Dont worry The Ten co-writer and co-star Ken Marino isnt all bashed up because of me. I got to visit the set of his new movie The Ten, directed by David Wain, while they were shooting a scene where Marino gets anal raped and beaten by his cellmate in prison. It doesnt get weirder than visiting a number of your comedy idols at an abandoned prison in Queens New York. While I was interviewing Marino in an unused cell, The Ten costar/producer Paul Rudd quietly walked in, dropped his pants and was about to pee in the toilet but Marino got revenge by nearly yanking down Rudds boxer shorts. Now believe me, if I ever am in prison hopefully my cellmates will be as handsome as Rudd and Marino but I really didnt need a preview. I got a chance to catch up with Marino as we discussed making The Ten and what else he has been writing since The State ended.
Check out the official website for The Ten
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are the plots of the segments you are in?
Ken Marino: Well in The Ten my character of Dr. Richie goes through two different commandments. The first story my character is in is based on the commandment Thou Shall Not Kill. Dr. Richie is a top surgeon who has it all. Hes got everything he wants in life but hes maybe a little too cocky and a little too arrogant but he has a unique sense of humor. He goofs around with people and sometimes he takes his goofs too far. This time he left some surgical equipment in a womans stomach, which wound up killing her. He did it on purpose but he did it as a goof. So it wasnt malicious, he just did it because he thought it was funny. It wasnt an accident, it wasnt a mistake. So he gets whats coming to him and is now in prison. The next story he is in is the one we are shooting today based on Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbors Wife and Im basically somebodys prison wife.
DRE: You also co-wrote The Ten and you wrote Diggers which is up at the Toronto Film Festivals.
Ken: Yes, though Diggers has a very different tone. Katherine Dieckmann directed Diggers. David Wain is the executive producer as well as the star of Diggers and Im also in it. But Diggers is more of a slice of life 70s period piece with more drama than comedy. The Ten is absurd, ridiculous and great in its stupidness.
DRE: Would you say that The Ten is made up of vignettes?
Ken: Yeah, it is ten stories but it is more like [Robert Altmans] Nashville and The Simpsons where the characters become intertwined. So my character of the doctor is in other stories before his story.
DRE: Youve acted in many things since The State ended but we havent seen the result of anything youve written since then.
Ken: In the last four or five years I started getting back into writing. When The State ended I very quickly got a [TV] series which got me out to LA. I was out there just exploring acting and stuff like that for a while and then I got back into writing and wrote Diggers and some more personal stories. I wrote a pilot for Mike [Ian] Black which sold to FOX but it didnt go ahead but we did several passes at it. I loved it. [another former member of The State] Joe Lo Truglio and I wrote a horror movie and a comedy horror movie were trying to sell.
DRE: Is the first one a straight up horror?
Ken: Yes, were both really into horror movies so we tried to do an old school kind of Last House on the Left horror movie. Last House on the Left meets a monster movie.
DRE: Whats the comedy horror movie about?
Ken: The comedy horror movie is called People Will Die. Its about a pack of werewolves on a tropical island eating tourists.
DRE: How did The Ten come about?
Ken: David [Wain] and I wanted to write something so he came out to LA and we set aside a chunk of time where the only thing we were going to do was write but we didnt know what we were going to write. So we started writing a different script, banging out an outline and we spent a day or two on that track. But then we decided to do this other idea that David had at the time. A version of Krzysztof Kieslowskis Decalogue but a much shorter, comedic version of that with ten stories that have the characters intertwine. We sat around and talked about different stories for each commandment and tried to figure out what the thread of it was or what the through line of it was. Paul Rudds character is the narrator but his thing is that his personal life keeps getting in the way of him narrating this movie. Hes having problems with his wife played by Famke Janssen and hes having an affair with Jessica Alba. So throughout the film Paul works through that and while that is going on he throws to all these little pieces.
DRE: Im a big fan of Monty Python and you always hear how there were these little groups that wrote together within the troupe. Was it that way in The State?
Ken: Yeah, there were always groups of people who wrote things together. I used to write stuff with Joe and Ben [Garant]. We would always go off, smoke some pot, watch some movie and then do a writing session.
DRE: Did you David write much together back then?
Ken: David and I always loved writing together back in The State days which was great because when we wrote The Ten we had a nice shorthand. We just buzzed through stuff and the ease in which we wrote together came right back. You cant get much better than having David as a writing partner.
DRE: Were you always going to play Dr. Richie?
Ken: No, Dr. Richie early on seemed to have my voice but there was nothing set in stone. Then just as we started to decide what parts we were going to play I said Id like to play Richie.
