Eugene Levy, a comedy relief actor for more than three decades, has become a star character player thanks to the success of the American Pie comedies. The Canadian tells Donald Clarkeabout his new film, satire of the Oscar industry
THE movie industry is awash with performers who, though successful, will never get beyond being known as "that bloke". For the first 25 years of his career it looked as if Eugene Levy, a kindly Canadian with eyebrows like black caterpillars, might remain just such a figure.
Born 60 years ago in Hamilton, Ontario, Levy gained modest local fame on the sketch show Second City TV before making his way to Hollywood and securing a reputation as an endlessly reliable comic character actor. That's him - usually the slightly dim, but decent fellow - in Splash, Father of the Bride and Bringing Down the House, and the best thing in films as apocalyptically terrible as New York Minute and The Ladies Man.
"I honestly have been extremely lucky," Levy tells me. "I have never had to take an ordinary job. I have never had to wait tables to sustain my life. I am a character actor in TV shows and movies. I am very comfortable doing that. You go in for a week. You have three scenes and you can score big time. You don't have to worry about carrying exposition or story. It's very nice."
As the turn of the century approached, two contrasting projects began to alert cinemagoers to the fact that "that bloke" might actually have a name. In 1999, Levy stole American Pie, the notoriously lubricious teen comedy, from the younger performers with his characteristically sweet turn as Jason Biggs's earnest, endlessly embarrassing father.
"I was initially suspicious of that film," he laughs. "If you think the movie was raunchy you should have seen the original script. But when I went to the premiere I realised it was a kind of classic. It opened up a whole new kids' market for me."
Three years earlier he had co-written and acted in Waiting for Guffman, the first - and, for this writer, best - of Christopher Guest's largely improvised comic mock-documentaries. That film received only modest attention at the time, but its successor, Best in Show, was a mainstream success in 2000. A Mighty Wind, the story of a reunion of various cosy folk acts from the 1960s, solidified the team's reputation.
And now we have For Your Consideration, in which Levy, Guest and the rest of the regular company (including Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean and Fred Willard) turn their attention to the peculiar mass of gossip and hype that attends the Academy Award nominations.
"It all came from a story that Christopher's wife Jamie Lee Curtis tells," Levy explains. "A few years back she was in this film Freaky Friday. Somebody casually said to her: 'I wouldn't be surprised if you were nominated. This is such a strong performance.' Initially she was like 'Oh, don't be silly; it's just a comedy'. And then she found she couldn't get it out of her head. It began driving her crazy."
The first of the company's comedies to abandon the mock-documentary format, For Your Consideration - as always, co-written by Guest and Levy - brings us to the set of an independent picture called Home for Purim. When the film's two jobbing stars, played poignantly by O'Hara and Harry Shearer, hear murmurings from the internet that they may get the nod from the Academy, attitudes to the project change in various unattractive ways. The studio bosses want to remove the ethnic touches. The actors start getting competitive.
Levy has written (and improvised) a typical role for himself. Morley Orfkin, agent to Shearer's character, is a dumb, confused sort of fellow who - unlike most such figures in Hollywood satires - is less of a shark than a tuna with ideas above his station.
"I was a little hesitant about showing it to my manager and agent," he says. "It doesn't paint an awfully pretty picture. But I lowered the bar mentally so much with this guy I don't think anybody would ever see themselves in the character. He is too useless."
Even if they did see themselves in the character, Levy's people would be unlikely to get all that offended. The films that Guest has put together over the last decade are delightful, but one might argue they are overly affectionate towards the worlds they satirise. Indeed, "satirise" may be too strong a word for the gentle ribbing that goes on in A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. One occasionally longs for the team to put the boot in.
"There is never anything savage about the films," Levy agrees. "When we were still making them as fake documentaries, Chris didn't really like the way they were constantly described as 'mockumen- taries'. He didn't like the use of the word 'mock'."
The gentle warmth of Guest's films has helped disseminate an image of Levy as an amiably avuncular figure with limited brain power, but plenty of heart. In person, he, inevitably, seems considerably brighter than his creations, but every bit as solid and unexcitable. He rarely makes jokes and never allows his voice to rise above a gentle burble.
Mind you, until recently he has never had to deal overmuch with the pressures of fame. The success of American Pie changed that somewhat. Levy will never be confused with Johnny Depp but, since the release of that film, he has increasingly found himself recognised in public places. One hope that this limited class of celebrity won't change him the way the whiff of Oscars corrupts the characters in For Your Consideration.
"After American Pie I started to get these movies that are geared for the younger set," he muses. "The oddest thing is that I can be walking down any street and it is mostly kids who will look over and know who I am. I don't mind that at all, though. The kids are going to go to movies for another 30 years. They are going to know who I am and they are hopefully always going to have a soft spot for me."
Happily, it seems as if fame may have come too late to corrupt Eugene Levy.
