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As we reported yesterday, comedy legend Garry Shandling has died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 66. The former stand-up comedian was also a writer and actor, probably best known for the 1990s HBO series “The Larry Sanders Show.”
We tracked down two people who were greatly influenced by Shandling at some point in their careers, writer Maya Forbes and filmmaker Mark Duplass.
Maya Forbes was a young writer on "The Larry Sanders Show," hired as a staffer when she was just 23. Forbes, who is now a filmmaker, producer and director, made the feature film “Infinitely Polar Bear” and recently wrote for the miniseries “American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson.”
Thanks for joining us, Maya. Can you tell us what Garry Shandling meant to you and your career?
It was my first real job and Garry was an incredible teacher. One of the great things about Garry was he obviously loves people and character-based comedy. I wasn't really a joke writer, but he was such a sensitive reader that he would find the joke, like the funny thing I was going for and he would excavate the joke. He would show me how to bring it to the fore so that everybody could understand what I was going for. He would always emphasize starting the story right away...that is something that is always in my mind, to get to it right off the bat.
You talk about him as though he saw something in you as a writer that you didn't see in yourself. That must have been a remarkable accomplishment for him to hire you at that young age.
Yeah, when you have a mentor who finds something in you that you're too young or you're not even thinking, you don't have a whole picture of the world yet, you're just a kid, who can find that thing in you and really support it and teach you how to make the most of it. What an amazing thing.
What was it like to be in the writer's room with Garry Shandling?
He loves awkward real human interactions. Being in the writer's room with Garry always was intimidating. I think his electrical engineering background, his voice was so distinct and idiosyncratic, but he really had a nuts and bolts understanding of jokes and yet they never sounded like the typical set-up joke thing. I remember this one time I had been in some kind of young person drama and I'd been up really late, but I wrapped myself in a blanket, I think I was pretty sad, I was on the sofa sleeping and Garry kept saying "Is she...is she sleeping? That's ok, that's fine, ok...But...Is she sleeping?" He was really amused and befuddled by it, but he was very sweet about it.
What did he teach you about comedy and what do you think his legacy to comedy overall will be?
He taught me to really go for honesty. He loves pain in comedy, I love that, too, but he paved the way for that in terms of putting yourself on the line, trying to get to the real emotion in the moment and the show sounded so different than everything else. I think he changed the way comedy can sound. It's very humane, the way he approached it.
Do you have a particularly fond memory of Garry?
I have many fond memories, but we would often go up to his house to go through the script with him for the Monday table read. We were up there and this big package arrived. Garry was trying to open it, it had a lot of bubble wrap and he was slashing at it with some scissors and it was a big pain. Half way through opening it he said, "Oh, Maya this is for you." It was this giant mirror and I never knew whether it was actually for me or if he'd just gotten really tired of trying to open it. It was a perfect Garry awkward gift-giving situation. I still have that mirror.
Mark Duplass is an actor, screenwriter and director, currently starring in the HBO series “Togetherness,” which he co-created, with his brother Jay Duplass and actor Steve Zissis. Mark Duplass also has written and directed a number of acclaimed indie movies, including “Cyrus,” “Baghead” and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home.”
Though he's more of an acquaintance of Shandling's, a chance meeting thanks to Judd Apatow had a lasting impact on Duplass.
Mark thanks for joining us. I understand that you were able to meet Garry Shandling at a screening of your film, "Cyrus." Could you tell us what happened?
Yeah it was this strange circumstance where Judd Apatow, who is just so great at mentoring young filmmakers and comedians, said he'd come out and host a Q&A session for us at an ArcLight screening in Los Angeles. Little did we know he was bringing his good friend Garry Shandling with him, who is just an idol. Not only were we nervous about releasing our first studio film, but we were nervous about Garry Shandling sitting in the audience watching it with us. Afterwards, this guy's busy and he's a comedy legend, he came with me and Jay and Judd and we sat in the PF Changs for about three hours talking about movies and talking about comedy. He just gave us so much love and support and he had no agenda. It's not like he wanted to produce anything of ours, he was just being a nice, supportive guy.
How important was what he did on HBO to set up the future for people like you and your brother?
I think from a stylistic standpoint that comedy of discomfort, the comedy of people that seem unlikeable, that are neurotic, was huge for him laying that kind of track. Also from a format perspective, for us to be able to come onto HBO now and make the kinds of things that we make there. For a guy like Garry Shandling to be, quite frankly, just a huge television star. It paved the way for dorks like us to feel like we could do it too.
Garry Shandling was a great standup comedian. Do you remember seeing him doing standup and what did his comedy mean to you?
I remember the early HBO standup show and I remember sitting around as a family, I was probably eight years old and I remember him telling that great joke about how people get excited about fishing in these ponds, but people are just starving the fish in the ponds and the fish are coming up onto land and you have to kill the fish with your Top Siders. My dad was cracking up in his early to mid-40s, my mom and my brother, who was 12, was cracking up and I was cracking up. It was just a shock that we could all share that kind of thing. That age is a time when nobody can agree on anything to watch on TV, but we could watch Garry Shandling.
What do you think his broader impact on comedy is going to be?
He has this famous quote that I just find so comforting and so strangely full of heart and hope, I'm paraphrasing, but it's "Whoever said that nice guys finish last they clearly don't know where the finish line is." I really believe that. There's guys like Judd Apatow who when they come up they raise people up around them. Garry Shandling raised Judd up and Jay and I are doing our best to raise up anybody around us that we can. This is a cut-throat business, and that level of humanity is just so needed and important. If there's any message that I want to see spread it's that you don't need to be threatened by the newer model, you need to raise them up and help them out.