Robert Ben Garant – Reno 911!

By starrymag | May 12, 2020

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) What was it like for you to return to “Reno 911!”?

A) It is more fun than it has ever been before, for me. It was just great. Everybody is so much better at what they do now and people are just appreciative in a way that they weren’t in the past. Now they’ve done ten years of other stuff and they are aware of how great it is to be so stupid, silly and make up what you want to say and say it. So, it was really great. It was a great experience. I was glad to do it.

Q) What makes 2020 the best time to return to the series?

A) It was a couple of things. The regimes changed at Comedy Central and the regime there that cancelled us left and the new regime said, “Come back anytime.” There was something about…It just felt like a weird lateral move to go back to the exact same network. It seemed like, “Meh.” It didn’t seem like any kind of twist or triumvirate return. It was like, “It’s been four years. Let’s do it again.” I don’t know. Maybe our heads are just in a different place. There was something about doing it on a new format that made it feel different enough. We tried to sell it to a streaming service a few years ago – Netflix. Nobody wanted it and we don’t really know why. Nobody wanted to touch it. We just didn’t want to go back to Comedy Central again. It just felt “meh.” But the idea of doing it somewhere different I think appealed to all ten of us.

Q) Where do we pick up with Junior?

A) He is married and he has a kid. It’s my real wife and my real kid playing them. He married…She’s clearly a stripper. You see the pole in the front yard – the laundry pole in the front yard is sheriff’s uniforms and stripper clothes. [laughs] So, he married one of the ones he’d flirt with back in the old show, which is great because I don’t have to remember to take off my wedding ring! I would forget that like once every other day. So, now I don’t have to do that anymore, which is great.

Q) Were you looking forward to bringing back any other characters you play?

A) Yeah, it is so much fun! Also, the amount of show only lets us serve the main characters – if that makes sense. The new season is about the length of three quarters of an old season. It’s not really that long, so we didn’t get to do a lot…We just didn’t have time to bring back everybody we wanted to bring back. We had more material than we had time for within the Quibis. We all wanted to do more and when we do more we’re going to try to bring back as many weird, old ideas as we can. But the show is mostly us. It’s mostly sheriffs. We bring back a few of our favs. We bring back Andrew (Jim Rash) and Big Mike (Toby Huss). But there wasn’t enough time to bring back everybody. George Lopez wrote me out of the blue and was like, “The trailer is great! Are you doing more? Can I come back?” So, I think that will kind of snowball. He was our beloved mayor and was so wonderful. Hopefully, as it gets out people will start to realize how much fun it is.

Q) What are some of your favorite episodes from this new season that to look out for or that you enjoyed shooting the most?

A) It was all really fun! It was wonderful watching Clemmie (Wendi McLendon-Covey) return. Man! Every word out of her mouth was like a homerun. It was really great seeing her back and just enjoying her character. She did a big long thing with Jones (Cedric Yarbrough) where they are just kind of going through a storage locker. We could have edited it to be an hour. It was just so fun and wonderful and great to see everybody just step into their old shoes. It was great! Every day was pretty fun.

Q) Was there something about filming these new episodes that surprised you or something you didn’t anticipate while filming but turned out to be pretty cool?

A) We did a few pieces this time…In the old show, there aren’t that many pieces where we’re all agreeing with each other and getting along. There is the one where we are doing the Arby’s scenario at the crime scene and trying to put together the crime based on the evidence in the room. It was all seven of us trying to move The Ten Commandments off the front lawn. There weren’t many where we all agreed on a bad idea and like really working together to do something really stupid. When we did that this time it was a lot of fun. We did a small pageant celebrating Indigenous People’s Day and we all are horribly misguided, but we all really agree and are excited about it. We do another where several of us are caught in an escape room and trying to figure out how to get out. The ones where we are not arguing and “Yes, and…”-ing, we did a lot of those this time and it was really fun. I never realized what a different flavor those were and how funny those can be when we’re all united in a terrible idea. We’ll do more of those if we get to do more “Reno” episodes because they really work and they are a good time.

Q) Episodes used to begin at the conference table. Do we start there with each Quibi episode?

