TRUE PERSON OF DARING: WILL CARLOUGH

The first time I met Will Carlough was in a fox-hole in an unauthorized war you will not find in any text book. Since then he has become an award-winning filmmaker, talented comedian and world-famous gangsta hip-hop artist. His Paraphrase Theater, a series of recreations of famous movie scenes, can be seen on Comedy Central’s late night show Atom TV. His paraphrasial of a Star Wars scene has had over 500,000 views on YouTube, more people than voted for the President of Bolivia.

His genius has attracted actors of acclaimed dramatic skill such as Sam Rockwell and CSI: Miami’s Jonathan Togo as well as comedic thespians of the likes of Justin Long, SNL’s Will Forte and Will Carlough.

A person of daring? He proved as much with a machete and 30 yards of cellophane under the skies of Kyrgyzstan. But that was a lifetime ago. Had he lost his daring and become some kind of fuck-hole? I intended to find out.

You are a filmmaker, rapper, actor and now a True Person of Daring. So congratulations on that.
Wow, thank you.

Do you consider yourself daring or are you just incredibly humble?
I would not consider myself daring. But I’m also mind-bogglingly humble. I’m probably the most humble person you’ll ever meet.

I assume that you’re doing all sorts of illegal things when you’re making your movies.
I try to. The first movie that I made out of college, The Great A.T.M. Heist, we shot in an A.T.M. The cops eventually came and they said, do you have permission to shoot at this A.T.M? And we were like, no, we absolutely, really, do not have permission at all.



Robin’s Big Date would be perhaps your biggest short or at least your flashiest one.
When I first posted it on my website, RedheadedLeague.com, it cost me five times the cost of the movie in bandwidth in about two days. My server just crashed. Then six months later it got into Sundance.

How did you get that cast together? Sam Rockwell, Justin Long.
The director and I went to Vassar with Justin and he knew Sam, I believe, from Galaxy Quest. So Sam basically said I will be in a movie that you make as long as it takes three hours to shoot on this particular Wednesday. James was like, oh, okay. Then I wrote it. It is not an exciting story. I’m going to come up with a more exciting story.



You have a web series called Casted staring Justin Long and Jonathan Togo. The one you’re in, you take your clothes off. And you are pasty and white. How dare you.
It was originally going to be Sam [Rockwell] that takes his clothes off but we just were, like, too chicken to ask him to do it.

You’re an underground filmmaker, subverting the mainstream media. You point out the absurdity of American mythos.
Sure.

Are you trying to sell out and failing or do you have a kind of integrity?
Oh man. That’s, uh . . . I have . . . um . . . I’m trying sell out and failing. But I ain’t licked yet. I’m actually working on a new short series for Comedy Central/Atom.com with Togo, but I don’t . . . actually maybe I can’t tell you.

Are you afraid of screwing it up or getting sued or something?
Yeah. I guess.

What if you only told me things that weren’t true about it?
I play a talking penis. I play Jon Togo’s talking penis in it.



What’s the diciest situation you’ve ever found yourself in?
The G train wasn’t running so I’m like, well, I’ll walk. Part of my walk took me through Bed-Stuy and this guy grabbed me from behind, got me on the ground and was pointing a gun at my head. He was like empty your pockets and I had recently bought an iPhone and I did not want to give him my iPhone. I had like 20 bucks on me and I took that out right away and then he said, “No, but, keep on, you know, emptying your pockets.” And I was like that is all I got. I really stuck to my guns, risking my life to save my iPhone. And it worked. He eventually gave up. And I then lost my iPhone a month later.



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