DRE: Did you always think this was going to be an ensemble piece?
Ken: Yes, theres a huge amount of characters. We thought at one point that it would be a smaller group of people playing a lot of different characters but as we went through the drafts, it made more sense to just hire more actors, which has ended up better.
DRE: Have you done anything sketch oriented since The State?
Ken: Oh yeah, I did Soundtracks Live.
DRE: Oh, at UCB?
Ken: Yeah. Also they shot a pilot, of Sixteen Candles, for VH1 and I was in that but it didnt get picked.
DRE: How was it writing something sketch oriented again like The Ten?
Ken: It is fun. Writing more sketchy stuff or writing more serious stuff is equally as fun to me. I dont like one more than the other. I prefer writing with friends like David, Mike Black and Joe. Ive also written with my wife Erica. I wrote Diggers by myself and it is more like a Diner type film.
DRE: I watched you guys film this anal rape scene today and you play it completely straight.
Ken: Yes, the whole conceit of the movie is to play straight against these stupid, stupid lines.
DRE: I must ask about your State character who likes to dip his balls into it.
Ken: Sure. The story behind that was that MTV wanted us to come up with recurring characters and we didnt want to but they insisted on it. So we were like Lets come up with the worst and stupidest line possible. So the way it happened is back when we were younger, David Wain used to eat food off of peoples tables and he likes to play with his balls sometimes. There was a jar of peanut butter on my desk. David opened it up and scooped some out with his fingers and I said David why dont you dip your balls in that?
DRE: The muse struck right then.
Ken: The idea was we were going to do this whole buildup to the character and then show him once and never do it again. But it kind of backfired because they insisted that we do a recurring character and of course there was nowhere we could go with it but we got creative with it.
DRE: Are you working on anything else writing wise?
Ken: Erica and I are working on a couple of scripts. David and I hopefully will be writing something else.
DRE: I am also obliged to ask you about Veronica Mars, are you doing more on that?
Ken: I am. I do a recurring character on that and its a fun show. They brought me in for a couple of shows but then they keep pulling me back and having me do really stupid things. Its a wonderful show that I enjoy doing.
DRE: Are you working on anymore pilots?
Ken: I am not writing any pilots right now. Ive been focusing more on screenplays and stuff like that.
DRE: Would you guys like to do a State college tour or is that too much work?
Ken: I think we would. Every two years or so theres this huge wave of emails saying, Man we got to do something. Then everybodys like, Yeah, weve definitely got to do something. But half the group is on the West Coast, half the group is on the East Coast so it is really hard to get everybody together.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official website for The Ten
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are the plots of the segments you are in?
Ken Marino: Well in The Ten my character of Dr. Richie goes through two different commandments. The first story my character is in is based on the commandment Thou Shall Not Kill. Dr. Richie is a top surgeon who has it all. Hes got everything he wants in life but hes maybe a little too cocky and a little too arrogant but he has a unique sense of humor. He goofs around with people and sometimes he takes his goofs too far. This time he left some surgical equipment in a womans stomach, which wound up killing her. He did it on purpose but he did it as a goof. So it wasnt malicious, he just did it because he thought it was funny. It wasnt an accident, it wasnt a mistake. So he gets whats coming to him and is now in prison. The next story he is in is the one we are shooting today based on Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbors Wife and Im basically somebodys prison wife.
DRE: You also co-wrote The Ten and you wrote Diggers which is up at the Toronto Film Festivals.
Ken: Yes, though Diggers has a very different tone. Katherine Dieckmann directed Diggers. David Wain is the executive producer as well as the star of Diggers and Im also in it. But Diggers is more of a slice of life 70s period piece with more drama than comedy. The Ten is absurd, ridiculous and great in its stupidness.
DRE: Would you say that The Ten is made up of vignettes?
Ken: Yeah, it is ten stories but it is more like [Robert Altmans] Nashville and The Simpsons where the characters become intertwined. So my character of the doctor is in other stories before his story.
DRE: Youve acted in many things since The State ended but we havent seen the result of anything youve written since then.
Ken: In the last four or five years I started getting back into writing. When The State ended I very quickly got a [TV] series which got me out to LA. I was out there just exploring acting and stuff like that for a while and then I got back into writing and wrote Diggers and some more personal stories. I wrote a pilot for Mike [Ian] Black which sold to FOX but it didnt go ahead but we did several passes at it. I loved it. [another former member of The State] Joe Lo Truglio and I wrote a horror movie and a comedy horror movie were trying to sell.
