Backstage with Mark McKinney
Courtesy of Comedy Central
By Cris Sale
February 2000
Clad in a robe and sneakers, Mark McKinney stopped to
chat for the
camera
between shows at Town Hall last month. Here's what he
had to say.
CRIS SALES: Mark, congratulations on the Genie.
MARK MCKINNEY: (Surprised) Oh, thank you. (In a cowboy
drawl) So you
heard
about it down here.
CRIS: Why don't you tell everybody what you got.
MARK: I did a part in Bruce McCulloch's film, Dogpark,
and I got
nominated
for Best Supporting Actor for the Canadian Oscars --
the Genies. And I
won.
(Interruption of general whooping, cheering and
applauding by crew and
bystanders.)
MARK: A BIG sucker -- big freaking door stopper for
ME.
CRIS: Just because we Americans are ignorant, what
does a Genie look
like?
MARK: Um. Kinda like a guy with really long arms. It's
got a head and
big
shoulders and arms that sort of fold forward and go
all the way to the
feet. A knuckle-dragger, I call it.
CRIS: You've been on stage though for months now.
MARK: Since September.
CRIS: What has it been like coming from Fuddy Meers at
Manhattan
Theatre
Club and going straight into the tour with the Kids?
MARK: I kinda liked it. I was sort of into being a
work monster, what
we
call a work PIG, for a while. I mean, I could have
probably used a
couple
of days off, but we were rehearsing in San Diego and
it was nice -- you
know, room service in the morning, which was nice. I
had my family with
me
for the first part of the tour.
CRIS: You have a son, right?
MARK: Yes, I have a son who's about to turn four.
CRIS: When do you think you'll start letting him watch
the old Kids in
the
Hall episodes?
MARK: He already knows this guy (makes "crushing"
motion with thumb and
index finger) -- he caught it on TV one afternoon. But
he's not
terribly
interested in coming down to the theatre and stuff
like that. It seems
that
every time I've brought him there's always been
someone hammering a
nail
too loud or feedback through the speakers and he's
just like "Later."
CRIS: Being the only one of the five Kids to come to
New York, what
made
you decide to stay?
MARK: Well, it was kind of an accident. I came down to
do Saturday
Night
Live.
I did three years of that and then I left, and then I
got a couple of
films
in a row so there wasn't time to move -- I thought I
might go back to
Toronto. Then I audition for a play at the Roundabout
[Theatre Company]
called A Flea in Her Ear. I had such an incredible
time -- it was so
much
fun, the most fun I had had in years, that I just
thought "well I think
I'll just do this -- maybe this is where I belong" and
I stuck it out.
CRIS: Do you want to do more stage work in New York?
MARK: Yes -- I like it. I really like it.
CRIS: What kinds of stuff would you like to do?
MARK: Well, I think, all kinds of stuff. I'd like to
do some
Shakespeare
eventually -- though, I'd probably have to leave town
to do that.
(Laughs)
Go out to Iowa -- some sort of regional theatre. I
don't know, the part
in]
Fuddy Meers is perfect for me -- a lunatic with a hand
puppet.
CRIS: Will you be going back to Fuddy Meers once the
tour is over.
MARK: Yes, I'm planning on it.
CRIS: Thanks, Mark for spending time with us, but I
have to ask you one
last Comedy Central promote-y question -- what is your
favorite South
Park
episode and why?
MARK: Oh, oh, oh. Gosh -- Oh, it was the episode about
the politically
correct classroom animal. What was he called?
(From the gallery came "Sexual Harassment Panda!")
MARK: Yeah -- the Sexual Harassment Panda that goes
back to the land of
the
failed mascots. That was a pretty good one. And the
original -- the
very
very first [five minute short film] was mind blowing.
I saw it when it
was
just a cassette being passed around in comedy circles.
It was pretty
amazing.
CRIS: Well, again, thanks so much Mark.
MARK: Well, thank you.
================================================
Interviews & Articles||Front (No Frames)