Brent Butt

0:01Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Brett, thank you. Appreciate it. Oh no problem. So we're here in Red Deer, you're doing a little stand-up tonight. You still touring the country all the time amidst all the busy TV and film work? Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I'm going big long, you know, month long tours, like I used to in the old days. I go for a month or two months at a time back in the old days when you're eking out a meager existence on the road. But I still do stand up all the time. But, you know, five days it'd be the longest single chunk of it. How come so many standards become actors? What's the similarity between the two? I understand becoming a writer? Yeah, I mean, acting and writing are two very different things. But when you're doing stand up, you're doing both. Some people don't look at stand up as acting. And in a way, I understand the argument that it's not.

0:47But when you look at it in terms of, if you look at it like a little play where you go on stage and you're essentially saying the same stuff night in and night out, that's very much like a play. And the onus is on you as a stand up to make it seem fresh and original, the same way an actor is supposed to make these lines that he knows by wrote come off as though he's just thinking of them. So there's that somewhere. Is it easier to write for yourself then as an actor? I think so. I mean, it's always easier to write. If you're writing for some particular voice, it's easier than writing ethereal without anybody in mind. So if you know the person's voice, it's better in who do you know better than yourself. Take me back to the beginning of stand up for you. What got you into the beginning of stand up?

1:33The beginning of, well, not all the big way, but for you. I never were you listening to me. I didn't see a lot of stand ups growing up. When I was a little kid, I didn't. I saw a stand up for the first time when I was 12 on TV. The old Alan Hamel Show used to come on in the afternoons. It's like an afternoon talk show. I'm out of Vancouver. Later be kidding me Alan, a thick show. Oh, really? Anyway, they had stand ups on there, right? Summer holidays, I've walked it all the time. Kelly Monteith was the first stand up I ever saw. And I'd never seen somebody just doing that. Just kind of standing there being funny. I'd seen comedic actors before. I was a big fan of Jackie Gleason because we got the honeymooners in Lucille Ball. So funny acting. But I'd never just seen a guy doing stand up like that. And I thought, well, that's kind of what I do with my buddies,

2:19usually. I would love to do that. So that was 12 when I made the decision. I told my mom I was going to stand up. What did she say? She said, do it outside. Nice. That was her answer to everything. Do it outside. As long as it's not illegal and you're doing it outside, fine. Do you remember those first jokes? How hard it was to get things that clicked? Did it take long? Not really. I mean, the first time I ever did actual stand up in front of an audience was in high school at a variety night. And it went really well, actually. And it encouraged me to try it again. I tried it the next year at Grammonite. Went very, very well. And then a club opened up near my hometown in Saskatoon. Had an amateur night where he'd go try stand up. So I'd already moved to Saskatoon,

3:05pursuing a career in publishing. Published a comic book called The Existing Earth with a buddy of mine. There you go. And anyway, I just saw this club had amateur night. I went down to try it out on a Thursday night. And that first amateur, and it's probably still the best show I've ever had. Really? 22 years of trying to recapture that show. The first one went really well. The second and third were a little iffy. But I'd been encouraged enough by the first show to keep at it. It must be interesting nowadays to see jokes. Do you have jokes that work in some markets like another night that just don't work as well? It must happen. Yeah, not market to market, but night to night. Like if I did a show here in red deer tonight and another one in the morning I'd hear in red deer,

3:51the same joke that kills tonight might give blank stares. Why is that? Who knows? That's kind of one of the things I love about it. You can't really, comedy kind of refuses to be analyzed, right? There's always guys who try. Incredibly unfunny people who say, I've got it all figured out. They analyze comedy. And you kind of can't. Anytime you try to analyze comedy, it kind of says shut up. Comedy's kind of the dude in the room going shut up. It refuses to be analyzed. If you analyze it too much, it gets up and leaves. Pick ups. Pick ups. It just premiered. Runaway comedy, smash sensation. Pick up. It is like 1.9 million views. 1.9 million views. It's over 1.8 million. What was corner gas averaging? Do you know? Corner gas averaged about 1. Just under 1 and 1 half. Millions.

4:36So this is doing extremely well. Yeah, it's doing crazy. Corner gas premiered to just over a million, like 1.1 million, 1.12, I think it was. It took a little while to build the cell. Yeah. But it was steady and gradual. And by the end of season one, it was doing 1.4, 1.5. Throughout the 60s and around it averaged, there were times when it did 3 million. But it averaged 1.5 million, which is a very good number. Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, tell people that, Jacob, for those of you, because it's only been one episode, right? One episode as of this taping. As of this taping, yes. Even though this will air after episode two, but that's fine. Ah, well, it's all right. Nobody's going to click it off and off. There's lies. It's about Nancy Robertson, who played Wanda on Corner Gas,

5:22plays Millie Upton, who's a children's author who's kind of nuts. She's kind of like a child herself. She's emotionally very volatile. And she's very successful children's author. She does these books called the Grumpaloo's. And they're sold in 40 countries. And she's a millionaire. But she's nuts. And she seeks the help. After she realizes she causes a lot of problems for her publisher and her agent and stuff, she decides to try and get help again. She's tried psychiatrists and psychologists in the past to know a veil. She sees a poster of a life coach stuck on a lamp poster, a bulletin board. And she does it with a whole life coach. She's never heard of that. So she goes to try life coaching. Unfortunately, it's a poster for Stan Durko, played by me. He's just decided he's a life coach.