A) It’s unlike the old show. Some of them have them and some of them don’t. We have them if they serve the plot and then we have them if they are really, really, really funny. But because the episodes are so much shorter…We used to have to recap the plot after every commercial break. We would be driving around in the car and say, “Boy, this execution is sure interesting.” We would have to remind people what happened and it’s nice not having to do that. So, the show really cooks now. There are morning briefings and they are all really funny, but they are not in every show.

Q) What were some of your favorite “Reno 911!” episodes of all time?

A) My favorite might be Coconut Nut Clusters with Kimball (Mary Birdsong) and Jones trying to sell candy bars and they have the worst day of their lives. There is something really funny about that episode. I think it’s the first time we every used Andy Daly and Andy Daly…God damn, he’s funny! He is one of the guys we brought back for Quibi. We met Andy Daly on that episode. We do some really good stunts on that episode and Jones and Kimball are just wonderful partners. That one and the Homeland Security ones are my favorite ones that we ever did. The Homeland Security with Oscar Nuñez …He was so funny and weird and wonderful. He came back…Originally, he was supposed to be Homeland Security for real and that is how it was written and how we pitched to him. After improving with him for like three days, Tom [Lennon], Kerri [Kenney] and I were saying, “There is no fucking way this guy is really with Homeland Security. He’s so weird! What if he’s a total conman? What if he’s not with Homeland Security?” So, that changed based on Oscar’s improv on set. That was like Season One and one of the first times on “Reno” that we really let improv steer the ship and we changed what we had carded up and let the improv happen on set and commit to it. The other was Kyle Dunnigan. His improv asked Kerri out on a date and she said “yes.” He was just supposed to come once and then afterwards we realized they should go on that date. We should film that date and we did. Then, they ended up getting married and he was the Truckee River Serial Killer and we ended up executing him. He then sent in tapes from the dead. That just happened through improv and we did it. So, tip for guest stars on our show – ask a character out and it might end up to future employment.

Q) Speaking of epic moments from the series, we loved when Terry would make an appearance. Are all of his scenes improvised as well?

A) We never know what [Nick Swardson] is going to say. We just walk up to him. He pitched us that character and we just walk up to him. So, Tom and I will walk up to him. Alright, that was good. “Kerri, you and Niecy [Nash] just walk up to him.” We never have any idea what is going to happen on those. The only problem with that is that he laughs a lot. So, we have to edit around Nick laughing. But those are just genius and there is no plan with those at all.

Q) When it comes to editing, how involved are you with it and what was editing for Quibi like compared to Comedy Central?

A) We have three terrific editors and Christian Hoffman has been our editor since the very beginning. He even directed a few episodes this season. So, he knows the show really, really well. In the old days, we would do takes that were forty minutes and then he would go through and edit them to down to pieces that were five or six minutes. Then, we give notes. Then, for the six weeks of post after we’re done editing Tom, Kerri and I sit and I do everything. “Didn’t he say something about fucking a monkey that was really funny? We could put that.” Then, we sculpt them with him. But he does the heavy lifting. Sometimes he does it a hundred percent there and sometimes he does it eighty percent there and then we come in and do for six weeks and then edit with him. We’re very hands on. For the Quibi episodes it was great because we didn’t waste as much time on set. We are better at it now than we used to be, I think, so we didn’t really do all that many forty-minute takes. We know what we need, we know what we want and we know when we’ve got something and move on. Our days were much, much more productive for Quibi than we were in the old days. We had Jim Rash in and he was in and out in about forty minutes and we got two amazing pieces. In the old days, I think we would have spit-balled and riffed. Now we really know kind of how to get at the meat quicker. So, post was shorter and more productive. Also, post with Quibi…We got quarantined with episode sixteen so we had to do the last nine episodes from home, which was slow. All of our editors got the systems installed in their house. We literally did it the Friday…Wednesday we had a Wrap Party. We said, “Should we have the Wrap Party?” And we took a poll around the office of how people feel about the Wrap Party. Half the people were like, “It’s fine.” Half the people said, “I’m a little nervous about a Wrap Party. It’s such a small bar that we’ll all be so close together.” We cancelled the Wrap Party and then literally that Friday we called it. Like two days later we called it and said, “Let’s install systems into peoples’ homes. Let’s edit via telephone.” We’d never heard of Zoom at that point. Then, we edited them all from home. Thank God we had editors that knew the material. We would watch takes and then get together on Zoom every day and discuss the cuts. That’s how we did the last nine episodes. If we had done this first season, we wouldn’t have finished, but because of Christian and the material being more concise the last nine episodes are as good as the first.

