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Geoff Edgers
Journalist covering movies, museums, comedy, music and pop culture
It was a bad Tuesday for Norm Macdonald. An interview in the Hollywood Reporter, where he was quoted to support his friends Louis C.K and Roseanne Barr and questioning the Me Too movement, pushed him to launch "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" and tour the Twittersphere. Macdonald apologized late in the day, could not sleep, and Wednesday morning he found himself on Howard Stern explaining.
First, he stated that his comments had been "confused" during the interview.
"If I could just say I did not say that," said Macdonald. "And I have a lot of sorrow that people have taken it this way. Like that, I have so many women in my family and so many women that I know things have happened to them. I never said that the victims did not do anything. What I was saying was why I was bringing Louis and Roseanne together to talk, because only a few people around the world have experienced this new thing where everything is taken away from them and where they can feel involved.
Then he talked about how "#MeToo is what you want for your girls".
Netflix has confirmed that it will go ahead with "Norm Macdonald Has a Show", which will air Friday with the 10 episodes available. And if several preselected episodes are revealing, Macdonald is unlikely to be controversial when it airs.
The show is a step back, away from politics and current events. It allows Macdonald to work on his strengths, creating captivating conversations that take surprising and unexpected turns.
"Norm Macdonald has a show." starts Friday on Netflix. (Eddy Chen)
For example, in 10 minutes with Jane Fonda, he asks the actress to talk about God ("Do you believe in the hypostatic Jesus?"), Compare her ex-husbands and stand up against the icon of exercises Suzanne Somers. Are his thighs as powerful as yours? Macdonald asks at one point. "Well, her breasts are safe," says Fonda.
Macdonald, 58, is best known for being a presenter at the "Saturday Night Live" weekend in the '90s, but he's ready for a talk show for years. During this long wait, Macdonald directed sitcoms, tweeted endless hours of play-by-play golf and wrote a dazzling comic novel.
But the Netflix show gives Macdonald a chance to remind a wider audience of his special gift for conversation.
[Norm Macdonald doesn’t like endings]
David Letterman, the long-time host who helped Macdonald present his show to Netflix content boss Ted Sarandos, is a guest on the program, including Lorne Michaels, David Spade, Drew Barrymore, Michael Keaton and Night Night. Billy Joe Shaver, Judge Judy Sheindlin and Chevy Chase.
Recently, but before the Hollywood Reporter's interview, Macdonald and longtime partner Lori Jo Hoekstra met at a restaurant in Los Angeles to discuss the show.
Q: At one point, your show counted on a team of editors, including Steve O Donnell, who was a key figure for Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel.
Macdonald: We had the idea of a sort of "Larry Sanders Show" reverse. Where Larry Sanders had the behind-the-scenes stuff and then the little clips from the show. It was going to be the show with little excerpts behind the scenes. Then we realized there was no backstage when there were only two people. . . and we were afraid that no one would have any attention. We were afraid that if we left a minute or a minute and a half for a sketch, people would turn them off.
Q: Your list of guests. What happened to these decisions?
Macdonald: We wanted diversity more than anything else. Then, he became somehow people we thought were the most interesting. I only know old people. Eddie Murphy was a little my dream guy.
Q: Who else?
Macdonald: Steve Martin. Martin Short. Burt Reynolds, I really wanted it and I still think it would have been great. Burt Reynolds would be a lot more interesting than a 25 year old guy. [This was before Reynolds’s death.]
Hoekstra: Jake Tapper, you have mentioned it a lot.
Macdonald: He is my new favorite.
Q: There are endless shows with comedians interviewing comedians. And you have Lorne, Spade and Letterman.
Macdonald: Without a doubt, we thought it was for the actors.
Q: Why? These seem to be well.
Macdonald: We did not want it to be inside baseball. I really wanted to have this guy. The race car driver Niki Lauda. Oh, it's just an amazing guy. His vision of life right now. He almost died. He is a burn victim. And he's in the hospital. They had to take the burned parts of the car out of his lungs. But his first thing after coming out of a coma was to go back and run. The guys who interest me because they are religious, I can not do them. I wanted to have Jimmy Swaggart, I wanted to have Louis Farrakhan.
[Will somebody please give Norm Macdonald another TV show?]
Q: What interested you in Jane Fonda?
Macdonald: It's like on "Saturday Night Live" when we had guests. When it was a guest like Martin Lawrence, it would be hard to write a show. If it was Charlton Heston, you could do a sketch "Ben-Hur", a sketch "Planet of the Apes". They bring so much with them. If you interview someone like Jane Fonda, it can take five hours. . . .
And since I'm not up to the others, they say, you know who you should get. I've never heard of it, but it's the biggest star in comedy. It's really happened. The biggest star of comedy, but I did not know who she was. This is not his fault.
Q: Who?
Hoekstra: Tiffany Haddish.
Macdonald: I'm sure she's incredibly funny, but I really should do a lot of research. This is not his fault.
Q: You are a little behind.
Macdonald: Step by step. These are the shows I did not watch. "Community". "30 Rock". The show of Amy Poehler. "Seinfeld."
Q: Have you ever watched "Seinfeld"?
Macdonald: But I will do it.
Q: "Mad Men"?
Macdonald: I watched every "Mad Men". Here is the thing. These are not them. That's me. I have only seen a handful of these shows. But it's because I have this OCD where I have to look first to last. I watch the first of the "Comedians in Cars". That's why I go on YouTube. I'm here for eight hours because I'm going to Orson Welles and I want to see everything.
Q: It would be a very interesting interaction. Tiffany Haddish and you.
Macdonald: That's what people say. I would love to have it. I do not intend to interview anyone unless I learn about everything they have done. Because I've been interviewed like this. Where people follow what you did. I had interviews where people said, "What did you do after the update?" I said, "What?" And then I realized that it was "Where are they now?
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