enRoute


	ENROUTE TV ENROUTE FM MEDIA KIT AIR CANADA LINKS WRITERS' GUIDELINES

IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN (p. 3 of 3)

1 | 2 | 3 | APR

Green gives good spin about how his career has always been strategically mapped out ("a chess game"), how the roadkill antics were just a way to get noticed, a means to his lifelong ambition to host a nightly talk show. It’s all very inspiring in an "I had a dream… about sucking on a cow’s udder" way, but when it’s suggested that the moose-humper doth protest too much, he buckles.

"It’s been a bizarre few years for me," he finally admits, "and that’s a big part of why the new show is the way it is." Whether a gentleman or just well coached by lawyers, Green stays mum on details, but his six-month marriage to Barrymore obviously took a toll. (Later in the day, Burt Dubrow drops by on his way to buy a tuxedo. "Why don’t you take the one I wore to my wedding?" asks Green. "Wouldn’t that be funny?" His head lolls back, and he solemnly addresses the kitchen ceiling in a half-shout: "Don’t you think that would lessen it?")

"Coming down to Hollywood," he continues poolside, "I got caught up in a weird world, man. I didn’t exactly marry Betty Crocker. I’ve been bounced around by the media. I’ve felt like a bit of a loser at times. It hasn’t always been fun.

"It’s a humbling experience to almost die, so maybe I’m more introspective and willing to listen to other people. I’m still high-strung as hell, but there’s not as much of a desperation to go out there and be crazy. Now I can be comfortable having a conversation with someone who’s older than me — an adult — because I’ve been through some stuff myself. Three years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down and talk with Ed McMahon or Jerry Springer." (Springer’s an adult? Only from Tom Green…)

But the adult act clearly didn’t play with long-time fans. Green had misjudged his audience before. With Freddy Got Fingered, the 2001 film he directed, co-wrote and starred in, he delivered precisely what one would think his TV fans craved: a fouler, more over-the-top, supersize version of his patented tasteless antics. Critics hated it, and although it has since developed a cult following, it didn’t smash any box office records. Even today, mere mention of the title causes Tom Green to involuntarily shift his weight, as if bracing for a punch. Freddy is less a sore spot than a weeping head wound.

With The New Tom Green Show, Green created the anti-Freddy, dialling it down where he once ramped it up. (He still ran around like a maniac, just not so much.) But had Tom Green fallen into that most ancient of show biz traps, pigeonholed by his own early success?

Green’s motto seems to be "Never say die." With enough drama – the fame, the pranks, the cancer, the whirlwind marriage – to fuel several volumes, he plans to publish an autobiography. And with recent USO tours to Kosovo and the Persian Gulf under his belt, a fresh reinvention possibility presents itself: Just because he’s not the new Johnny Carson doesn’t mean Tom Green can’t be the new Bob Hope. [ ]

ADD YOUR COMMENTS > letters@enroutemag.net

1 | 2 | 3 | APR