Christopher Guest on why he values spontaneity over script

By N.B.

“MASCOTS”—a gentle send-up of those mysterious souls in foam rubber who dance along the sidelines at sporting events—is the first comedy to be co-written and directed by Christopher Guest since “For Your Consideration” (2006). But in the intervening decade there hasn’t been anything else like it. Mr Guest, 68, pioneered improvised “comedies in a documentary style” (he dislikes the term “mockumentary”) when he co-wrote and co-starred in “This is Spinal Tap” (1984), directed by Rob Reiner. The film appears on every list of the funniest comedies ever made, usually followed by some of the films Mr Guest has directed himself, including “Waiting for Guffman” (1996) and “Best in Show” (2000). And yet, after all this time, no one else has attempted to do what he does. There are some comedies with improvised elements and others which are faux-documentaries, but his own working methods remain unique. To many observers it seems unfathomable.

“I’ve been doing this for a very long time and I’ve been explaining it for a very long time,” says Mr Guest, a tall, neat, white-bearded, professorial figure, “but I’m usually met with glazed eyes. I sometimes do lectures at universities, and the students ask, ‘Mr Guest, when you rehearse...’ Well, we don’t rehearse. The way I work, there is no rehearsal.”

Financing the first of his ensemble comedies, “This is Spinal Tap”, wasn’t easy. Mr Guest and his co-stars, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, wanted to make an ad-libbed spoof documentary about a gormless British heavy metal band, but studios were baffled by the concept. When the comedians were eventually paid to write a screenplay, they used the money to shoot 20 minutes of footage instead. The studios were still baffled. “They said, ‘This is stupid. What is this?’” Finally, “This is Spinal Tap” was funded by Norman Lear, a veteran film and television producer, but audiences didn’t know whether to laugh or not—never mind that Nigel Tufnel, Mr Guest’s character, had an amplifier that “goes up to 11”, or that the band’s drummer spontaneously combusted on stage.

“When we did our first interviews for ‘Spinal Tap’ in Britain,” he says, “we were in the Savoy, and the journalist was saying, ‘I’m confused. Where are the people who are in the movie?’ We said, ‘That was us, actually.’ And he said, ‘No, there were some English people in the film.’ And we said, ‘Well, we were playing English people.’ He thought it was really a documentary.” Many have shared the journalist’s confusion; Liam Gallagher of Oasis is a notorious example of someone who became a fan of “This is Spinal Tap” without realising it was fictional.

The key to this apparent authenticity is the films’ balance of planning and spontaneity. Mr Guest and a collaborator—usually Eugene Levy—will write a story. They will detail what happens in every scene, and they will describe the characters’ histories and personalities. “This is not a case of, ‘I wonder what the movie is going to be,’” he insists. “This is way more severe than a conventional screenplay.” Unlike a conventional screenplay, however, Mr Guest’s scripts contain no dialogue, so it is up to the actors to improvise on set. Then comes a ten-month editing period, during which, in the case of “Mascots”, 150 hours of footage are whittled down to a 90-minute film.

Wouldn’t it be easier just to write the dialogue in advance? Maybe so, says Mr Guest, but something vital would be lost. “What I’m drawn to are real conversations between people. That’s why I like watching documentaries. In scripted movies there is a back-and-forth pattern”—he wags a finger from side to side—“talking, talking, talking, talking, talking. But I like the idea that a scene could be ten minutes long and someone in the scene isn’t talking. I like to watch human behaviour without a cut. That’s fascinating to me, because the timing is real as opposed to manipulated. You get to see people thinking on camera.”

Unsurprisingly, there are very few actors who are capable of improvising hilariously on cue, in character, with no training or practice. It is why he has established a repertory company of performers he uses again and again, including Jane Lynch (the star of “Glee”) and Fred Willard. He compares them to jazz musicians. “It’s like being able to pick up an instrument and play. Someone might say, [he adopts Nigel Tufnel’s dopey cockney drawl] ‘Where’s the sheet music? Where’s it hidden? Where’s it coming from? Your head? That doesn’t make sense.’ Well, no, it doesn’t make sense, but those actors can talk like that until they keel over.”

Finding new actors to join the repertory company is, he says, the most “challenging and fun” part of his job. “These days, it’s those actors who motivate me to come up with ideas to write, as opposed to having an idea and then looking for the actors. It’s almost like finding great musicians and saying, ‘We have to write some stuff for you guys to play.’ When else are they going to get a chance to do what they do in my films?” The answer, it seems, is never.

“Mascots” is available on Netflix now