Q) You have great comedic timing. Is it something that has always been a natural ability for you or something that you had to work at?

A) “The State” started as a Black Box Comedy Group. First, a college group and then a local Black Box Theatre in New York. I was like the Harpo Marx guy. I would do stuff that often had no words in it at all. Like I would wrestle with a chair or I would do stuff that was just completely nonverbal. For the pilot of “Reno” Travis didn’t speak. He doesn’t say anything. He would just fall down and get punched and do physical stuff. I was always a big Buster Keaton fan and I always tried to do that type of humor. I really am more confident doing more physical stuff. Tom and Kerri are so brilliant. You can wind them up and they can talk for forty minutes and you can use all forty minutes of it. I much prefer planning a sight gag. I love that.

Q) What is something that we may be surprised to know about Junior?

A) People love…There is a guy named Bryan Suits who is a radio guy and an Iraqi vet. I got to know him through a bunch of different ways. He loves Travis Junior and his favorite episode is when the Junior brothers come to visit and everybody is telling stories. Junior is telling stories like, “Oh man! We get so crazy! I remember that one time where we all got drunk…” Then, when they come, they just sit in front of the TV in silence and watch Nascar and that’s it. Just drinking beers. That to me is so accurate. That is so my family. That’s so me if I never left Tennessee. My family is in law enforcement in Rutherford County Tennessee. I think every single character…I don’t know if people know this, but people didn’t have a lot of time to think about creating their characters for the pilot. We gave them nametags and then we said, “Okay, go.” Then, we interviewed people their first day on set. We said, “What’s your name?” “Garcia.” “How long have you been a copy?” “Uh, twenty-seven years.” People didn’t know we were going to ask these questions so they just went. Everybody’s character is not that different than them. Everybody’s character is sort of themselves making fun of themselves a bit at a party. I think if Tom were to make fun of Tom at a party, Dangle is pretty close to him making fun of himself. Junior is just me. Junior is me with a slightly thicker accent. The only thing I do acting wise with Junior is I have to remember, “Junior has probably not seen Rashoman.” I just have to remember that, but I don’t really have to act. I’m pretty much myself and remembering, “Oh, Junior probably calls edamame ‘peas.’” But it’s not acting. It’s kind of calibrating what Junior knows and what I know. There is no acting involved. It’s just me kind of being me.

Q) What is it about “Reno 911!” that continues to make it such a fan favorite show?

A) I don’t know. I like that it’s very well meaning. We’re all really, really well meaning. Yeah, we’re kind of mean to each other sometimes, but not that often. For as violent as it is…And its’ also surrounded by meth jokes and like open carry jokes and stuff that could potentially be really dark, but we’re all so well meaning. We all really kind of love our jobs. We’re all really trying our best. I don’t know if we really love our jobs, but we’re all trying our best and I think there is something in it that is very oddly sweet. We never particularly cruel to each other. If you look at a lot of sitcoms it’s just thirty minutes of people insulting each other. That’s all it is. We don’t really do that. We’re oddly sweet and there is something about that. I also love that you can clearly tell we’re not an anti…It’s funny because some people who really hate cops think it’s an anti-cops show, but cops love it. Cops love it and cops always say the same thing, which is, “Sometimes you have some kind of microphone in our briefing room because it’s exactly right.” So, it’s very interesting. People who think we hate cops, if you think it’s funny for that reason but we don’t. That’s really clear if you really look at it. I love it. Maybe it’s just because you can tell we’re having a lot of fun. I think there is that. I think you can really tell that we really enjoy it. And you can sometimes tell under the mustache that we’re holding back a laugh.