Nora Dunn

Nora Dunn first entered our collective consciousness as the brash Pat Stevens during the second golden age of Saturday Night Live. You have watched and loved her in the film "Three Kings" and the hilarious television show "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia". Now she is returning to her roots as a stage performer with her one woman show called "Mythical Proportions". She joined us at a pool party on Friday, the day after the Bulls broke our heart.

Hi Nora! Thanks for joining us here at our pool party!

Thanks. Glad the water is warm. I need this.

Yeah, we were a little leery about having a pool party the day after the Bulls blew the game, but it seems like a good turnout!

Well, we need to wash that off our souls as soon as possible and move on to better things, like maybe some rain this weekend.

I love that you are such an optimist.

Well, last night made me a believer!

(long pause)

Did you have to go to the bathroom?

(long pause)

Sorry, we were peeing in the pool. So Nora, I hear you have a one woman show?

Yeah. I heard that too. People will say anything. But I actually do have a piece I am working on and I did it in Madison about a week ago. At the Bartell Theater downtown. Right now, Madison is the epicenter of the country I think, so I was glad to be there.

You know, when people talk about the fancy bars and the booming economy, they usually say "Madison".

Well not for long. The guy running the state is a shill and I actually believe he is mentally deranged. For real. He has a very high forehead and closely set eyes, and he's a Tea Party Republican. So he is not running on all cylinders. He uses a lot of gas I think. But there were ten thousand protesters at the capitol on Saturday. My show sold out anyway. It's really an exciting place to be. People are not dead there.

Wait, are you suggesting that the Honorable Governor Scott Walker is a victim of incest?

I think his parents might have been brother or sister, but you know, people will say anything to get elected. Maybe his parents were sisters. But something very strange went on in his creation.

Here is that hot dog you asked for. So Nora, what is your piece about and how did you conceive it?

I can tell you right off it was conceived with a man I was fond of and not related too. Wow. This sun feels good by the way. I am a very slow process person. I do write my material of course, but as you know with comedy you perform what you write and continue the process on stage. So the characters have to be built with an audience, and also then alone in a dark room and tiny lamp. And when I perform a show I still want to invent on stage, otherwise I feel that it isn't really live.

You know, I wouldn't have expected you to say that. You have such a big background in film and television, writing for television and then all the way back to Saturday Night Live, how has that immediacy effected your process?

You know, only the stage is immediate. Saturday Night Live is not improvised and there are cue cards. It is written really fast of course, so when you perform it live it's still a crap shoot. That studio gives you a rush, the cameras moving, the dangerous element that something might go wrong. When I watch it now I can still feel what they are feeling. But the stage is really more exciting for me, because it's just terrifying. There are no cue cards and it's just you. You face an audience yourself and there is no where to go. I love it and hate it at the same time. I never feel, as I wait in the wings, that I am prepared or even worthy to be up there, but once I start into it I don't want to leave. This is why I often get booed off the stage. People want to go home eventually.

Do you think your initial audiences have arrived at your show hoping to see some of the characters or at least the personality you portray in film and tv? Or are they expecting a new experience?

I don't know. I am coming out on stage as myself for this show, and I am writing about being Midwestern and middle class. I have remained very faithful to the philosophy I was raised with. I never wanted a "big" life, I never wanted "everything". I wanted it all, but you find out as you grow up what "all" means. I am all about connections with people and I think that is why I create and work through characters. I perform three characters in my show, but when I am talking I turn into the various characters I meet. A lot while I commute between here and Los Angeles. I do that so much and I decided not to bury myself in my blackberry. So I have had some funny and interesting talks with strangers. And then we go up in the air and I feel I am traveling with all of these stories. The title of the show came from that. It's called "Mythical Proportions". Lives are stories blown out of proportion because life feels that way. It's very small, but when you feel it, it suddenly becomes a huge bubble that feels it's about to burst.

(long pause)

You have a Blackberry!?

Yeah. I guess I was bragging a little there. I have a blackberry that looks like Obama's but he never texts me back.

So you spend a lot of time still in Chicago, what about this city (besides growing up here) makes it so attractive to you?

Well, it's not the weather. I honestly have to say it's the people and the bricks. (Not the ones Boozer throws up). I feel comfortable around the unselfconsciousness here. In LA everyone is so engrossed in themselves and what they want. The Want there permeates everything. I used to see so many ghosts in Hollywood, these people who went to find something and they just got lost. But I went there very young, I was 22 and I was a young 22, and I went there for something too. I ended up moving to San Francisco. It was so beautiful. And there I studied acting and started to do comedy. But when I came back to Chicago in 1982, that is when I life really started. I am grounded to this place, not out of choice. My history is here. And I love where I live and the fact that my neighbors talk to each other. Not just small talk and sports talk. We know each other. Los Angeles is not like that.

Is there a certain audience-- here's that wine you asked for---is there a certain audience you look for in town? For example, when you did your show here last, you did it at I.O. Are you looking for that roots-y sort of thing from whence you came?

Well, there are all kinds of audiences. I grew up in a big working class family in a neighborhood where the reality was most fathers were drinkers. Things were chaotic. Nothing P.C. about it. We didn't have a car. We didn't have much money. I connect with people who laugh about what they don't have and didn't get. The source of my humor is in that. Not having the right clothes, not going to Harvard. Life was a struggle. Not as bad as today, because when I grew up we had unions and the middle class could actually buy something with cash. But we learned early that what is important in life is truth, integrity, real friends. Going out to dinner for me is still my favorite thing to do. And that is about as indulgent as I get. When you go to Europe, you see what makes people happy and it's wine and friends. Like here at the pool. A nice warm beer from a keg. A small wiener on a toothpick. It's heart warming.

Speaking of heart warming, I know a great place to get some ribs. You wanna go?

I love a good slab. I found a great hot dog on the south side. Alone on the street. Fresh fries. I might go there for dinner.

Well, we aren't ones to turn down hot dogs from off the streets!
Then we will have to dine there. It's BYOB. (bring your own bun).

Eric Roach, Anderson Lawfer

Also, to watch a recent video with Andy and Nora as they made prank phone calls Click Here

Eric Roach and Anderson Lawfer are the founders of www.Reviewsyoucaniews.blogspot.com