{"id":573468,"date":"2023-05-07T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/lucky-hank-made-diedrich-bader-fall-in-love-with-acting-again\/"},"modified":"2023-05-07T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T13:00:00","slug":"lucky-hank-made-diedrich-bader-fall-in-love-with-acting-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/lucky-hank-made-diedrich-bader-fall-in-love-with-acting-again\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u2018Lucky Hank\u2019 Made Diedrich Bader Fall in Love With Acting Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Diedrich Bader has played the best friend before. He did it for nine seasons of The Drew Carey Show<\/em>. He did it two decades later on Pamela Adlon\u2019s meditative Better Things<\/em>. He also did it plenty of other times in between. But something about being the Bob Odenkirk\u2019s wingman on Lucky Hank<\/em>, the AMC series<\/a> based on Richard Russo\u2019s 1997 novel\u00a0Straight Man<\/em>, made it feel different for Bader \u2014 a man whose\u00a0IMDb tally currently stands at 237\u00a0acting credits.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI had stopped feeling like an artist and more like a craftsman making cabinetry,\u201d Bader says of his mindset before taking on the black comedy about aging academics. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of artistry in making cabinetry, but maybe once you\u2019ve made too many, it\u2019s like \u201cHere\u2019s another cabinet!\u201d With this, I felt like \u201cHere\u2019s everything I\u2019ve got. I can bring comedy, but I can also bring some reality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Speaking over Zoom in late April, Bader got into why Lucky Hank<\/em> \u2014 which airs its first season finale Sunday on AMC and AMC+ \u2014 came at a particularly opportune time. He also dug into family histories (his late father,\u00a0William B. Bader, was a spy), the obstacles he has encountered when considering a pivot to screenwriting and the two bit parts that are almost always the reason he\u2019s app<\/a>roached in public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Ok, we\u2019re speaking just moments after the news<\/a> broke that Fox News fired Tucker Carlson. Should I get your instant reaction, for posterity?
<\/strong>I\u2019m totally delighted. I really hate the guy. This has got to be years ago now, but I wrote a tweet saying, \u201cHey Tucker, my mother-in-law watches your show every night, and she\u2019s an anti-vaxxer, and because of your show.\u201d I just really wanted him to admit that he had gotten the shot and that everybody at Fox had gotten the shot and that they just weren\u2019t speaking about it. It went kind of bonkers on Twitter<\/a>. A bunch of lawyers contacted me said we could put a class action suit together with other people whose parents have been watching Fox and haven\u2019t gotten the vaccine because of misinformation. CNN somehow got ahold of my own number. I was like, \u201cHow did that happen?\u201d I\u2019m not listed. But the producer said, \u201cYou want to be on Sunday morning?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n It escalated that quickly?
<\/strong>I was like, \u201cI\u2019m not a politician. I just sent a tweet saying I wish that my mother-in-law would get the vaccine shot.\u201d Anyway, on Monday, all of the Fox hosts except Carlson said that they had gotten the shots. I\u2019ve always wondered if I caused anything of that. Anyways, I\u2019m absolutely delighted. I mean he\u2019s our modern Father Coughlin from the 1930s. The reason for this whole idea of regulation of the airways, as far as political expression, that was Father Coughlin \u2014 because of his misinformation and antisemitism. It was all for ratings too. It\u2019s just a craven.<\/p>\n

\n You\u2019re not a politician, but you grew up politics-adjacent \u2014 right?
<\/strong>I\u2019m from outside of Washington, DC. My dad worked in politics. He was a spy as well, which is kind of fun, and then he was a professor. He did a lot of things.<\/p>\n

\n There\u2019s more than a little about your father on the internet \u2014 but how much do you know about his spy career?
<\/strong>I know some of it, but he kept his secrets. He really didn\u2019t talk about where he went. Sometimes he would come back with a hat and it would be from Uzbekistan \u2014 and this is during the time of the Soviet Union. He was an interesting guy. You can Google him<\/a>. His obit covers him pretty well. I mean, he was in the CIA and then he left and was a professor\u2026 but did he really leave? That\u2019s the question. Later in life, he basically said he never really left. He was the one who brought down Robert McNamara, the Secretary [of Defense] for his lies about the Gulf of Tonkin \u2014 because he was working for Senator Fulbright at that time. That\u2019s when we moved to Paris, because we had to basically get out of town.<\/p>\n

Oh, wow.
<\/strong>Crazy, right? He found out through his old buddies at the CIA that they had federated the first attack and then lied about the second one \u2014 which was basically why we got into the war. When confronted with that information, McNamara said that he would have an answer for the committee tomorrow. He resigned before he really got in trouble, got out and dodge. It was a smart move, but then McNamara made his business to find out who screwed him. Dad was basically persona non grata for a while. But it was a really interesting life in Paris, because we got to meet a bunch of artists and educators. That\u2019s why I\u2019m an actor. Do you want to hear my origin story?<\/p>\n

