Thankfully the tide is starting to turn as “Knocked Up,” “Oceans 13,” and the movie that this article is about – “Surf’s Up” have all delivered the goods. People can now go to the movies and walk out satisfied.

Recently Sony held a press junket to promote their newest entry into the crowded summer market. While most junkets are held at a local hotel in Los Angeles, with the movie about surfing the studio decided for an exotic location and Hawaii was the lucky destination for a number of journalists.

At the junket I was able to interview a few people from the cast and this article is the roundtable interview with Mario Cantone.

In the movie Mario plays a surf talent scout named Mikey Abromowitz and he’s the one who’s in charge of finding new surfers for the Big Z Memorial Surf Off. For a better idea of his character and what the movie is about I recommend watching some of the video clips that I previously posted.

During the interview Mario gave his opinions on a lot of subjects and it’s a funny read. And for all you “Sex and the City” fans, Mario mentioned that he’s been contacted about his availability for the fall which could mean the long awaited feature film might actually be happening. I know a number of women who just got as excited as a little kid on Christmas morning.

And before getting to the interview, I’ve posted a lot of other things to help promote “Surf’s Up.” If you missed the red carpet video interviews from Hawaii click here. To see some photographs from the premiere click here. Finally, if you want to see some behind the scenes photos from my trip click here.

As always you can listen to the interview as an MP3 so click here if you’d like to download it.

Once again a big thank you to Sony for inviting me to Hawaii. “Surf’s Up” opens this Friday and it’s absolutely worth seeing. And with that… here is Mario.

Mario Cantone: Oh, I love all these little... oooh it’s like a science fiction movie. They’re going to come to life and eat me! Oh. Go ahead buddy. Oh look at yours it’s old school I like it. That’s cool. All right baby.

Question: When you started out on this project I don’t know how long ago it was or whatever but did they even have a conceptual drawing of what your character?

Of me? Of my character? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. They sat me down at the Four Seasons in L.A. and they said this is the character we want you do. He’s a talent scout. He’s a sand piper which is very nervous bird and he’s stressed out and he works for this kind of Don King-like promoter which James Woods plays and I said yeah, that sounds great to me. It then I got to work with James Woods. I got to be in the room with him and improvise with him which was really fun.

Was it intimidating or just fun?

I think it was a little intimidating. It’s hard to get in a word edgewise with him sometimes, but he plays my boss so it was good. He was a blast. I could really listen. I think he’s Hollywood history. I could listen to his Hollywood stories forever.

Did he swear a lot during the improvisations?

He swore a little bit, I did too. The 2 of us were a little blue. He did a little bit. Yeah, he bashed me a bit, it was fun. We had a good time. That’s the unique thing about this movie. We got to improvise. We got to work together you know I mean and you can hear it when you see the film. You get to hear the overlap.

Is Mikey based on somebody that you know or people that you’ve met?

It wasn’t a stretch believe me. It’s based on… I think they based it on Jerry Schmitt who the head of press and marketing here who I adore. He’s a great guy, so he’s kind of like Jerry a little bit. They call him Mikey in it and I in fact I think he did some of the scratch tests before they hired me. Yeah, so, but it was fun. I love this. I’m so glad I can sell this without bullshitting you because it’s really, really good.

So have you seen it with and audience and kids?

I haven’t seen it with children because I’m afraid of them. After having a children’s show for 5 years called Steampipe Alley out of New York I had enough. It’s funny, a lot of people do these movies for their children, you know, they’re like I want my children to be able to … I don’t have kids, I don’t want kids, not that I don’t care about kids but really could care less. Really, so I do it for me. I’m a huge… the classics like Bambi and Pinocchio and Lady and the… I love that stuff. It took me a long time to get used to the CGI stuff. That did happen. It’s too cold. When I saw Toy Story I was like well, the kids look like toys too. This is all plastic but then finally I think it softened up. The backgrounds finally… I was saying in this other interview animation… every animated movie has a style. If you look at Pinocchio it’s got a watercolor kind of wash to it. If you look at Sleeping Beauty it’s very angular. If you look at Bambi, it’s very pastel. Dalmatians it’s very sketchy. That’s the beauty of an animated film. They have a style and when you do certain… in some of these CGI ones the backgrounds of the suburban neighborhood look like a suburban neighborhood—it’s too real. The grass looks like grass there’s no flair to it. There’s no style to it and I think that’s shit and that has to stop. It does. I don’t like it. I like it to have a look. This movie has a look to it and it just has to have a lot of heart, you know. I love animation, I really do but I don’t do it for the children.

What about all the pop culture references which this movie doesn’t have but all the animated movies now throw that in there?

It’s a little annoying sometimes. Like when I saw Shrek 2, I was like there is too much pop culture references and this doesn’t take place at that time. It’s not within the frame or the vocabulary of the time it takes place and that is kind of strange to me and they steered away from that with this and it stays within the world. And I think it’s when you’re doing a character like a character monologue in your standup act. If you’re doing a character like when Lily Tomlin does a character or Whoopie Goldberg does a character, they stay within the vocabulary of that character. If you go outside it then it makes no sense, it makes no sense at all. So I think you have to stay inside the framework. But with Shrek now, anything is game. I think the 3rd one there probably more product placement than anything, but I haven’t seen it. I’m sure it’s very good.

I was going to say you’re clearly a huge fan of Shrek.

