Last week I got to do something extremely cool – I went to the set of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia!”

While many of you haven’t yet tuned into this incredibly funny show that airs on FX, for those that watch…you know how great of an opportunity it was to see Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney not only rehearse their lines…but do a scene!

Since I’ve already written about what I saw and how the day went, I strongly encourage you to click here and start with that article. It’s a recap of what I saw and did on set – with around 50 behind the scenes photos! If you’ve already read it, then what’s below is the next step.

After getting to watch everyone rehearse and walk around the sets, the invited online press sat down with the cast to talk about the upcoming season and all the other stuff we were curious about. If you’re a fan of the show, this is a must read interview.

As I said when I posted the previous article, a HUGE thanks to everyone that invited me. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” Season 3 arrives on DVD this week and season 4 starts up September 18^th. If you’ve never watched an episode…there is no time like now to tune into one of the funniest shows on any network.

Question: How did you guys go about recreating the bar for The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell?

Rob McElhenney: It was all about making it look like the bar circa 1776. We had to make sure that it still looked like Paddy’s. The ceiling is the same, the bricks are the same, the colors are all the same. Obviously, we took down the neon signs. Stuff like that. The trick was figuring out how to light it. So we just candle lit everyone. That works pretty good.

Where did the idea for this episode come from?

Rob McElhenney: We’d been wanting to do a flashback episode for a really long time. We just weren’t sure how to get into it. We weren’t sure what would be the most organic way. The story actually stemmed from us all going to Philly and taking a historical tour. We thought it would be interesting to try and make our bar a historical landmark, to try and get more people to come. If we were part of the walking tour, people would have to come into the bar, and they would have to get drunk. We thought that might be a good way to do a flashback. If we tried to make this place an historical landmark. This is the story of how Paddy’s played a part in the American Revolution.

How was it decided to make Dee a slave?

Kaitlin Olson: Why not? Isn’t that what you would guess? I’m actually a witch. A straight up broom witch.

Rob McElhenney: We sort of mix up our history a little bit. We are telling our story to a woman that is the head of the historical society in Philly. We kind of mix our histories together. It has sort of a Salem flavor to it. Dee was almost burned at the stake.

Kaitlin Olson: Dee was accused of being a witch by Dennis. And then I was saved by Dennis, so now I’m his slave.

But he is still your brother?

Kaitlin Olson: Yeah. He sure is.

On average, does the first take make the show, or do the more ad-libbed takes make the show?

Rob McElhenney: It varies.

Kaitlin Olson: It goes up really fast, and then it takes a shit dive. Usually around number seven is where the take is golden.

Rob McElhenney: It depends. Sometimes we use the take that is scripted. Sometime its take ten, which had nothing to do with the script as it was intended.

Kaitlin Olson: Sometimes we play around and go way too far. Then we have to go back. And it all lands somewhere in the middle.

Do you think “ride the pooper” will make it into the actual show?

Kaitlin Olson: Oh, yeah. Ride the pooper.

Rob McElhenney: Maybe! We’ll have to see. Pooper. Poopeth Shute. I like that one.

Kaitlin Olson: But it doesn’t make any sense.

Rob McElhenney: Poopeth?

Kaitlin Olson: That is a verb. You have to put it in a noun’s place. (Aside) He isn’t very smart. I help him.

Do you guys actually rewrite a lot of history?

Rob McElhenney: In this episode, we do rewrite a fair amount. We have a sort of Ichabod Crane thing going. We crack the Liberty Bell in this particular episode. That’s where Paddy’s bit of history comes from.

Kaitlin Olson: That’s how we are important.

The next logical step would be to do the future episode, right?

Rob McElhenney: We though about that. But then we realized it would limit how we wanted to actually end the show.

Kaitlin Olson: We’d have to end it in the year 8 million.

Can you talk a little bit about the writers’ room? What is it like when you guys are in there?

Rob McElhenney: I don’t know how to compare it to another writers’ room. Because I’ve never been in one. Well, I have been in the writers’ room over at Lost. But I was only there for a couple of hours. That seemed a lot more structured then what we do. That being said, we do come to work everyday at nine or ten, and we stay until six or seven. It is structured in that we are working hard all the way through. We try to create an open environment, where everybody’s ideas are heard. Yet, we try to keep it moving forward. We do have a basic direction for the days that we are in there. But it is a pretty open environment.

Do you work on one script at a time? Or are you working on a bunch of ideas all at once?

Rob McElhenney: I It all depends. There are different days. In the beginning we usually come in and brainstorm a bunch of different ideas that we want to do. Then we will whittle that down. Generally, the whole room is working on one script at a time. Then we will assign different episodes to certain people. Sometimes Charlie and Glenn will write one, or I will write one. Or Charlie will write one by himself. It doesn’t really have a pattern as to how it will break down.

Do you generally have all of your episodes written before the season starts filming?

Rob McElhenney: We try to. It didn’t happen this year. Or last year. We try to get as much done as we can to meet the schedule. A scene that we shot yesterday, we’d only shot it three days before. We are not done writing until we are done with production. And we are done with production next week.

It seems like you guys shoot in chunks. And you only have Danny DeVito for a limited amount of time. Then you go to Philly. Is it ever hard to keep your mind around what you are shooting when you are doing it in that manner?

Rob McElhenney: Once the scripts are written, it’s not that difficult. Most movies are shot out of sequence. I’d love to hear Kaitlin’s take on this.

