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Charlie Day: [laughs]It made me wonder what sort of an actor you initially set out to be. Was it always going to be comedic, with things like Law & Order to pay the bills, or were you open to anything?
Like most young actors starting out, I really just wanted to act. Whether you find yourself stumbling into a drama or a comedy, you're going to jump on whatever you can. I started out doing plays. When I moved to New York, I was as enthusiastic about the possibility of doing what I'm doing now as I was about the possibility of becoming Al Pacino or something. And I still want to do both. Anyone who really likes acting likes all of it. But I don't consider myself a comedian, if that makes sense.You're a performer in a more general sense.
I think so, or I'm just a funny guy who knows how to act.How much do you and the rest of the Sunny cast feel like a part of a larger comedic community? It seems that you don't get talked about at the same time as a lot of the other well-known groups of young comedians.
No, we don't. We don't. And I don't know why that is. I don't know if it's because we didn't come up in a sketch-comedy group, or we're not stand-up comedians. I'd hate to say anything too cynical in terms of why that might be because I don't want to sound like a bitter person…
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It's just always surprising when people talk about what the best comedies out there are now and our show isn't mentioned among those other shows.It's kind of shocking.
To our credit, I think that our fans enjoy the fact that they're not subject to the onslaught of media that other shows sometimes receive, where you sort of feel like, "Why is this show being shoved down my throat?" So maybe it's a blessing in disguise.Yeah. Having promos for a show in your face all the time can cause burnout.
Definitely. When it comes to comedy, I think there's a burnout factor. For years, we were upset that the show wasn't getting the media recognition or the acknowledgement of how popular and, I think, good it is. But then I really do start to wonder if in some ways we dodged a bullet. We get to reap all the benefits of the show being successful and having great fans. We don't have any little golden trophies, but I think that's not really the point.When you guys sit down to begin writing a new season of the show, do you have the worry of comedy burnout in mind?
If only to not burn ourselves out, yeah. We're always trying to keep it fresh but not trying to overreach or overextend ourselves. We don't say, "Oh, we have to make it more shocking." We just want to find different behaviors for these characters, and different scenarios. I think that we're always excited by the challenge of seeing where these characters can go and what we can do as performers. You know, one thing that we thought was going to be an issue going into this year was Kaitlin Olson's pregnancy. But once we decided to embrace it and write to it, it really kind of opened up a series of episodes for us—all these great avenues for story lines.I'm really looking forward to seeing how her character, Dee, deals with being pregnant.
We have an episode where we try to figure out who got her pregnant, and then obviously an episode where she has the baby. We just don't do it in the usual sitcom way. We find great ways for these characters to care—or not care—about her pregnancy. [laughs]Any other teasers you can give me for the new season?
We're going to do a Lethal Weapon spoof. You'll see the home-video version of Lethal Weapon that Dennis and Mac made with Frank and Charlie. They actually show it to a bunch of high school kids to settle an argument over blackface. It's pretty out-there.INTERVIEW BY JESSE PEARSON
PHOTO BY SARAH SOQUEL MORHAIM
