people do. I still love going to a mall or a place where people are and just listening to conversations or just walking by and seeing people do stuff. And you see people do the nuttiest things, you know? Because that's just how people are. Think during the day of the wacky things that you do that if someone was actually watching or if a camera was on you, you'd go like, "Wow, that's embarrassing."

UGO: Who would you say was the most sympathetic character on the show?
PAUL: That's a tough one. In many ways, I think it's sort of Sam, just because he's really caught in the middle of all these other strong personalities around him. If you think about it, everyone else really kind of has their thing. Neal has his thing. Bill has his thing. The "freaks" all do. But Sam's really trying to figure everything out, and so that to me is always empathetic. Because I still think that's who I am. I still don't have everything figured out, but I also face everything so optimistically. That was always why I had so much crap that happened to me when I was a kid, because I was always so optimistic. I always thought, "This is going to be great." And there's nowhere to go but down when that's your sort of attitude in life.

UGO: This bus ride to school is going to be great today.
PAUL: Exactly. "Today, nobody is going to be mean to me and I'm going to be really popular on the bus.

UGO: No spitballs.
PAUL: Right. "Oh look, somebody just tore my hat off and threw it out the window. Okay, well, maybe tomorrow."

UGO: In the commentaries, one theme that's heard over and over again is how much fun the cast had. Everyone describes Freaks And Geeks as the perfect working environment. What do you attribute that to?
PAUL: Well, it was a very conscious—and not "conscious" like "Oh, let's be nice"—it was conscious in that we're going to work with kids, and we're trying to create a show that's very realistic, and we also don't want to ruin these kids' lives as Hollywood has a tendency to do. And so very much from day one, when we were getting the pilot together, it was like, "Okay, we have got to get a crew that is not full of drama and screaming and yelling." You know, because these sets can get insane. Like an AD will scream, "Okay, people, let's go!" So we said to everyone we hired that we want a family environment...just a very pleasant environment.

The whole goal was for the kids to not feel any different when they're in front of the camera than when they're behind the camera, so that they could be themselves and not have this weird pressure on them. Because that's the other thing—on a set, it's all this pressure like "Hurry up, we have to go, we're running out of time! Action!" and there you are and everything's riding on you. So how do you be natural in that situation, because it's so high-pressure...especially when you're a kid. So it was just about keeping it a friendly atmosphere. And I love to have a fun set. Some directors thrive on having a tense set. They feel like people aren't doing their job unless everybody's on edge and stuff. And I don't agree with that, especially for comedy. Because you have to relax; you have to be natural in that environment. And it just worked out so well that these kids were so nice, and our crew was so nice because of the weeding process we did upfront, that everyone was really nice.

Working with kids, also, it brought up this kind of parenting instinct in all the adults on the set, so you felt like these kids were your kids. And you really did feel like a big family.

UGO: Did you have any story ideas for a second season?
PAUL: Oh, yeah, there are definitely a lot of places we wanted these characters to go. Whether they would have or not, who knows? Because when you start writing everything changes and the characters take you different places. But I knew I wanted Neal to join swing choir, and I wanted Sam to get into drama club...but he wouldn't be good enough to be an actor so he'd be on the stage crew.

UGO: Did you have anything for Bill?
PAUL: Well, I know that Judd was really wanting Fredericks to marry Bill's mom, and Bill actually joins the basketball team, and kind of starts going that way. We all knew that these kids were going to start growing up. I remember the first time I met John Daley; the only reservation we had about him was "This kid's going to get good looking fast. He's going to turn into a big, good looking kid; how are we going to deal with that?" So we were always prepared to just run with that, and not deny that but to make it part of the stories. And to have what happens in school, where one kid drifts away from his group; Sam thinking, "Well, can I still be friends with these guys?" So we really wanted to do a lot of inter-mixing with the groups, which we started doing a lot in the first season anyway. But to really surprise people. And it was always kind of the goal where every week you go like, "Oh, I didn't expect that!" Because that's what school was to me, constantly. Like every year you'd go back and you'd go, "God, this person has completely changed! Last year he was my best friend and now he's a complete burnout. And I'm actually scared of him now. I used to sleep over his house and watch him eat cottage cheese." So a lot of that kind of stuff.

And I personally wanted Kim Kelly to be pregnant for the entire second season. Because, you know, there's always the pregnant girl in school, especially back then. So I thought that would have been really interesting to do.

UGO: Is there a sense of pride in seeing like Linda go on to ER and James go on to Spider-Man?
PAUL: Yes, totally. You feel so kind of vindicated. Not that we had to fight anybody for these kids, but what it was, was when we first went into NBC—when they were saying it looked like they wanted to do this pilot—we got together and I basically said, "Look, we gotta go in there and just tell them that they need to let us cast this the way we want it." Because my nightmare was we'd have to go through this casting process where they want like these good looking geeks. Well, they're beautiful but they have glasses on! We've seen all these movies like, "Well, they're beautiful but they just don't know it." Well, okay, but what fun is that?

So we went in and said, "Look, I don't care what these kids look like. We need to find the best actors, the funniest kids who are real." And the great thing about NBC was that they went, "Yeah, we agree."