I like Shrek. I liked the 1st one a lot but the 2nd one I thought—this is odd. I haven’t seen the 3rd one.

It’s odd.

Is it? I haven’t seen it. I liked the first one a lot, but I thought the 2nd one there was too much of like what you said of it went outside the reference of the time.

Have you ever thought of doing our job? You’d be pretty good at it.

I would be good at it, huh. Well, it’s because I’m a bitch that’s why.

Are you trying to say something about us?

I love you guys. I just had an interview with Kelly Slater who’s adorable and very, very nice and I kind of flipped it on him and started interviewing him and we had this conversation and it was great. I think that’s the way it should be when it’s one-on-one, you know. It’s tough when it’s like this because if you all got on top of me I would fall through the floor.

I can’t imagine… they told you this little bitty bird with long legs and you’re riding a whale… did you go like oh, right or was that just too bizarre for you?

No, I loved it.

How did you control the way anyway? I could never figure that out.

That’s a very good question. I have a remote control in my beak. No, I think… I don’t know. That’s a very good question. We don’t know. That’s my ride. That’s my bus. That’s my Amtrak. That’s my Acela train that I get on. That’s a good question.

You said you got started doing Steampipe Alley in New York. It was a kid’s show? You gravitate towards kid’s entertainment.

I know, it’s that crazy and then I don’t really like children that much. It’s really very odd. I just always loved animation. I just live for it. I was doing another animated film for 3 years with another company that unfortunately fell apart. It was very disheartening because I loved the project very much.

Is that American Dog? Is it done?

It’s not done, I’m just not in it anymore. No one’s in it anymore except for John Travolta. It’s very upsetting because Chris Sanders who wrote that script and was directing it I mean I was close to that project. I was with it for 3 years. It was brilliant. This guy is brilliant. And in what he was doing with it was phenomenal and unfortunately there’s a book called The Disney That Never Was that should be a chapter because you’ll never see it. You’ll never see what it was going to be which was stunning. Stunning. But anyway, you have your disappointments in life and it’s too bad but hopefully. I love doing this stuff.

Do you still keep up your standup?

I do. I haven’t done it… God I just did the Madelyn Kahn Ovarian Cancer Benefit the other night with Robert Klein and Whoopie Goldberg. It was at Caroline’s in New York. First time I’d been on stage since November. That one-man show which I adored and loved sucked the life out of me I gotta tell you. It was tough. And I want to do new stuff and it’s tough to write because I write on stage and I haven’t been going on stage that much so I’ve been going back and forth to Vancouver doing The Men In Trees show and hopefully the Sex in the City movie is going to happen this fall. If it does, I’m in it which would be nice so it better get done.

Can you tell us about the Men in Trees show because we’ve seen some posters around?

The Men in Trees thing? The Anne Hache thing? It was on last year, they just ordered 22 more for next year and I don’t know if I’m going back… maybe if they ask me I would. It was fun. It was a good time and it was a good set to work on and I had a really nice character. I had kind of… it was a little mellower than usual for me and I got plot line and I got to do some dramatic stuff. It was fun. Orlando Jones was my lover on it and we had to do an ice skating dance that hasn’t aired yet. This is hilarious you guys. We had to do an ice skating dance and we had to have an argument during the ice skating dance. So they hired 2 stunt men—great guys too—not figure skaters—stunt men. So they’re trying to do this gay ice dance and it’s like where’s the gay flair? It was like watching 2 straight guys trying to do gay porn. It just didn’t work, actually sometimes it does work if you’re gay for pay, but the point is so it was hilarious to see that and I said to my director these guys can skate like hockey players but you’re not going to get the dramatic flair that you need. Not that I’m the greatest skater in the world but I ended up doing all my own stunts and doing the dance and it was really fun. Orlando’s double was this light-skinned black guy that looked nothing like him. My double kind of looked like me except he was much butcher and had a wife and 3 kids which also I do by the way. I have a wife and 3 kids. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t like homos I got a wife and 3 kids just because I play a gay bird—I got a wife and 3 kids.

Your bird is gay?

I don’t know. Scientifically seagulls are gay, do you know that? Did you know the majority of seagulls are gay? So a sandpiper is pretty close to a seagull. He’s pretty flamboyant this bird and the only thing that’s missing is a musical number. I wanted a musical number. I said why didn’t you give me a musical number? I said I want a musical number in the sequel.

He used to recruit for musical theater right?

He used to recruit for musical theater itself. Is he gay? I’m like do you live in a cave?

Speaking of the sequel, has there ever been any talk because the film is really good.

Isn’t it good? Seriously. It’s so great to be a part of this that you can go this is friggin’ great.

So has there been behind the scenes talking?

There is talk of it and I’d better have a musical number in it. That’s all I know. I was telling Kelly Slater that I was like the fact that you’re involved with this you obviously think this movie represents surfing in a way that is respectful and it’s valid and it’s important and you see the tragedy of it and the triumphs of it and the hurt and the pain and the joy. It’s all there. And he said yeah. I said I knew it was one he saw the script and the pictures he was just very excited about it and they really stay true to… I don’t even know surfing. It’s not that I don’t like it I’m like whatever but this really showed me what surfing was and what it meant. It’s very theatrical. Surfing is a show. It’s a show. It’s theater. It really is so it’s not too far away from what I do.

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