10 Questions: Paul Feig

[AKA]

10 Questions: Paul Feig

Answers from the creator of Freaks and Geeks.

By Ken P.
IGN FilmForce

I've said it before and I'll say it again – Freaks and Geeks was one of the best shows ever produced for television.

Which is probably why it only lasted 18 episodes.

I think it's a television law that quality must be rewarded with swift cancellation, while abominations continue to roam the land, menacing viewers with inane writing (and even lamer metaphors, but you get the point).

Presenting the teenage tribulations of Sam and Lindsay Weir, and their assorted friends and enemies, Freaks and Geeks was the first (and so far only) show that presented the teenagers as they really are, and what high school is really like. Well-written, funny, and emotional, it was… Well, it was life. Not a comedy, not a drama, and nothing as hackneyed as a "dramedy," it merely existed as one of the most well-crafted shows ever to get slaughtered upon the network altar of quick returns and poor judgement.

Let it not be said that dark clouds don't have silver linings, because the complete run of Freaks and Geeks – plus a bevy of bonus materials – has been released in a spiffy 6-disc DVD set from Shout Factory.

If you're a fan you've probably already got the set on your shelf, but if you've not yet experienced the show, I urge you to do so.

Or go watch some more Relic Hunter. It's your call.

We recently got a chance to ask our patented (it's pending… really…) 10 Questions of the Freaks and Geeks cast, and we'll be presenting them over the next few weeks. We've also got a few surprises in store, so be sure to keep an eye out in the near future.

This week we've got the man behind the show, creator/producer Paul Feig. It was his awkward childhood that provided the springboard (A little pity would not be improper). You can read more of Paul's tales of awkward adolescence in his first book, Kick Me (it's a great read)...

1. What is your favorite piece of music?
As you're about to find from all my answers to these ten questions, I really can't answer any question about my favorite things definitively, since I have different favorite things for different moods and different attitudes. My top pieces of music, in no particular order, are:

Oasis's "All Around the World"
Yes's "Starship Trooper"
Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place"
Zero 7's "Destiny"
Peter Frampton's "Do You Feel Like We Do?" (live version, of course)
Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" (long version with extended opening)
Beethoven's 7th Symphony
The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony"
Cracker's "Can I Take My Gun to Heaven?"
Aerosmith's "Lord of the Thighs"
And tons of other songs ...

2. What is your favorite film?
Once again, an annoyingly indecisive list:

It's a Wonderful Life
Manhattan
8 1/2
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Seven Samurai
The Killer (John Woo)
City of Women
Dr. Strangelove
Stranger Than Paradise
Horsefeathers
Rashomon
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Breakdown (all right, all right, a GUILTY pleasure)
The Conversation
Risky Business
And many more ...

3. What is your favorite TV program, past or current?
All in the Family
The Honeymooners
Taxi
Leave It to Beaver
Insomniac
The Daily Show
The Simpsons
The Brady Bunch
Gilligan's Island
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
And many more ...

4. What do you feel has been your most important professional accomplishment to date?
Freaks and Geeks, although I'm quite proud of my latest film, I Am David, which was really hard to make. Oh, by the way, it opens on October 8th. Oops. Was that a plug? You bet!

5. Which project do you feel didn't live up to what you envisioned?
Why, whatever do you mean? I'm like George W. Bush. I haven't made a mistake yet. :0)

6. What is your favorite book?
People make fun of me when I say this, but it still has to be Catcher in the Rye. What can I say? I'm a perpetual teenager. But that book cuts to the very heart of a sensitive soul.

7. If you could change one thing about the industry, what would it be?
That it wouldn't suck so much. Seriously, I wish that the stakes didn't have to be so high in the stories that Hollywood wants you to tell. I'm not really interested in what happens when the world ends or terrorists try to blow up the west coast or a hero has to stop a band of bad guys hell bent on mayhem. I just like stories about people trying to figure out their place in the world and how to get their lives together. But every time I pitch one of those stories, I'm told that "it's too small." However, it's only small until Brad Pitt and Nicole Kidman want to star in it. Then it's big. C'mon, you mean to tell me that The Hours wasn't a small film before they had three huge movie stars attached to it? Small is as small does. Whatever the heck that means.

8. Who – or what – would you say has had the biggest influence on your career?
So many influences, it's hard to say. On a practical level, Judd Apatow really showed me the ropes of how to deal with the day to day aspects of running a professional production. But then I was inspired by all my favorite artists, like Woody Allen, Frederico Fellini, Kurosawa, Howard Hawks, Stanley Kubrick, Lenny Bruce, Beck, Jim Jarmusch, and many more...

9. What is your next project?
Finishing up my second book, Superstud, and waiting to find out about a couple of movie projects that I would write and direct, one for Nickelodeon and one for Tom Hanks' company (I can give you a definite update on that very soon).

10. What is the one project that you've always wanted to do, but have yet to be able to?
There's a few (what a surprise!). There's a couple of books I'm dying to make into movies. One is the book Persepolis, about a young Iranian girl growing up during the 1980 revolution in Iran. Then there's a book by Mark Helprin called Memoir from Antproof Case. Then there's a book called Stargirl, which I may get to make for Paramount. I'd also like to do a movie about the life story of the famous English clown Grimaldi (I know, I know, that sounds really dry, but it's a great story about the good old days of the 1800's English music halls when being a comedy performer could actually get you killed). Outside of that, I'd like to tell lots of stories about outsiders of all shapes and sizes. You know, the movies that Hollywood doesn't think anybody wants to see (unless they're starring Ashton Kutcher as a nerd who doesn't realize he's actually a really handsome guy).

Were those indecisive enough answers for you? God, I suck.

A conversation with Paul Feig, creator of Freaks And Geeks (includes current pictures of the Freaks And Geeks cast)
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