Interview Magazine September 2006:

Russell interviews Jay Leno

He's been portrayed-and even dismissed-as an everyman nice guy who somehow lucked into comedy's most vaunted seat. Now, as he embarks upon his 15th season as host of The Tonight (and prepares to hand over the reins to Conan O'Brien in 2009), it's time for a more complicated story to emerge. Here, Jay Leno talks about his private life, David Letterman, and why Hollywood is filled with geniuses.[/i]

by Russell Crowe

RUSSELL CROWE: How are you, man? What are you up to?

JAY LENO: Right now I'm just working on a car, a Tatra. It's a very strange Czechoslovakian car with an air-cooled V8 in the back. It's really unusual and bizarre—it was the precursor to some of the German Volkswagens and stuff. There are no books about it, and I speak no Czechoslovakian, so it's a fuckin' nightmare trying to put this thing together.

RC: So it's rear-mounted?

JL: Rear-mounted. Air-cooled. V8. Overhead cam. It's pretty neat.

RC: How did you come across it ?

JL: It was here in LA, actually One great thing about L.A. is that if you're into cars and motorcycles, everything is within 50 miles of your house. People have been bringing cars to Los Angeles for so many years, and with our climate out here, they don't rust or rot away so there's just tons of them hidden in garages and stuff.

RC: So, with all of these cars that you've got, I'm hoping you've got some kind of opinion on alternative fuels.

JL: Oh, I love alternative-fuel vehicles. I've got a couple of them here. I've got a 1909 Baker electric car. I've also got a car called an Owen Magnetic. It's a 1916 hybrid car. It's got a gas engine and drives with an electric motor, much like a Prius, but obviously not as advanced. The basic principle is the same, though.

RC: What do you see as the most viable alternative fuel for the future?

JL: The fuel that works very well, but no one likes because it's not sexy, is diesel. Volkswagen has a car with a diesel engine in Europe. It's a three-cylinder that gets 78 miles per gallon. Americans don't like diesel, though, because it makes them think of trucks. Hydrogen is also interesting. I've driven a BMW hydrogen car, which uses liquid hydrogen. It's got an onboard fuel cell, which keeps it cool, and a conventional-type motor. Hydrogen is still expensive to harvest, but it's a fascinating fuel.

RC: In terms of alternative fuels, what do you think that the government should be doing?

JL: Well, we live in a free-market economy, and when something is expensive, people cherish it more. It's supply and demand. When gas is cheap, people like to drive big, fast, luxury cars, and when gas gets expensive, people will drive small, fuel-efficient cars. That's really the way it goes. I see it already in Los Angeles: Since gas went up to almost $4 a gallon, my morning commute is probably 10 times quicker because there are less people on the freeway and probably more people riding in each individual car. So raising the price of gas is really the only way you'll get Americans out of these kinds of vehicles. General Motors made a terrific car called the EV-1, which was all electric. They spent more than $1 billion developing this thing, and they couldn't give it away because people didn't want to buy an electric car. I drove one and thought it was fabulous. It went only around 120 miles on a single charge, but that's enough to get to work every day and plug it in at night. People wouldn't buy them, though. Now that gas is expensive, maybe they'll start looking that way.

RC: So, tell me about your wife, Mavis.

JL: My wife? Oh, my wife's great. We've been married for just about 26 years. She's very involved in human rights and women's rights. Her organization [Mavis Leno is the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan] got a Nobel Peace Prize nomination a couple of years ago for the work that they did in Afghanistan. She goes on speaking tours and gives lectures. I'm quite proud of her. We have the sort of relationship that I've always wanted. I'm the stupid guy who tells jokes and then she contributes the give-back-to-society part, so as a team we work pretty good.

RC: What's your favorite Bee Gees song ?

JL: What's the one where the guy is going to his execution?

RC: I was thinking your favorite one might be "Massachusetts."

JL: Oh, I forgot about "Massachusetts"! But what's the one I'm thinking of, with, "The preacher talked with me and he smiled"?

RC: I have no idea. I never really listened to the Bee Gees. [laughs] I don't know much about Massachusetts either, so tell me about growing up in Andover .

JL: Andover was incorporated in 1646. It's one of the oldest cities in America. It's funny when you come here to Los Angeles and people point to houses that were built in 1948 and go, "Ooh! Aah! 1948!" and the house up the street from where we lived in Andover was built in 1616 or something crazy like that. But Andover was a nice place to grow up. There was a creek and there were canoes and there was a ghost town in the middle of the woods that had been a stagecoach stop where we'd find arrowheads. It was the kind of place where, if someone had a porno book, you had to drive your bicycle two miles in the woods, count 50 steps, turn over a log, and there would be a magazine hidden underneath it. It was just that sort of idyllic childhood that I'm not sure exists anymore.

