So for my first interview ever, it couldn’t have gone better. Well, maybe if the iPod I was using to record the interview actually recorded it instead of just pretending to record it, it would have. Nevertheless, Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant, co-writers and stars (and director in the case of Garant) of Reno 911! and Reno 911! Miami, were great sports, really easy to talk to, funny and down to earth and I’m glad I got the chance to talk to them. Maybe it’s fitting that a largely improvised show ends up with a largely improvised write-up.

After almost falling asleep waiting for the interview to start, I was interrupted by the buzz of my phone.  It was the PR guy.  They were ready for me.  I told him to bring it on.  For some reason my nerves had settled and I was feeling good.  Then, in the background, I hear Lieutenant Dangle and Deputy Travis Junior saying hi to me.  After thanking them for the interview, I wished Ben a belated happy birthday.  He just happens to have the same birthday as my little brother, September 14.  Maybe catching him off guard a little with that one he thanked me in a surprised tone of voice and told me it was really nice of me to do that.

Now that I got the niceties out of the way, it was on to the questions.  Since these guys are the writers, creators, directors, and pretty much involved in all aspects of production of Reno 911!, I thought it only proper to ask them if there were any aspects of production they were NOT involved in.  Thomas answered first, saying that they have a prop guy.  “He brings all the props, we don’t bring any props,” he said.  He also told me that they quit using make-up about two years ago so they don’t need someone else to do that anymore.  Then Ben chimed in with “There’s also an armorer.  Yeah, they don’t let us play with guns without the armorer.”  Thomas said, in a sarcastic tone, that they pretty much don’t trust anyone else to do anything on any of their projects.

Then, since they’re the writers of the show and the movie, I had to ask them, what do they really write??  Isn’t most of the dialogue improvised anyway?  Without hesitation, they admitted that none--that’s right, none--of the dialogue is scripted.  Thomas said that they have an outline of what a scene might look like and from there it’s just funny people getting together and being funny.  Ben added that the only things that are scripted are usually explosions, car accidents, etc.—larger, well-orchestrated events.  To this I had to (jokingly of course) ask if anyone had the balls to “improv” a car crash scene by driving along and then just—oops!—swerving into the guardrail and hitting another car.  I didn’t expect Thomas to tell me that there was, in fact, an improv car crash.  In the movie, Reno 911! Miami, there is a scene where Thomas and Ben are in a car and Ben is driving.  He said that not only was Ben going about 20-30 mph faster than they were supposed to be for some reason, but he swerved off camera and you can hear Thomas in the background off camera yelling “F--k!” as they smash into another car.  You can see it happen, because they did keep it in the movie.  According to Thomas, he’s only been in two car accidents in his life and they were both on the set of Reno 911!

A lesser known aspect of these guys’ careers is that they write a lot of blockbusters such as Night at the Museum, Herbie: Fully Loaded, and The Pacifier, just to name a few.  When asked about this they admitted that it’s a lot of fun to be living a double life like they do.  They admitted that nobody really knows that they wrote those films but people in the movie industry are starting to catch on.  The first few scripts they did actually got laughed out of the studios and thrown in the garbage.  Then when a script was finally accepted, they had no say in what happened to it in editing and most, if not all, of it was changed.  Now, after having a number of blockbusters, they are actually being asked for their input on casting, sets, etc.  They are moving more and more toward complete and total control over all aspects of their projects, including movies.

As kind of a side note in the conversation, I mentioned that Paul Rudd and Danny Devito were guest stars in the movie and asked how that came to be.  I was told that another little known fact is that Danny Devito is part of the production company that produces Reno 911! so he has been with the show since the very beginning.  Paul Rudd popped up as a character on Reno 911!, referred to by Thomas as “the greatest character ever”, and so bringing his character back from the TV show into the movie seemed like a great idea.

As for their writing partnership, Thomas and Ben described it as a system where they don’t necessarily work on stuff together.  They just get basic ideas and then slowly flesh them out by writing and rewriting each other’s stuff and just going back and forth like that until they have a relatively good scene.  As for the differences between filming for TV and for movies, the major difference is time.  Apparently, they’ve been writing a movie for Eddie Murphy for about 9 years now and Eddie never even looked at it.  He’s recently taken a look at it and is interested.  (So keep an eye out for a movie written by Thomas and Ben with Eddie Murphy in it!)  But in contrast, they said they might get an idea for a scene for the TV show, write an outline, shoot it real quick and it will be on air within two weeks! 

As for what they are working on currently, they said they are always working on the show,  but to look out for Night at the Museum 2 which they are really excited about and got almost full control over.  They actually both said that we should expect Night at the Museum 2 to be better than Night at the Museum (which I thought was an excellent movie in and of itself).  Also coming out is the movie they wrote called The Incredible Shrinking Man which looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

At this point, a full 13 minutes into the interview, I got cut off by the PR guy (politely cut off, though) and was told I had time for one more question.  Extremely generous interview and generous offer but I was out of questions.  Now don’t get me wrong, I could’ve talked to these guys all day, but decided I’d let them off easy and let them get on with their long day of annoying interviews (like mine).  I thanked them for their time, they thanked me for mine, and we said our goodbyes.

I’ve got to say that overall I was impressed as hell at how down to earth these guys are.  They honestly could’ve been that guy you meet at the bar and he tells you about how he has this funny movie he should write and he would be a millionaire.  The only difference is that a) Thomas and Ben actually have talent and b) they actually have wrote multiple blockbuster scripts as well as acted in and directed in multiple hits on television as well as the big screen.  With resumes like that, you might expect them to be a little more high and mighty, maybe even a little self-important.  But if you didn’t already know who they were, there’s no way you ever would’ve known just by talking to them.

- Chris DeFiores

Staff Writer