Kaitlin Olson: It is very confusing. You have to know the script backwards and forwards, otherwise you will find yourself shooting something, and it’s a continuation of something you shot two weeks ago. And you realize that you should have come into that last scene really angry. You should have been really pissed off. I have to constantly ask where I am at in the script, because months will go by between scenes. It is a little confusing. But every department feels that way. So I can ask wardrobe what just happened in the script. Or I can ask make-up. They are also constantly trying to keep up with where we are at.

Glenn Howerton: We have the advantage of not only writing it, but acting it. When we are going through the rewrite phase, we are acting it all out. Not just our roles, but everyone else’s too. We have that advantage when we come to the set. We don’t just know the script, but we know how we want to play it out.

Kaitlin Olson: We talked about this the other night. When we start out the season, I am in bed at night, working on my scenes for the next day. I am all ready in the morning. I know my lines. But then a couple of weeks into it I will show up on set and look at my sides. “What am I saying right now? What is this episode about? What is my character doing? What is dragging her through the scene?”

Do you find it stressful wearing so many hats as far as the production goes?

Kaitlin Olson: Me? I find it very stressful. I have so much to keep track of. These guys are always coming to me. Asking questions. Wanting to know how to keep the show funny. Agggh! I am working!

Rob McElhenney: It is definitely taxing. It is also part of the fun. We like the pace. Each year presents its own challenges. This year, because of the writers’ strike, we had a lot less time to write the show. We also had a couple of issues with actors and their availability. It is stressful, but we get through it.

Charlie Day: It’s stressful to me, because the buck stops here. Anytime something is not going well, you can’t stop and say, “The director didn’t get this right! Or the writer didn’t get this right!” You can’t really point a finger at anybody else. Though, we do. We are pointing fingers constantly. The stress is something we set up for ourselves. We always have certain expectations for the episodes.

Glenn Howerton: But its like Rob says, it’s not so much the stress. It’s just really taxing. Having to act for twelve hours a day is taxing enough. Then in-between takes we are on our cell phones, we are doing re-writes. Sometimes we are popping up to the editing room to see if there are any problems up there. We have to check and see if there are any sound problems. It’s less about stress, and more about being exhausted.

You guys push the boundaries pretty good. What can fans look forward to in this upcoming season?

Glenn Howerton: What we discovered when we finally ran out of these large themed, worldwide taboos like abortion, was that you can pretty much take it to the limit with any smaller subject. We are doing some very simply ideas. One storyline is simply about Charlie finding out that The Waitress is dating someone else. And the entire episode revolves around: Who is going to help him? Who is his best friend? The whole episode becomes about who is best friends with who. And who is best friends with Charlie. I know that doesn’t totally address your question.

Charlie Day: I want to put an asterisk on this topic of conversation. One of the things I’ve always heard is, “What are these guys going to do when they run out of big topics?” I don’t want to say that we have run out of them. Life is always making new ones up. And we are shinning a mirror on these things as they happen. This year we went after what is going on with the gas crisis in America. And what is going on with the mortgage crisis. Though, that episode had to get pushed because of Danny’s availability. I don’t think we are every going to run out of taboo subjects. Something is always popping up in real life.

Glenn Howerton: I didn’t mean to say that we had run out of those types of things.

Kaitlin Olson: You can find this type of humor in almost any subject. It doesn’t have to be abortion. You can take anything, and if you explore it right, you can make it funny.

Glenn Howerton: And what Charlie said is true. We are dealing with the gas situation this year. Water boarding. Torture. Its true.

Rob McElhenney: Me and Dee get addicted to human meat. We become cannibals.

Kaitlin Olson: We try to figure out who pooped the bed. That is universal and topical.

Is there a subject that you won’t touch?

Glenn Howerton: I don’t think so. Not that we have found. We are doing an entire episode this year that is dealing with rape and pedophilia. Or rather, we are not dealing with it.

Kaitlin Olson: “Not” is exactly right. We are “not dealing” with pedophilia.

Do you work that into the cannibalism episode?

Glenn Howerton: No. Why would you ask that? That is strange. How would we tie those two things together?

Kaitlin Olson: That would be a completely different episode. That’s how we deal with a pedophile. We eat him. That is how we don’t deal with it.

Is FX supportive? Or has there been a time when they told you it’s gone too far?

Rob McElhenney: FX is always encouraging us to make the show we want to make. They always want us to do what is not being done on television. At the same time, they don’t want us pushing buttons. That isn’t what we are trying to do. We are just trying to do something that you don’t see on NBC or CBS. Or HBO for that matter. And they want us to make it funny.

Glenn Howerton: We just want to make something that will genuinely make people laugh. We do want to surprise you, and shock you a little bit. But not for the sake of offending people. We are not trying to offend people or push boundaries. Nothing like that. We are only doing that in so far as that you don’t see it anywhere else. People that find this stuff funny actually find it funny. Because these things are surprising them and shocking them. The jokes are a little bit off balanced.

Kaitlin Olson: I get asked about this a lot. I always get asked if I am handed a script, and I have to go, “Oooh, this is too dark.” I think the scripts are genuinely funny. I don’t think they are based on shock value. These are funny people that are writing funny, unique stuff. And its funny to me. When it turns into being mean just for the sake of being mean, then it’s not funny.

Glenn Howerton: We wouldn’t ever put that in a script.

Kaitlin Olson: Being mean just for being mean’s sake isn’t funny.

continued on page 2 --------->

Page 2 >>>