In common with many humorists, Eugene Levy and Christopher Guest aren’t crack-ups in person.
Now in their late 50s, the longtime collaborators display a measured thoughtfulness in lieu of the manic energy one might expect from the creators of “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show.”
During a recent interview during a publicity day at a San Francisco hotel, where both men wore the requisite sport coats and blue jeans, Levy’s assessment of his persona as an actor was the closest either came to a quip.
“Honestly, if I’m playing a character that’s not Jewish, I will try and bridge that difference because there’s no way I can go on a screen and not look Jewish. [The late, great actor John] Gielgud, I don’t think, in my skin could pull it off.”
His latest collaboration with Guest, “For Your Consideration,” sends up the insecurity and opportunism endemic to the movie business. The film, which opened to mixed reviews, is now playing in theaters throughout the Bay Area.
The action takes place largely on the set of “Home For Purim,” a melodrama about a Jewish family reunion distinguished by portentous dialogue and deadly earnest performances.
“It comes from the standpoint of the writers of the movie within the movie, Bob Balaban and Michael McKean, playwrights that would have taken this subject thinking it had this gravitas,” Guest explains. “‘Let’s take something about Jews in the South and let’s lay on the additional thing of the gay daughter and let’s make it a period piece, because then it will really be good.’ Of course, they can’t write for s—- but that’s a whole other thing.”
The idea of Purim came from left field, or rather, the Left Coast, Guest admits.
“Although in Los Angeles you see Purim carnival posters up, I didn’t know anything about it and Gene didn’t know anything about it, really. I had been to seders and all kinds of things but I’ve never been to a Purim celebration.”
Mining the collision of two cultures for laughs is as old as the hills, and the seed of “Home for Purim” (if not “For Your Consideration”) was planted a long time ago.
“I was in the deep, deep South about 15 years ago,” Guest recalls, “and I ran into a gentleman who was working in a hardware store in Valdosta, Georgia. A Jewish family from the South, they’d been there for a hundred years, with a deep Southern accent, speaking Yiddish, and I thought that was kind of interesting. I’m from New York City. You don’t hear that every day in Manhattan.”
“For Your Consideration” is a lightweight effort that goes after easy targets, and its themes are hardly profound. Its creators, however, are intelligent men of the world. A discussion of what constitutes Jewish humor culminates with this nugget, courtesy of Eugene Levy:
“I think assimilation is good,” the actor and writer quietly asserts. “That’s my thing. I think any culture and pocket and people who stay within their own culture and community, ultimately they’re bumping heads with every other culture, and the only way to break that down is for one culture to truly understand the other, which is intermarriage. That is the way of breaking down hostility and barriers.
“You can’t recognize another culture if you only stay within your own culture and learn about your own culture.”
“For Your Consideration” is now playing in theaters throughout the Bay Area.