Disguise the Limit

Kirk Baird

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 4:27 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION: Feb. 2, 2003

It's an age-old dilemma: career or family.

For comedian Dana Carvey the choice was simple: family.

Known best for his spot-on impersonations and characters of "Saturday Night Live" -- George Bush the elder, Ross Perot, Regis Philbin, the Church Lady, and teenage headbanger Garth -- his film career has been decidedly less impressive, a fact the 47-year-old Carvey acknowledges.

Most recently the actor-comedian can be seen in "The Master of Disguise," a low-budget comedy for children just released on DVD.

Carvey also spends a few months each year doing stand-up, and will perform Friday through Feb. 9 at the Paris Las Vegas Le Theatre Des Arts.

The Las Vegas Sun recently talked to the father of two from his home in Los Angeles about his film career, his relationship with former "SNL" cast member Mike Myers and the possibility of a Church Lady movie.

Las Vegas Sun: Some comedians abandon their stand-up career for acting, but you haven't.

Dana Carvey: Billy Crystal does a lot of dates. Obviously, Robin (Willimas) does a lot. (Jerry) Seinfeld, (Jay) Leno, obviously. To me, it's part of my job. If I didn't do stand-up for a year, I don't know... I think it's important, what works out your brain like that and keeps you thinking of new things. It's fun. And Vegas is easy to get to.

For the last 15 years I've probably done 25 to 35 dates a year, sometimes more. This is part of that. I'll do about 20 dates between January and May. And then I'll take the summer off with my family. And then I'll probably do another 15 in the fall. It's just something I've never stopped doing. It's something I love to do.

Sun: Your career -- especially in movies -- seems to have slowed. Why is that?

DC: My career path went into "career light" as soon as I had kids. I know it's bizarre and extraordinary and no one would believe me, but that's really what happened. We don't have any assistance or nannies. I don't know what these people do when the kids are up all night with the flu and (the parent) has to go to a movie. Or just the mass amount of work with baths and reading and after-school things and playdates. It's gotten lighter. That's why I did a movie last year and I'm being a little more active. But the first six, seven years it was wild.

Sun: How was it possible, then, for you to make "The Master of Disguise"?

DC: Well, my kids got older, which was a big, big part of it. So they're both in school full time and that really freed up my wife (Paula). And that was really the major difference. Still, I missed a lot that year. And it's a constant thing I'm trying to balance.

It's just a Hollywood cliche that actors' kids and wives get in the way and they say, "See ya." But they don't say it until later on the A&E "Biography": "I really was working too much and I feel bad about neglecting my family. But now I have a new kid and I'm 70 and that kid I'm going to stay home for."

Sun: Critics were unkind to "The Master of Disguise," yet the low-budget film turned a modest profit, scoring nearly $41 million at the box office.

DC: It'll gross about $150 million with DVD. The critics were absolutely right. Of course it's a mess. And that was my fourth draft that I was forced to write. My first draft was an R-rated thriller, and I'm not kidding. That being said, 8-9 million kids loved it. I've got hundreds of letters. I've visited terminally ill kids who loved the movie and wanted to meet me. That I couldn't argue with. They said, "Come on, go promote the movie." I said, "I don't know, it's really not what I set out to make." They said, "But yeah, the kids love it." So that part of it was great.

I don't think critics really kind of understand how movies are made sometimes. They think if it says "Dana Carvey in..." they think it's auteur, they think I am in total control. Because when you go on the press junket you can't say, "Oh, by the way, there's 80 percent of things in here that I don't get, either." When they cut ("Master of Disguise") from two hours to an hour I was like, "Wow, no (expletive)."

I would just say to any critic or anyone, just please judge me on my "Saturday Night Live" stuff and stand-up and not movies because I'm not an auteur. And I thought the critics were very kind (to "Master of Disguise"). I did not see any reviews that I disagreed with, that I thought were mean-spirited.

Sun: Why is it you didn't have more control of the film?

DC: Because I took eight years off and I was working with a company that has enormous power and has every right to have control, and that's Adam Sandler and Jack Giarraputo. They have a different sensibility than me. And that didn't reveal itself until we were halfway through filming.

With me it was like, "Either you do it the way we want or you're not going to make a movie." And I don't think people understand that. The choice was not to make the movie. It was not me going, "No, I wanna make the movie I wanna make." They were like, "You haven't made a movie in eight years, you're almost 50, we need these assurances. We need it to be PG and we need it to have this kind of appeal." And I don't blame them at all -- they had every right to do that. That's the way the Hollywood system works.

I don't think Mike (Myers) had total control of the first ("Austin Powers"), but probably it's working with people with similar sensibilities. And sometimes that's the luck of the draw. Now when Mike did "So I Married an Axe Murderer," he was working with someone with a different sensibility. And so that movie didn't make $200 million because he was struggling, I know firsthand, to get control of the sensibility of that movie.

Sun: There have been rumors that you and Myers did not get along during the filming of the second "Wayne's World" movie. Is that true?

DC: Not true at all. We got along fine. I do like him, I just haven't talked to him since '92. Of course, I haven't talked to David Spade in five years either and I like him, or Tim Meadows ....

Sun: Any chance of a Church Lady movie anytime soon?

DC: I've written a script for her, "Church Lady and the Malibu Beach Party." I would consider doing it. That's the character that people come up to me (and talk about) the most, like she's alive. She is a 60-year-old woman, so I'm still not quite old enough to play her. Now it would've looked funny me doing her at 32 with a gray wig on. But I'm getting closer.

She's kind of evergreen to me, timeless. I feel like she'll just comment on whatever's going on in her own twisted point of view. So I think it may be time for the bitch to come back.