DRE: Is the first one a straight up horror?
Ken: Yes, were both really into horror movies so we tried to do an old school kind of Last House on the Left horror movie. Last House on the Left meets a monster movie.
DRE: Whats the comedy horror movie about?
Ken: The comedy horror movie is called People Will Die. Its about a pack of werewolves on a tropical island eating tourists.
DRE: How did The Ten come about?
Ken: David [Wain] and I wanted to write something so he came out to LA and we set aside a chunk of time where the only thing we were going to do was write but we didnt know what we were going to write. So we started writing a different script, banging out an outline and we spent a day or two on that track. But then we decided to do this other idea that David had at the time. A version of Krzysztof Kieslowskis Decalogue but a much shorter, comedic version of that with ten stories that have the characters intertwine. We sat around and talked about different stories for each commandment and tried to figure out what the thread of it was or what the through line of it was. Paul Rudds character is the narrator but his thing is that his personal life keeps getting in the way of him narrating this movie. Hes having problems with his wife played by Famke Janssen and hes having an affair with Jessica Alba. So throughout the film Paul works through that and while that is going on he throws to all these little pieces.
DRE: Im a big fan of Monty Python and you always hear how there were these little groups that wrote together within the troupe. Was it that way in The State?
Ken: Yeah, there were always groups of people who wrote things together. I used to write stuff with Joe and Ben [Garant]. We would always go off, smoke some pot, watch some movie and then do a writing session.
DRE: Did you David write much together back then?
Ken: David and I always loved writing together back in The State days which was great because when we wrote The Ten we had a nice shorthand. We just buzzed through stuff and the ease in which we wrote together came right back. You cant get much better than having David as a writing partner.
DRE: Were you always going to play Dr. Richie?
Ken: No, Dr. Richie early on seemed to have my voice but there was nothing set in stone. Then just as we started to decide what parts we were going to play I said Id like to play Richie.
DRE: Did you always think this was going to be an ensemble piece?
Ken: Yes, theres a huge amount of characters. We thought at one point that it would be a smaller group of people playing a lot of different characters but as we went through the drafts, it made more sense to just hire more actors, which has ended up better.
DRE: Have you done anything sketch oriented since The State?
Ken: Oh yeah, I did Soundtracks Live.
DRE: Oh, at UCB?
Ken: Yeah. Also they shot a pilot, of Sixteen Candles, for VH1 and I was in that but it didnt get picked.
DRE: How was it writing something sketch oriented again like The Ten?
Ken: It is fun. Writing more sketchy stuff or writing more serious stuff is equally as fun to me. I dont like one more than the other. I prefer writing with friends like David, Mike Black and Joe. Ive also written with my wife Erica. I wrote Diggers by myself and it is more like a Diner type film.
DRE: I watched you guys film this anal rape scene today and you play it completely straight.
Ken: Yes, the whole conceit of the movie is to play straight against these stupid, stupid lines.
DRE: I must ask about your State character who likes to dip his balls into it.
Ken: Sure. The story behind that was that MTV wanted us to come up with recurring characters and we didnt want to but they insisted on it. So we were like Lets come up with the worst and stupidest line possible. So the way it happened is back when we were younger, David Wain used to eat food off of peoples tables and he likes to play with his balls sometimes. There was a jar of peanut butter on my desk. David opened it up and scooped some out with his fingers and I said David why dont you dip your balls in that?
DRE: The muse struck right then.
Ken: The idea was we were going to do this whole buildup to the character and then show him once and never do it again. But it kind of backfired because they insisted that we do a recurring character and of course there was nowhere we could go with it but we got creative with it.
DRE: Are you working on anything else writing wise?
Ken: Erica and I are working on a couple of scripts. David and I hopefully will be writing something else.
DRE: I am also obliged to ask you about Veronica Mars, are you doing more on that?
Ken: I am. I do a recurring character on that and its a fun show. They brought me in for a couple of shows but then they keep pulling me back and having me do really stupid things. Its a wonderful show that I enjoy doing.
DRE: Are you working on anymore pilots?
Ken: I am not writing any pilots right now. Ive been focusing more on screenplays and stuff like that.
DRE: Would you guys like to do a State college tour or is that too much work?
Ken: I think we would. Every two years or so theres this huge wave of emails saying, Man we got to do something. Then everybodys like, Yeah, weve definitely got to do something. But half the group is on the West Coast, half the group is on the East Coast so it is really hard to get everybody together.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Loved Stella. Liked The Baxter mucho. Love-loved Wet Hot American Summer.