RC: So what about you is very typical of somebody who comes from Massachusetts ?

JL: Probably my work ethic. Andover is very different from Los Angeles. It wasn't until I came to LA. that I met adults who acted like children. I could never imagine my father playing video game or talking about women and dating. My dad was my friend, but he was my dad first. Here, everyone also has a therapist, but in Massachusetts they have what they call New England therapy: There's a gun and there's the barn and you're supposed to go into the barn with the gun. If you come out, then good, your problem is solved. If you don't, then, ah, too bad.

RC: [laughs] So that work ethic you talked about—how many nights a week now do you go off straight after your show and do a stand-up gig?

JL: I do probably 150 or 160 dates a year, so three nights a week I'm flying somewhere after the show.

RC: How did you start out doing stand-up? It's the most difficult of all performance arts.

JL: Well, when I was in high school, I had an English teacher named Mrs. Hawkes, and one day she stopped me in the hall and said, "You know, you're always acting stupid, and I always see you entertaining people and telling stories. Did you ever think of writing any of that down?" So I said no and she said, "I'm going to be teaching a creative writing class and I want you to take it. I will give you English class credit." So I said okay, and it was the first time in my life I ever enjoyed doing homework. I sat down and wrote out some of my stories and she read them in class and I got some laughs, so I thought, Maybe I can make a living doing this. Then I went to the Bentley School of Accounting for about six months, but, being dyslexic, working with numbers wasn't really my strong suit. Then the choice was either Vietnam or college, so I said, "Well, let me go to college." I went to Emerson, which was nearby, but I didn't really pay much attention to school because I was too busy doing stand-up. I had a job washing cars and working at a dealership so I could make enough money to fly to Kansas City or Cleveland or wherever I had to go to perform at these Playboy Clubs that were around. This was before comedy clubs, so I used to work strip joints and burlesque houses and those kinds of places. Then, a lot of times at night, maybe two or three times a week, I would drive down to New York from Boston to work at the Improv or one of the famous places. Emerson is a fine school. I just wasn't a particularly good student or particularly interested. I graduated, but that was so I could say, "Here you go, Ma. I got the degree like I promised."

RC: So who's smarter: you or David Letterman?

JL: Who's smarter? Dave's probably smarter. I tend to fixate a little bit more. Again, I always put ambition ahead of genius. Everyday in Hollywood I meet another genius. I meet a guy whose script was so good that the studios were scared of it, or a guy whose show was so funny that they were afraid to put it on TV. But I rarely meet anybody who says, "You know what? My work just wasn't good enough," which is the category that I would put myself in—and, yet, somehow, I seem to do better than a lot of those other people.

RC: So you don't feel sorry at all for David that he's been in your shadow for 11 years?

JL: Dave's not in anybody's shadow.

RC: But you have been No. 1 in the ratings, in case nobody's told you, for more than a decade.

JL: Well, that's ratings, but television is a matter of personal taste. People like what they like, and there are very few things that are finite. Boxing is one of the few areas where there is an undisputed champion because there's no opinion involved. You punched the other guy in the face and you knocked him out—you won, case closed. When it comes to ratings, everyone will have an excuse. People will say, "Well, the lead-in shows were good" or "The local news isn't strong" or "Yes, but the critics liked it."

RC: So you don't gloat?

JL: No.

RC: You don't, like, send him flowers on ratings day?

JL: I've never called myself "The King of Late Night" or any nonsense like that. I'm very fortunate. I'm very glad I'm winning, but I realize that that can change at any second. It could change with a monologue. Something that we do that other shows don't do is that we try to do a new show every day We don't bank shows. We don't tape shows, because what we try to do is a funny version of the news. If something happened at 3 P.M., then I would like to have a joke on the air that night about that particular subject. I think what people like about the monologue is the immediacy of it.

RC: I've noticed, because I've been watching the show over a long period of time, that some nights the comedy is edgier or sharper than at other times. What do you use to
take the temperature of how you're going to be on a particular night? Is it truly based on the news or on a wider sort of social temperature?

JL: Well, both. The ultimate example would be 9/11. After 9/11, comedy was extremely gentle and soft. You know, when times are good, you make fun of serious stuff. When times are serious, you make fun of silly stuff. I do remember a joke that was the turning point after 9/11. It was a couple of months after the attacks, and I don't know what the setup was, but the punch line was, "You know, President Bush said that if you don't laugh at this monologue then that means the terrorists have won." That joke got a huge laugh and sort of opened a door. From that point on, it got easier again. I try to write 50 to 60 percent of the monologue the night before and then add to it throughout the day, because let's say I have a bunch of funny airplane stuff and then there's a crash and 15 people are killed. We have to throw all that away and go back and look at the other subjects. What's the second story? The third story? I mean, the ultimate great comedy story is drunken airline pilots who didn't crash the plane, and where no one was injured, but, oh, my God, here's what could have happened. There's a lot of material there. Obviously, Bill Clinton and chubby girls under the desk—that was the golden age. I mean, nobody was dying, there was no war, the economy was good, and here's the president of the United States acting like a guy. Of course that was huge.

