![]() ![]() He is repped by ICM, Anonymous Content and Morris Yorn. Levy, who has appeared in more than 50 films, will next be seen in Goon, a hockey comedy that stars Seann William Scott and Jay Baruchel, and he will reprise his role from the American Pie films in April’s American Reunion. Perry, who wrote the script and is directing, produces with Paul Hall and Ozzie Areu. I'll write something down and go, OK, what is that? That's garbage, put it away.Also in the cast are Doris Roberts, Devan Leos, Tom Arnold and Danielle Campbell. "I don't really sit down and doodle funny things. But for me, doing what I do in the movie, if I do it with as much intelligence as I can muster - I mean, cheap is cheap and funny is funny - but if I can make him credible in my own mind, then I'm making him credible to other people, and that's as good as I can do." I've done movies that are really done without a hell of a lot of intelligence going on. "Believe me, I've done movies that are just the lowest of the low. It doesn't matter how cheap a joke you're going for or how cheap a situation, if you're doing it smart, then it's quite valid and good. Those are the rules that have kept this theater going in Chicago since 1959, and have kept it going in Toronto since 1973 doing eight shows a week, and is: Always work at the top of your intelligence level. ![]() You go into the theater and you're given these kind of golden rules of comedy that work for The Second City theater. "Maybe it was the influence that Second City had on me that kind of honed my perception of comedy. I mean, as a kid, if I was reading Noel Coward I wouldn't turn to somebody and say, 'You've got to I don't think I really got into anything more sophisticated until much later in my life. I loved all the cheap stuff - Abbott and Costello, I was a huge fan of Jerry Lewis, Martin and Lewis - when I was a kid. The Kobal Collection Eugene Levy with Jason Biggs and the now-infamous defaced pie in one of his most popular recurring roles as Jim's dad in American Pie. It's Levy! No, it's a bird.' And that would 'Vote for Levy' at the bottom. "It got to the point where I ran for president of the student council. And this became kind of infectious it just got around. And he said, 'I gotta show this to my friends over at the next table.' So he took the book and passed it around and people started laughing. "So I would write these things in my little notebook, which I entitled 'Poetry Pros and Cons,' and at some point somebody in the cafeteria said, 'What are you writing in there?' He looked over to see it, and I got kind of defensive because I thought, 'Nobody is going to find this funny, this is just for me.' He said, 'No, let me see it,' and then he started laughing. I would title something: 'Insect Asides.' And then I would write: 'Spider spider spin your web/clean your cleats and scratch your head/don't eat figs, tomatoes or spaghetti/just lie around and throw confetti.' "In high school I took an old notebook and I had these weird little stories or poems. ![]() I didn't want to change the lines, but I quickly learned that he wants you to open up in places and just go a little wild in an improvisational sense." I didn't know that when I started shooting. " an amazing improviser, and he encourages improvising from all the cast in the movie. We did that until we got back to Toronto - and then we got cheap again."Ĭheap comedy, it is clear, is something that Levy still can't leave behind. "We kind of got the ABCs in how to move a scene along and make it work without getting cheap. "We were used to doing a cheaper version of comedy up in Toronto than they were used to in Chicago," Levy tells Simon. It was, Simon says, "the greatest Second City cast I ever saw." ![]() Weekend Edition's Scott Simon, who saw Levy perform in 1974 when Levy and other members of Second City's Canadian chapter - including Catherine O'Hara, Dan Aykroyd and John Candy - traveled for an improv show at the theater's original home in Chicago. Levy has been acclaimed for his wild improvisational work over the years at The Second City comedy theater and in films including Photofest Levy (left) with some of the noted comedians that were part of Second City in Toronto: (from left, after Levy) Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Rosemary Radcliffe and John Candy. ![]()
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