An interview with comedian Gilbert Gottfried

Gilbert Gottfried spoke to The Daily Pennsylvanian by phone from his native New York on Tuesday, a day before the Comedy Festival.

DP: You began doing stand-up at age 15. When did you know you wanted to be a comic?

GG: Pretty early. I'd been thinking about it for a while. I don't exactly know when, I just knew sometimes the class clowns grew up to become shipping clerks.

DP: What was most memorable about The Aristocrats for you?

GG: Well that Hugh Hefner roast, it wasn't shot for the film. The stuff they called me in for, I didn't get paid anything. That's what I find the most obscene about it. I thought, 'Oh, OK, this is a nice little movie for them.'

I didn't really expect it to turn out well at all.

DP: You're co-hosting ComFest with Paul Provenza [a Penn alumnus and director of The Aristocrats].

GG: Yeah, I've been at clubs with Paul before, and Penn Jillette. I've seen his magic shows. Penn & Teller are pretty much the way they are on-screen. Penn's wild and Teller doesn't talk. I remember, I made him start laughing, though!

DP: Do you look to any peers for inspiration?

GG: I was kind of thinking, when people say inspiration they might mean plagiarize. Well, I guess a lot of comedians over the years. A lot of old movies on TV: the Marx Brothers and stuff like that, a lot of different people. As far as nowadays, I can't really watch comics. I'll watch and say that was clever, but no one directly; I don't do political stuff.

DP: David Steinberg compared your retelling of the Aristocrats joke to a Picasso.

GG: Sure Picasso, van Gogh, they're a good crowd. Picasso's a lot more fun than I am. Material is much funnier. There was a lot of press from The Aristocrats, I wasn't expecting it. I kept reading the reviews and they kept tickling me out. The most favorable saying was like, "Gilbert Gottfried is so disgusting." Accurate if you think about it.

DP: You voiced Iago the parrot.

GG: Oh yeah, among my long list of birds there's Aladdin, a children's cartoon called "Cyberchase." My career has been for the birds.

When we were recording that, they brought in a big box of crackers. My mouth was actually stuffed with crackers, and I was yelling. I guess that makes me a method actor. Unlike Meryl Streep. I had no idea that [movie] was going to be the hit that it was; I don't mind being identified with Iago.

DP: Do you follow a script for the AFLAC commercials?

GG: I may have done some improvising, but there was a script. They told me sitting in a booth [to be] a little angrier, or less happy. I always said I can't complain, as long as they don't hire an actual bird.

DP: Having starred in both a Disney movie as well as what some critics called the dirtiest film of the year, are you going for a certain demographic?

GG: I like as varied an audience as you can get, you never know who's gonna turn on to you! I don't pick out any particular group.

DP: Does anything scare you?

GG: Anything offstage scares me. Yeah, sure, so for those of you who think of me as a macho superhero, well I hate to disappoint them. Famous last words.

DP: Any immediate plans?

GG: God only knows. I just wait around for the phone to ring. Eventually James Bond, but they haven't called me yet. I'd answer the phone, "I'll take it."

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