RC: How do you deal with the politics? I may be misinterpreting this, but I feel like you do try to make your point now and then without actually putting up some sort of banner.

JL: I think that's fair to say. But the idea is to tell the joke first and get the laugh. If you want to get a little social commentary in there, then that's fine, but your first job as a comedian is to get the laugh. I don't think anyone can figure out what my politics are. I try to walk the line and humiliate and degrade Republicans and Democrats equally It always makes me laugh when I have Arnold Schwarzenegger on or something, and somebody says, "Oh, you and your Republican buddies—I hope you're happy." Then a couple of
weeks later we'll have Howard Dean on and other people will say, "Oh, you and your Democratic friends—1 guess you felt like you made a statement." I get hate letters from both
sides.

RC: What are your great hopes for your kids?

JL: I don't have any kids.

RC: You don't?

JL: No,no.

RC: Then how do you feel about that?

JL: It's just one of those things. My wife never wanted kids and I wasn't really keen on the idea. Plus, we're on the road most of the time and what usually happens is that the wife goes home and has the kid and the guy is out on the road and fools around and then he comes home and it turns into a big fight. This way, it's like we've been dating for 26 years. If I have to go somewhere, I'm like, "Honey, do you want to go?" and we pack our bags and go off together. I mean, I like kids. It's just that I don't have any

RC: So can you explain what a manifold is?

JL: Intake or exhaust?

RC: Both.

JL: Well, the intake manifold connects to the cylinders and that brings the fuel into the combustion chamber. As for the exhaust manifold, when the valve opens, that is where the
heat goes out into the atmosphere.

RC: Now back to David Letterman. Did you suggest to him that Top 10 idea?

JL: No, I didn't.

RC: I always consider that you conned him into it.

JL: No, no. I had nothing to do with that.

RC: Do you think your guests have a nicer time?

JL: Oh, man, these are some loaded questions. [Crowe laughs] We always enjoy having you on. You're a good guest. My theory is, you make the guest look good at the expense of the host. When I started the show, I was the new guy, and I couldn't get a lot of guests that Johnny did, so,consequently I learned the real trick is knowing when to hold back. A lot of the time the guest will say something and as a comic your instinct is to just throw a comedy dagger in there and get the big laugh. And maybe you will get a big laugh, but you've just pissed off the guest or hurt their feelings and they won't come back. So being a host you sort of learn to hold your tongue and let them sort of hang themselves if that's the case.

RC: You just described yourself at the time when you were the new guy. So how does it feel now? Fifteen years feels like it's gone by very quickly.

JL: Incredibly quickly I have guests on the show now who were babies when I started guest-hosting. I had Keira Knightley on a while ago, and she was bom in, like, 1985.

RC: Has your life with Mavis changed at all?

JL: Well, I'm still driving the same car that I had when we first got together. Back when Mavis and I were first dating, we went to a spot here in Los Angeles and were thinking, Well, this would be a good place to make love for the first time. So we get in the backseat of the '55 Buick I was driving at the time and it's all fine. Then, for one of our anniversaries, maybe our 20th or something, I thought, You know, let's take the Buick and go to that exact same spot and see if we can re-create. So we drive back to the place and, of course, there are tract homes there now. But it's, like, two o'clock in the morning, and we're kind of near some guy's driveway and we're both trying to get in the backseat. It's like, "Ow! My hair! Look out!" And one of us hits the horn and the guy's porch lights turn on and he comes running out, like, "What are you doing?"

RC: [laughs] Oh, romance.

JL: Other than that, it's still pretty good. There's a comfort zone you get into when you're with the right person. I look at friends of mine, male and female, with wacky spouses, and I think, "Oh, man, I'm so lucky. These people are crazy ."

RC: Do you have a spiritual base to your life?

JL: No.

RC: The Church of Holy Combustion?

JL: I don't, really. Life is not that hard. You treat people the way that you would like to be treated. It doesn't seem that complicated to me. When I go down the street and see someone with a flat tire, I stop and help them change it. And, you know, I'm a friend for life. Lyndon Johnson used to say that every handshake is worth 250 votes, and it's really true. In show business, there are two extremes: You're either a nice guy or an asshole, and there's nothing in between. If you get on an elevator and someone says, "Hello," and you don't say hello back to them, then you're an asshole to that guy for the rest of his life. If you say, "Hey, it's good to meet you, buddy. Okay, take care," then you're the greatest guy he's ever met. That's just the way it is.

Russell Crowe can be seen this November in Ridley Scott's A Good Year.

Thanks to Chats - Back to news