Steve Martin
Appearances
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Here's exactly what I thought. I gave Marty the script and I said, now look, when you read this script... and you come across Rick Moranis' name, just cross it out and write yours in.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Yeah. Oh, wow. I think it was John Belushi. And then it went to John Candy. I think you kind of know what we were going for there. But anyway, both were unavailable. And then the name Martin Short was... Martin Short came up. That's right. And after there was a pause... And then Chevy was last? No, Chevy was in. Me and Chevy were definitely in. It's actually Chevy and I, but whatever.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I love that you have a character backstory. Like you're Marlon Brando. What's your backstory?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Marty, tell them the title of your TV special that I love so much. I, Martin Short Goes Hollywood. But that reminded me of something I read years ago of this funniest book title I ever read. And then I thought, oh, I wish I had thought of that. And then I researched it, and there is no book called that. And I thought, maybe I did think of it.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
But it was kind of a comedy biography of a fictitious actor called I, Actor.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
No, I was just saying that you're right. You usually work with somebody, then you never see them again. But in this case, we continued to work together kind of coincidentally. through Father of the Bride movies. And did we do another movie together? Is that it?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Well, it's like you guys, you're constantly riffing off each other. It's fun, and when you work together, you start doing that all the time, and then you develop a kind of a, not only a kinship, but a style.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Well, let me add something. Only Marty has friends. Right. Right. That's my problem with these two. I benefit from his friends.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
But he's very social. Everybody wants to be with Marty. And I've told this before. I'd say, you know, if we're, for example, or if someone is plotting a dinner party in Hollywood and you invite these people and you invite Marty, and if Marty can't come, you cancel the party. Marty is the party.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Yes, right. But I have to add something. And Jason said, after the success of Three Amigos, dot, dot, dot, you really mean 20 years after the success, Three Amigos, did it become a success? It was a minor success at the time. And then it had an accumulation. Yeah. It accrued value.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And then I remember like, you know, 10 years ago, a magazine from the UK, I think it was called Empire Magazine, they called it, we want to put you, Chevy, and Marty on the cover. And I said, why? And they said, well, it's the 25th anniversary of Three Amigos. And it's a huge hit. You mean somebody cares? I didn't think anybody even ever thought about it.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Yeah, but the next year they did the cover of 25 Years Later from Ishtar.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Well, the truth is... I enjoy working with Marty and I think it's vice versa. So we actually enjoy it and all that other stuff.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Yeah. There are no pricks allowed. Our max is six, maybe seven shows a month. Okay. So it's not, you know, I couldn't do it because I got a family and I love being home. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I thought it was funny. This is in the 70s when I was getting asked for a lot of autographs. And so I made up a card and it said, because I thought, what do people really want when they get an autograph? They want to say that they met you. That's the main thing. And what was he like?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
In, you know, like the 12 seconds that they met you, what was he like? So I wrote, this certifies that you met me and found me warm, charming, intelligent, and funny. And then I had a printed signature on it. And then I found I'd give the cards out thinking it was hilarious. And then they'd say, could you sign this? No way. Yeah. So I thought, well, that's over. Oh, wow.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
We always... Well, in fairness, it's slowly evolving. We never throw everything out and then bring everything new in. It would be impossible. So it just slowly evolves.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Yeah, we change things one line at a time. And then every once in a while we'll come up with a new idea and we'll put it in whole.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
We'll do Zoom and we'll have a bunch of material in front of us. But, you know, we'll do that. at the beginning of a tour, if we have a lot of new material to go over.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And as you know, Marty is an incredible singer. I mean, I listen to him on stage every night. He's never flat. He's never sharp. And curiously, he's never on the note. But, no, he's incredible. He never misses. He has a beautiful tone.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
We don't actually sing and play together. We do some songs, but we use piano and we use our orchestra, but we don't have a banjo number. Jason, have you not seen it?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
The only stand-up I do is in our show. Yeah. You know, I call it stand-up with Marty, but we each have a section in our show, and I just sort of do monologue jokes and introduce a song on the banjo and play it. But I love doing it. And it took me as long, as much time to work out that ten minutes. as it used to take to work out 10 minutes.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
You know, you realize you're three years into this and you've got one little area that's weak and you're trying to fix it. And now it's feeling really good now that it's old and overexposed.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
