Name: Louis C.K Talks About Horace and Pete
Uploaded: 2022-11-10T16:00:02.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K Talks About Horace and Pete' from I'm Not Louis on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-11-10. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Louis C.K Talks About Horace and Pete' from I'm Not Louis on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-11-10. Transcript available.

Louis C.K Talks About Horace and Pete

when you created this what's the creation process for you I mean you
decided that you this bar yeah and you love the idea and the drama you wanted
to do it I wanted to be about a family yeah and I wanted yeah go ahead so I
thought about a family and they own a place together which means people work
and live in the same place I mean in other words you go you live with people
and then you work with them and then you can't escape them which is what family
feels like family is something you can't escape but this relationship you can't
get out of this is not Cheers no no not at all I know it looks like it if you
have
the sound off yeah for two minutes and then even with the sound off you'd be
like Jesus that's not Cheers at all it's very it gets very down it is funny in
moments it's very surprising and startling in moments but yeah so the
creative process is like you create the people in the the world and then you
see if it if it writes if you can sit down and write and I just it just floated
I
believed in the people they felt real to me so I just wrote I told the story
yeah
start episode by episode it just pours out yeah so and some things come out
that
way and this one did too every episode I would sit down and I would just be
writing and I put the people in the rooms in my head and I haven't talked to
each
other and it's like I'm hearing it and I'm quickly copying it down like a
stenographer or a court report is that what a court person yeah right that's
that's what it feels like and then when it's over I stop and I go oh my god
that
was crazy and then I read it I'm well it's pretty good and then I then I've got
one done okay but do you how much editing you do I mean is it pretty much a
stream of consciousness when you do it or do you simply hammer it and like a
few
different things like a lot of that happens ahead of time like that's when I
get an
episode written when I sit down and write it I before I write it I walk around
driving myself crazy thinking about it ice carved do all the carving up here
and I
know what's gonna happen I think about what it means in each interaction and
what
direction it's gonna go and I think about all that for a long time it's like
being pregnant and then finally I just regurgitated onto the page and after
that
maybe right before we shoot I would like we do a rehearsal for a whole day we
rehearse the show over and over again and then I'll look at it and go maybe
there's
a few things that could change I usually keep the dialogue all the same there's
an
integrity to that like how you first wrote it but I might cut and I might add
things but I don't change the little lines inside I think that feels like
tampering your role in in this is very much of a guy who listens he's a
listener
yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean horse is a very quiet and he doesn't talk much and
part of
that is because I did I wanted to be able to effectively direct the show and
and do it
without you don't want to have many lines I don't want to have a lot of lines
and
and also look at the cast Edie Falco and and and Steve and Alan and Jessica Lange
these are all
better these people are all better than me they're all better actors than me so
I
write about that you know yeah for sure so I wanted to just give them a
platform and
just be there as a sounding board but you've been doing some acting are you
surprised you seem like a natural I mean I try hope I am I know I own a lot of
terrible moments on screen that I can't take back including on this show I'm a
little I'm a bit of a I'm stiff I'm not really you know towards the end of
horse
and Pete the feelings about the show were so real to me I really felt like Pete
was
my brother and so when bad hard things happen to Pete it got I got very upset
and
you feel it because you oh god yeah it was the amazing thing I mean you know
you
created harsh and you created Pete yeah the other character then I got
involved like I was in the family like you were there yeah when the show when
we
shot the last episode I was very I couldn't it took me a while to recover
from it I never had an experience like that because I didn't have to act I
didn't have to conjure something yeah from my past or figure out how to get
there I was just very upset for real and all of us we traded emails me and Alan
and
and Edie and Steve traded emails saying saying that we're in withdrawal and
that we
are upset that it was hard to walk away from the show and it was hard how it
ended
does it have to end no not necessarily no but I mean the season is over the
story the story that we told is over there's this is it was it's a 10 part
it's like a it's like a 10-act play that's what Horace and Pete is it's more
like a 10-act play than it is like a series see the thing with a series when
you
write series television you have to keep everything intact all the time you
have
to keep all the balls in the air so you can't really have anything big happen
or big be said because then you can't take that back every show has to reset
you
know TV has this thing where it kind of shows up your house like a like a
vacuum
cleaner salesman and it makes a mess on the floor but they got to clean it up
before they leave TV is supposed to leave you the way it found you you know
what I
mean and that way you'll want to watch it the next week forever it's a
perpetuity thing but so the idea with this show is to write something where
every week it's gonna it's gonna take a piece out of you it's gonna leave you a
little bit broken and you'll go like how the hell did I get and keep doing this
well we don't have to keep doing it we don't have to I didn't have to make more
than three if I didn't want to what's the level of satisfaction from this level
of