But I feel vindicated in that sense that so much casting doesn't work that way, and so many networks don't think that way. Where they're so desperate to get the hottest, hunkiest kids on the air. And, you know, I think we had a great looking cast, but by Hollywood standards they might not say the same thing. But when people in the industry come up and say, "How'd you get such a great cast?" it was like "Because we opened the door wide and took the best people." Our criteria was not "Is he good looking, or is he hot, or are kids going to go crazy for him." It was like, "Is he the character? Is she the character?"

It's also my contention that once you put somebody on camera, that makes them special, by the fact that you are pointing a camera at them and making them do something. Unless they have just zero charisma, that person is going to become good looking; that person is going to become "desirable," in the sense that it's somebody that you want to watch every week, and you care about and stuff. But it's hard to say if that ended up taking hold or not in TV. Not that you want to look for not-good looking people, just...

UGO: Normal looking people.
PAUL: Exactly. That's why I think Arrested Development is great. They have such a great cast on that show.

UGO: You've directed two episodes of that show.
PAUL: Yeah.

UGO: How'd that come about?
PAUL: Victor Hsu, who was our line producer on Freaks And Geeks, who I knew from my acting days—he was an A.D. when I was on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch—he went over to Arrested Development and told them, "Hey, you should have Paul direct some of these." So they called me up, and I went in. And that's one of the few shows that I like on TV, and it looked like so much fun. I went in and such a blast. I directed the season finale that's on soon.

UGO: And you also directed one that was on recently.
PAUL: [laughs] Yeah, that was tough because when I turned in my director's cut it was like four minutes too long—they like you to turn it in long. So I'm still kind of getting over the shock of seeing it like so cut up. But it's such a funny show.

UGO: What's the status of your film, I Am David [starring James Caviezel and Ben Tibber]?
PAUL: It's coming out in October. Lion's Gate is putting it out on about 500 screens, which we wanted to do so we could leave it in the theaters longer, as opposed to doing more screens and it has to become a hit in the first week. Because it's definitely a smaller film.

UGO: And now you have Jesus in it.
PAUL: [laughs] I not only have Jesus in it, I've got four other cast members from The Passion, and the casting director of The Passion is in my movie. But I shot mine first, I want that on record. I'm just waiting for these reviews, like "Paul Feig raids the cast of Mel Gibson's The Passion." It's like, no, I did it first! You know, because we did ours out of Italy and that's where they cast theirs. Even the Bulgarian actor, who's one of the main guys in my movie—I didn't discover him, but I mean I feel like I kind of did, because I found him in Bulgaria where he was doing a bunch of crappy cable movies. But he's an amazing actor, and the next thing I know, he's the star of Mel Gibson's movie, learning Aramaic.

UGO: There ya go.
PAUL: Yeah, but it's a nice film and we've won a bunch of film festivals.

UGO: I know it's been a pretty long process towards getting it a theatrical release.
PAUL: I feel like it's almost as long as getting Freaks And Geeks out on DVD. At least two years it took us to do this. It was supposed to come out last year. We were winning all these film festivals, and I was stumping all over the country for the movie last October, and they said, "Okay, we're putting it out in October." So I said, "Now?" and they went, "No, next year."

UGO: And then Artisan nearly went under before Lion's Gate bought them out.
PAUL: Well, the problem was that Artisan bought us, and they were going to put us out, and then literally in the trades the day they announced that Artisan had bought our movie, and had a big quote from Amir Malin, who ran Artisan, saying how he was behind it and was going to shepherd this movie through, the front page is "Lion's Gate Buys Artisan and Gets Rid of Amir Malin." [laughs] It's like a joke, in the exact same issue. So it's like, oh no, we're screwed. But then Lion's Gate has kept the enthusiasm for it, so we're coming out.

Oh my god, did you see—now because of The Passion, everyone's rushing their Jim Caviezel movies out, and he's in this Bobby Jones movie coming out, about the golfer? But what cracked me up is, do you know what their line is that they're selling the movie with?

UGO: "Watch Jesus Golf?"
PAUL: Better than that. "His Passion Made Him A Legend." That's like on the thing from the movie poster. It's like...well, at least they get that out of the way in their movie. If Lion's Gate did that to us, oh god...

UGO: I can't wait to see the tagline for yours. "His Passion Got Him Out Of Bulgaria."
PAUL: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately, I think Caviezel's got like three other movies coming out before mine, so it'll all die down.

UGO: What else are you working on?
PAUL: I'm developing a show for HBO called Nice Guys, which is kind of a show about geeks in their mid-twenties trying to date and find girlfriends. And I want to do a realistic version of that, just like Freaks And Geeks was a realistic version of high school. Just showing what my friends and I all went through. You know, the nice guys who would actually make great boyfriends and husbands, and who would actually be nice to women, trying to date out in the world where you don't seem to get a lot of points for that. So the pain continues.

UGO: Do you have a firm commitment from HBO on that?
PAUL: No, no. There's no firm commitments. [laughs] You just develop and you hope they'll do it, but I know they're really into the idea at the moment, so we'll see.

UGO: Which superpower would you want to have?
PAUL: I'd want to be invisible. Is that considered a superpower?