No. I mean, there's jokes that, you know, for example, when we did our Netflix special, then we really started trying to change things out. And then three years later, we're talking, we're going, you know what? I missed that one joke. Right. Blah, blah, blah. And then we would put it back in and then no one knew.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Which one is your favorite? Which one of the three? How is it to deeply prepare using old material?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I'm not sure what you mean. You mean you feel like you're giving away your private life to do a talk show anecdote?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I have a secret fantasy, which is to go on a talk show totally unprepared and just to see what happens.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Didn't know a thing. Didn't know a thing. You just write it according to the premise.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And then when it started to hit the air and you started to get back word that, by the way, it's the biggest debut that ever and, you know, that sort of thing. I don't know how accurate that is. Yeah, it's huge. And that's when you start to get excited. But you don't change anything because of that. You just, oh. And then even a year and a half later, you start to go, what is this?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Well, that's one of those news stories because we're shooting two days in Los Angeles that it's mistaken for. They're moving to the entire season, you know. No, it's like a location shoot.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
That was my, you know, when I had the idea for the show, I pitched it to them, to the producers, Dan Fogelman and Jess Rosenthal, based on, I wasn't even in it. I said, I think this is a good idea. And we liked it. And then they called me and said, would you do it? And I said, well, I can't. I could only do it if it's shot in New York. Right. And then that's what, you know, that's why it was shot.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And also it's a New York show, which makes it kind of great.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
You've had great cast people on that show. So fantastic. Yeah. And that's what, when we get somebody that we can, you know, like, we worked with Matthew Broderick, and it was like so easy, and the comedy is so good. It's like you've worked together all, you know, your whole lives.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
It came about after the fact because I had originally pitched it as three older people who have a lot of time on their hands. And we were busy. And then I think the studio suggested, what about Selena, actually? What about Selena? and we met her on Zoom, and they actually cast her, and we met her on Zoom, and Marty and I, after the Zoom, we call each other and go, she's perfect. Wow.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
You've always been a champion of her. You pull out names from an old hat. Yeah.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
yes morgan neville so glad what's it called it's called steve exclamation point okay yeah steve exclamation point and um it i got a call from morgan neville about this documentary and and i you know his credits are won't you be my neighbor and 20 feet from stardom yeah so many you know he did a thing called cool school yeah and uh And I met him when we got along.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And, you know, when you do a documentary, you have to open up, first of all, your archives, which I happen to have. They told me, they said, you have a lot of archives. And I didn't realize I had a lot of archives. So they went, prowled through my archives for months and months and months and found things. They found. Like an old sock. A photo. Pardon me.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
It was a cherished sock. Anyway, they found a photo of my father in Germany in 1943 doing a USO show. Oh, thank God.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I did not archive. I saved things. And I realized later, you know, I would take things like, oh, I'm on a magazine cover. I'll save it. And I'd throw it in a thing. Yeah. I was saving all the wrong stuff. I should have saved photos, which, you know, photos were hard to come by then. You just didn't snap it. You had to photo this and then, you know, change film, the whole thing.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
So, but when I wrote my autobiography, I did have one little plastic box where I just threw things in and that had things like a receipt. from a hotel in Salt Lake City in 1971. So you knew where you were at that date and you could research. Do you remember her name though? It was like archaeological because as it went down, you would go past time, go through time.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Very good. By the way, you can buy Marty's book on Amazon. I mean, you won't. Right. If you needed it, it's there.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
It's about four months, and I actually love it. You know, the studio's 20 minutes from my house, and also you're working with two other co-stars, and so you're not shooting every day, and when we work together, it's really fun.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I love your show. I love when you're joking around. It just feels like you're with three friends, you know? Not you guys, but...
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And I'll get the address, give you the address for the check.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Steve, hi, everyone. It's too much. First of all, I have to just jump in. You got to go? I got to go. I got to go. I got to jump in and say how great it was to hear you guys try to figure out what 200 was. And the closest thing... It is four times 50, right? The closest thing I can come up with is that you think 200 is 208. And I'm thinking that you ought to contact NASA...
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
Every day I get an email, hey, what about Steve Martin short? And then I'd see it on any, you know, Twitter thing I'm on. What about that?
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
The great thing about Marty is he has it all done at once. Right. The hair, the eyes, the nose, the teeth. It's true. And you heal all at once. You heal six weeks and it's over.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
I have to add a line from your earlier conversation about Kleenex, because Lenny Bruce had a line, it's like the mother, and she goes in her son's room and picks up, she goes, oh, oh look, Sonny blew his nose on the Playboy magazine again.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
First of all, we pay our compliments to Selena. She's lovely to work with. We love Selena. And, you know, she doesn't mind us. Oh, that's Marty. Do you need to get the door? You're such a pro.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
It was friendly as far as I can go. Yeah. You maxed out. But I first met Marty... at my house, and he came over to get a copy of the script for Three Amigos. Really? And that's when I first met him.
SmartLess
"Steve Martin & Martin Short"
And I, of course, knew who he was, and I loved, I, since then, you know, I learned more, because I always enjoyed him, but, you know, I also watched him do specials and create new characters, and I've realized that his characters are so bizarre, they have nothing to do with humanity. They have to do with, like, you know, aliens coming down and saying, hey, I think this is the way they act.