6:08No training. He never had any clients. He's never done this before. So his first client is completely nuts. You give me a couple of thoughts there. You wrote a part for your wife who's emotionally volatile. That's interesting. I think you're reading too much as well. I wrote the part before. I wrote it. And then I thought, you know who's like Nancy's very comedically gifted? I said she could be really funny doing this. I took it to her and I said, I'm writing this thing. What do you think of this character? And so it's not like I thought, OK, well my wife is nuts. How can I write this? I'm a pretty lousy writer if that's what I just did. Let's see. I brush my teeth today. I'm going to write that. I brush my teeth. Yeah, you've got to throw it. Let your imagination in a while. So that's where this came from. And you weren't supposed to play stand originally, is that true?

6:54Yeah, I wasn't planning on playing stand. We shot a pilot with somebody else in the role of stand. But the network was, they really were keen on me being in the show. They felt that we had some investment in time and putting your face out there. And Nancy and I were very strong chemistry together. They liked us comedically together. Thought we were making a mistake by not doing this together. So they asked me to look at it. What would it take to make me play the part? I kind of rejigged some stuff and started writing scenes with myself in mind. I was thinking of Nancy and I playing them. And I got excited about it again. And you're acting really so that because I mean, Brent Lerow is based on you.

7:41But this is a new character. You're playing a character now. Not that he didn't act before, but his name's not Brent. The name's not Brent. What a departure. His name is Stan. Yeah, he's a Stan is, you know, he stands within the parameter of your acting of my range. I don't know how good an actor I am outside of. If I had to cradle a dying infant in my arms or something, you probably go, oh, that doesn't look exacting. That's terrible. But I like Stan. I like the character. He's a classic kind of lovable loser type. I hope he's lovable, not just a loser. But he's got a big heart. He tries really hard. He just doesn't have very good ideas, really. And he doesn't communicate well. And so he's certainly unqualified

8:27to deal with somebody as off-kilter as Millie. You directed a few corner gas you're thinking about it for this too? Do you want to? Yeah, I'll be directing some. I did direct some episodes. I was like, we've shot off 13. Oh, really? So I directed some of them. And what are your goals for the show? What do you want? I just want people to watch it and like it. When I do comedy, I really have one goal in mind. And that is to just create something that makes people laugh and forget to troubles for a half hour or an hour if I'm doing stand-up and just have some last. I'm not changing. I'm not bright enough to change the world. I'm not politically astute, socially relevant. I don't know any of those things. You got to be socially relevant to be a comedian.

9:13No, you don't. That's a big fallacy. No, you could be ignorant to us. What are you talking about in your act? I talk about deep and baker. The troubles with deep and baker and whether we're going to go to the internet. That's a whole metric system. No, I just, it could be a good bit. Now and then something culturally relevant will creep into my act. But it's usually from the perspective that I don't understand it. I'm not changing anybody's world. I'm just looking at some laughs. Say some funny things. I kind of do stand-up or do any of my comedy. It's kind of very similar to the same way when I'm hanging out with my buddies. It's that same kind of mentality. I'm trying to make them laugh. They're just trying to make me laugh. And that's too short to not have a few laughs. I totally agree.

9:59Have you thought, now it's been a little while since Corner Gas ended, you got it as a writer. There must be stuff going on in there being like, oh, I got a good idea for an episode, but it's done. Is there anything going? Not really Corner Gas-wise. I've been thinking of pick-ups episodes, hoping that we're going to do a season two. We got a good start with the ratings or through the roof. So hopefully we'll get picked up for season two. And that's where my mind is in terms of ideas for that. And I'm also shooting a movie this summer. I've never done that before. No clue, something like that? Yeah. A movie called No clue that I wrote. We're going to shoot in the summer. And what's the song? What's the song I'm doing? It's kind of a classic who done it, kind of a detective. There's a murder. It's a murder. Got to figure it out. No clue who it is. And it's just, but it's kind of a comedic who done it.

10:47Cool. Are you in it? I am. I play the guy trying to figure it all out. OK. I'm playing the detective type dude. Who else do you want in it? Do you have a cast or what's going on? We have some where we have feelers out, as they say, in the business. Until you sync up with people's schedules and all that kind of stuff. I have in mind who I'd like to shoot at it and to be in it and stuff. That'll all be hopefully revealed soon. Cool. If anyone can we expect to see it probably not for a while? Yeah, like I said, the plan right now is to shoot it in the summer. And then beyond that, I don't know, smarter people than me figure that out. The logistics and the marketing and all that kind of stuff. So I don't know if we shoot it in the summer. I don't know. Probably in a fall. No. Maybe fall? That seems quick. Christmas maybe?

11:32Yeah. A nice Christmas who done it? Why not? Like Christmas murder. All fun for the family. There's like a lot of horror movies and stuff coming around Christmas. Christmas is big. It's a big time to just release movies, whatever kind of it is. That's true. They all work. They all work. This is terrific news. Are you shooting in Canada? The Canadian kind of thing or do you have a big Hollywood production? A Canadian movie? We're shooting it in Canada. And I'm hopeful we just shoot at a Vancouver just so I can come home every night. That's the idea. And yeah, so it'll all be done here. I got no intentions of going anywhere else. Cool. And you're on the road for the next couple of months back and forth Ontario, Saskatchewan. Yeah, doing some stand up end of this month. I do a run through Ontario. Again, like five days or something.

12:18That's the longest I want to be away from home now. Really? Yeah. I still like the road a lot. I enjoy being on the road. It's just now I miss home. It's easy. I never missed home when I had like a crappy apartment. But now we got a nice house in the yard and a dog, you know, married and I like to be at home. The old days are like going on the road as a relief. Away from your hellish home. Screaming landlord wanting the bills, you know, wanting the rent paid. So you go on the road as a relief. Now I just want to be home. Cool. I'll let you get home. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.