UGO: Definitely. Is there a specific reason why?
PAUL: Uhh, so I could do some of the stupid stuff I do and nobody would know? And so I could spy on women in their underwear. [laughs] No, I just think it'd be fun to be able to truly not be noticed.

UGO: But we're not noticed anyway, right?
PAUL: Exactly, but it's such a nerdy reason to want that superpower. It's like a writer's superpower, because I could eavesdrop on conversations and nobody would know I was there. I could get all this great dialogue.

UGO: Out of The Matrix, Star Wars, and The Lord Of The Rings, which is your favorite movie franchise?
PAUL: Wow, boy.

UGO: It's a tough one.
PAUL: Yeah, because I would normally say Star Wars but it's been so polluted now. If it could just be the first two, then yes. I'm really loving The Lord Of The Rings. With The Matrix, I loved the first one and the next two just didn't do it for me. So I think I gotta go with The Lord Of The Rings. I think that was perfection throughout.

10 Questions: John Daley
10 Questions: Martin Starr
10 Questions: Samm Levine
10 Questions: Tom Wilson
10 Questions: Becky Ann Baker
10 Questions: Paul Feig
Yearbook Edition stuff

[TJL]

If you ever get a chance, pick up Paul Feig's book, "Kick Me."

It's hysterical.

[vashti1999]

Originally posted by AKA



I'll say this loud: I love Freaks And Geeks.

My feelings exactly. Thanks for posting this AKA. I'm so leaning toward doing the yearbook double dip. I wanted to ask if there was anything in the yearbook edition bonus features that show what they all look/sound like today. Like the museum appearance, was that when the show was still on the air, or something more recent?

[AKA]

Originally posted by vashti1999
My feelings exactly. Thanks for posting this AKA. I'm so leaning toward doing the yearbook double dip. I wanted to ask if there was anything in the yearbook edition bonus features that show what they all look/sound like today. Like the museum appearance, was that when the show was still on the air, or something more recent?

No, there's no current footage in the yearbook edition. The Museum footage is from 2000, just before they found out they were cancelled.

Your best bet to see current photos of the cast and crew is to click here. There was a DVD signing at Tower Records in Los Angeles on April 13, 2004. Almost everyone from the show was there. The above link gives you links to attendees' pictures.

I'll post some snapshots from the event, taken by very lucky fans.

Here's Linda Cardellini (Lindsay Weir). Not sure how I feel about the blonde hair, but she's still a babe. Off to her immediate left is her on-screen and real-life boyfriend, Jason Segel (Nick Andopolis).

Linda can currently be seen on ER.

[AKA]

Tom "Biff Tannen" Wilson (Coach Ben Frederics), by all accounts a nice guy. Just don't call him a "stinky turd," or a "butt-butt patter".

Also, try not to get too upset if he calls you a "chicken." This means you, McFly!

[AKA]

Natasha Melnick (Cindy Sanders), James Franco (Daniel Desario), and Sarah Hagan (Millie Kentner).

[AKA]

Dave "Gruber" Allen (Mr. Jeff Rosso) and Steve Bannos (Mr. Frank Kowchevski).

[AKA]

Sarah Hagan and John Daley (Sam Weir).

[AKA]

The one and only Martin Starr (Bill Haverchuck).

[AKA]

Seth Rogen (Ken Miller).

I love Ken. He's the character from the show that reminds me the most of myself in high school.

You know, the more I think about it, I can also say the same thing for Ron, Seth's character in Undeclared.

[AKA]

Busy Philipps (Kim Kelly) and Samm Levine (Neal Schweiber).

[AKA]

Tom Wilson, Linda Cardellini and Jason Segel.

[AKA]

Series creator Paul Feig...

[AKA]

And finally, executive producer Judd Apatow.

[PZelda]

Originally posted by AKA
Here's Linda Cardellini (Lindsay Weir). Not sure how I feel about the blonde hair, but she's still a babe. Off to her immediate left is her on-screen and real-life boyfriend, Jason Segel (Nick Andopolis).

I'm not sure how I feel about the blonde hair either, but she's still just as beautiful as she was during ber F&G days.

Originally posted by AKA
Tom "Biff Tannen" Wilson (Coach Ben Frederics), by all accounts a nice guy. Just don't call him a "stinky turd," or a "butt-butt patter".

Also, try not to get too upset if he calls you a "chicken." This means you, McFly!

He hasn't changed a bit.

Originally posted by AKA
Natasha Melnick (Cindy Sanders), James Franco (Daniel Desario), and Sarah Hagan (Millie Kentner).

Sarah looks EXACTLY the same, she hasn't changed one bit

Originally posted by AKA
The one and only Martin Starr (Bill Haverchuck).

I thought he was cute then, I still think he's cute now. *pinches cheeks*

Originally posted by AKA
Sarah Hagan and John Daley (Sam Weir).

John Daley's just a few months older than me....WOW, he looks so much older now!

Originally posted by AKA
Busy Philipps (Kim Kelly) and Samm Levine (Neal Schweiber).

Aw, Busy's so adorable w/ the bangs. I love it! Samm hasn't changed a bit.