satisfaction from this compared to the other stuff you do can you even judge it
wait no I can't because this was this was so personal and it felt so real to me
and it was so satisfying and a new direction - yeah brand new thing that's
the thing that's so fun is to learn a thing you've never done before and then
do
it really well I've never done a show like this none of us had nobody had I
mean nobody had made a show it was closer to Saturday Night Live than it was
to a sitcom because we had to throw it together and have it up on the site we
shot it Wednesday and Thursday and had it up on the site Saturday morning so it
was a very quick you know but you all in the world all the episodes have been
written by the time you started they've been written except for we did things
about current events because it was a bar and I thought people at bars talk
about what's going on in the news so if they could talk about what it was
actually in the news that's why we shot it so close to the air date and in
February and you talked about part of the idea behind launching it on the site
was
to create a show in a new way and to provide it to you directly and this is a
letter you wrote on your site to fans directly and immediately without the
usual promotion banner ads billboards and clips that tell you what the show
feels and looks like before you get there to see it for yourself and you talk
more about as a writer and stuff like that I wanted to get a sense from you as
like why did you decide to make this leap because I'm sure there are a lot of
people around you saying I don't do that man you got you're gone cable you got
this you got a good gig going don't well nobody was saying that because there
was
nobody around me I mean that's why I did it that way because I just wanted to
try I
wanted to be able to have I didn't want it to matter if the show hit or not
like
success for a TV show is very different now because the moment of success or
failure is
it's changed it used to be like when it aired how did it do how to do that
night
and some shows have died the day after they first air because that night just
didn't hit this expectation according to how much was spent on promoting it and
creating it but now when you just put something out there once it's there it's
like you open this tap and you can bring people in it different waves from it
you
know when the show was running it was doing pretty well but after it ran I
started going out and promoting it then then the sales went crazy it's made far
more since it was on like on every week than when it was you know since then
but
so I wanted it I wanted to see but the main reason I did this way was for a
dramatic effect for the story you have this idea to do Horace and Pete so I
start
writing it and then I'm reading an article about Edie Falco and I look at her
face in the article I go you're gonna be on my show I just know it
you visualize yes and then I go to the Emmys yes and she's sitting by herself
with a seat next to her I don't know Edie I mean I've run into her a few times
hello I'd sit next to her you sat your ass down I just saw that chair and I was
like fuck it and I sat down and what do you say to her I said to her I have a
show
I'm writing Steve Buscemi and I earned it together because he had agreed to do
it
and I said I want I want you to play that I wrote a part for you and then here's
the thing I had also
written a part for Jessica Lange so I walk away from I tell you going to the
Emmys is the best
place to cast something I told Edie Falco this is my this is a show I wrote it
for you I only you
can play this part right and then I walk away and Jessica Lange standing right
there so I go up to
Jessica Lange and I go hey I have a new show I want you to be in it I wrote a
part for you
and then I turn around I see Edie Falco looking at me because she said hey wait
a second this guy's
mental he's going up to everyone at the Emmys he's over there with Weird Al Yankovic
asking him
we gotta hear what I did he's had an amazing career how did you get Paul Simon
to write the theme song
for the show well so like you're talking about the audacity of asking so I have
this new thing I
arrived at a new method of getting stuff done I write an email to a guy like
Paul Simon I'd had dinner
with Paul Simon what at Lauren's house uh no we went to a restaurant we met for
oh look at you
yeah we had common friends where do you go no boo uh yeah yeah yeah something
like that no boo yeah
are you nervous before you have a dinner with Paul Simon yeah sure a little bit
I would be yeah
I met him in a bathroom his music is like the world to me me too and I used to
sing his songs to my
daughters before uh bedtime when I was first divorced you must have mangled
those oh sure let me hear you
sing Paul Simon oh geez I want to pretend I'm your daughter and you're putting
me to bed what song would
you sing to your daughter uh the boxer I am just a poor boy on a night story
seldom told I have
squandered my resistance on a pocket full of mumbles such are promises I don't
want to be a singer
no but I'm singing to my daughters that's beautiful the boxer is so depressed
oh by the way uh senator al franken just tweeted that that is a horrible song
for you to sing to a
kid and you're a terrible father yes okay so Paul so I wrote Paul an email that
said I know this is
crazy but I'm making a new show and I want to ask you to write the theme song
and perform it yes
because your voice would literally set the tone for the show perfectly yes I
hope I'm not overreaching
of course you are and and I don't and I know this is uh you're very busy and so
I look at the email
and I take out I shouldn't be asking I take out I'm overreaching and just leave
in I'm making a new
show I want you to write the song you set the tone perfectly that's all just
ask by the way have you
taught us a business lesson today louis ck in other words if you take away you
know most people
would say I'm not going to bother I would say I'm not going to bother paul simon
how dare I
you're saying if you if you ask you'd be surprised what you could get also
either bother him or don't
but don't don't bother somebody and say sorry for bothering you just go ahead
and bother him or don't
or don't as