Eugene Levy talks to Tim Nasson
Boston – Call him a character actor. That’s right. Eugene Levy, perhaps best known as Jim Levenstein’s (Jason Biggs) father from the “American Pie” movies, is “happy to be known as that character actor.”
Levy, who has been married to the same woman for nearly thirty years, and who hails from Ontario, Canada, recently turned sixty, but shows no signs of slowing down, on or off the big screen.
In addition to acting, Levy has been the co-writer of all of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries, beginning with “Waiting For Guffman” and continuing with the latest, not really a mockumentary, rather a satire, “For Your Consideration.”
“For Your Consideration,” already getting Oscar buzz (Best Original Screenplay) of its own, is a satire about Hollywood, poking fun at everyone who has anything to do with a movie from its inception to its release on DVD; the producers, director, writers, agents, publicists, actors, critics, Oscar, audiences and even the actors’ personal lives, after the movie has come and gone from theaters.
“The way I got into show business,” says Levy, at the Ritz Carlton in Boston, recently, sipping from a bottle of Evian water, “is not a glamorous story. It was 1971, and I was friends with Ivan Reitman, (the future director of “Ghostbusters”). We had gone to school together. He directed a really low budget picture, ‘Foxy Lady,’ which I had a bit part in, and a couple of years later he did another picture, ‘Cannibal Girls,’ with a budget not more than $175,000. There was no money for hair, makeup or wardrobe.
“Andrea Martin one of the stars of ‘Cannibal Girls,’ truly a ghastly film, came to work the set the first day with her own makeup in a bag, and I had this big afro and geeky glasses. That’s what I looked like back then.
“If Ivan hadn’t asked me to be in his first two pictures, I doubt I would have ever made it in front of a camera. It certainly wasn’t the money that was the impetus. For me, it was all about living in motels for free for a couple of months at a time.”
Levy has come a long way from living in motels, and shooting underground films, but he has no delusions of becoming a ‘movie star.’
“I know my place,” chuckles Levy, “and it’s in the background.”
Levy is the only one who can lay claim to appearing in all five, yes, five, “American Pie” films.
The first three “American Pie” films, released in theaters, were huge successes at the box office and then on video.
However, the third “American Pie” film, subtitled, “American Wedding,” ended the storyline with the original cast, but Universal, the franchise’s production company, realized there was a huge audience, hungry for new “American Pies.”
Last winter, “American Pie: Band Camp,” the fourth in the series, debuted on DVD to record straight to DVD sales. The only original cast member from the first three “American Pies” to appear in “Band Camp?” Levy, naturally.
And Christmas 2006 promises the release of the fifth: “American Pie: The Naked Mile,” and, naturally, Levy has a role.
“No, I am not naked in it,” replies Levy, when I ask if when in Rome he did as the Romans did.
Why, though, does Levy have any desire to continue with the “American Pie” straight to video titles?
“It’s easy money,” he says, “and they (the studio) is great to me. I only need to be on the set for three days and I have a stipulation in my contract. I get to rewrite my scenes if I don’t like the way they were originally written. I try to be honest to the character and not waver from the way he was first presented on screen in the original ‘Pie.’ Will there be an ‘American Pie 6?’ I guess that all depends on how number 5 does.”
Any betting man or woman would put their money on an “American Pie 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.”
For now, Levy is content working on new Christopher Guest, co-inspired films and “any other bit parts that come along, calling for a nerdy, older Jewish man.”