Sure!
<\/strong>When we moved there, I was like three or something. I was supposed to learn French \u2014 and they say kids are born linguist geniuses, but that was not me. My siblings did really well, but I did really badly. So I was a very quiet kid because the language thing kind of threw me off. My mom had a deal with my siblings that if they brought me with them, they could take as many friends as they wanted to the movies. So, I would go see Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers \u2014 who I still desperately love \u2014 and Marx Brothers \u2014 I loved Harpo because he was quiet and an anarchist \u2014 and Charlie Chaplin. I had worked up this whole little Charlie Chaplin act in my bedroom. My favorite theater in Paris played silent movies because they had an organ left over from the days. One day, the film got caught and burned and everybody booed, and I was like, \u201cNobody boos Charlie Chaplin!\u201d I ran in between the audience on the screen and I started doing my Charlie Chaplin act, and the organ player was like, \u201cI might as well play my little thing.\u201d I did a little flourish at the end, took off my pantomime hat and got a standing ovation. That was the beginning for me. Otherwise, I would\u2019ve been a college professor like my siblings.<\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s a very Hollywood impulse to ask \u201cHow have you not exploited this?\u201d But, between your father being a spy and this time in Paris, have you not thought of writing something about it?
<\/strong>Oh, his story is very good. I have thought about it, but he ended up having Alzheimer\u2019s in the end and it was very painful for me. It still is. That\u2019s also sort of an interesting thing. He was put into ward for CIA agents who have Alzheimer\u2019s, because the people that worked there have security clearances.<\/p>\n

\n I never even considered that.
<\/strong>I mean, they\u2019re carrying around national secrets and they literally don\u2019t know who they\u2019re talking to. So yeah, I started writing a movie, but I found writing it was too painful. I came up with a whole plot, but then when I started getting into dialogue\u2026 I was crying everywhere. I thought, \u201cWell it\u2019s supposed to be funny?\u201d [laughs<\/em>] Maybe somebody else can write it. Maybe at some point when I get older I can really finally deal with it.<\/p>\n

\n You\u2019ve been working consistently for such a long time, and you give off multiyphenatve vibes, so I was surprised to see you have no writing credits. Is that a path that you\u2019ve considered?
<\/strong>No credits, but I love writing. My wife and I write together. We write the comedies. The thing I don\u2019t want to do is be in a writer\u2019s room. I\u2019d rather write it and then just turn it in. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an environment that I would thrive in, but I\u2019m not entirely sure. I\u2019m open to it. These last couple years since COVID have been really interesting for me as far as reappraisal of what I want to do. Auditioning at home in front of a screen is something I really don\u2019t like. I genuinely do not like it. I\u2019m one of the few actors who enjoys auditions. I like working a room. I like figuring out people. I like getting the vibe.<\/p>\n

\n What else do you think about in this reappraisal?
<\/strong>For sort of strange looking guy, I\u2019ve had a remarkably good career. I\u2019ve been extremely satisfied telling other people\u2019s jokes for 35 years. But I was like, \u201cIs that it?\u201d I\u2019d sort of lost energy doing it. There were a lot of things I didn\u2019t want to do anymore, and it boiled down to \u2014 and this sounds a little snobbish \u2014 I wanted to do something smart. I wanted to do something that people could think about. I had done cotton candy for so long. There\u2019s nothing wrong with cotton candy. It\u2019s fantastic, but when you\u2019ve been serving it for a long time, it gets a little sickly. [Lucky Hank<\/em>] basically fell into my lap, and it was fascinating to be a part of an ensemble \u2014 and to be on location. I\u2019m very much a family guy, so I\u2019ll leave a set and come home. I work hard maintaining my friendships, I try to take care of my kids and be a loving partner to my wife. For the last 19 years, I really didn\u2019t want to work out of town.<\/p>\n

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\"Bob<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

Odenkirk and Bader in Lucky Hank.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sergei Bachlakov\/AMC<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n You did for Veep<\/em>, though, right?
<\/strong>I did it for Veep<\/em> because it was Veep<\/em>! (laughs<\/em>. But if I could do more of this kind of stuff, I would just continue doing that forever and be completely happy. If I go back to doing broader comedies here and there, then I\u2019ll pick up the writing and work harder on it. I\u2019m keeping my options open, but I definitely fell in love with acting again doing Lucky Hank<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n Did you feel like you loved acting on Better Things<\/em>?
<\/strong>Better Things<\/em> was a magic act. Something special happened every day on that set. [Pamela Adlon] is literally a witch or wizard, however you want to put it. The eulogy episode, for example, when the youngest says, \u201cNobody talked about me at all, we only talked about Mom.\u201d We were consoling her, and then I don\u2019t even know who started it\u2026 but we started dancing around her. It\u2019s not in the script and we just did this whole dance. The DP, Paul Koestner, followed us and made a great shot out of it. Stuff like that rarely happens on a set. That was alchemy, and I really loved it. Better Things<\/em> and Veep<\/em> really got me excited and invigorated.<\/p>\n

\n And you played gay on Better Things<\/em>, which was a departure.
<\/strong>This is going to sound a little strange, but I was in Miss Congeniality 2<\/em>. The character that I did was very broad. I was basically doing Isaac Mizrahi. I had just seen that great documentary on him, Unzipped<\/em>, I just thought that\u2019s what I wanted to do. It was super fun, but then when I watched it all cut together, I thought\u2026 maybe it went too far. I maybe made almost a grotesque caricature. Of the gay men I knew, and I am friends with a lot, I didn\u2019t know anyone that over the top. I was determined that if I was able to play another gay role that I would play him as another guy \u2014\u00a0a real person and not a vehicle for jokes.<\/p>\n

\n What\u2019s a job that you were really sorry to see end?
<\/strong>I loved doing multi-cams. Everybody talks about how they want multi-cam shows back, but they do all these pilots and none get picked up. So I had to be realistic and just stop taking those pilots.<\/p>\n

\n That\u2019s not what I expected you to say.
<\/strong>I kind of backed into doing multi-cam. I had thought after The Beverly Hillbillies<\/em> [the movie] that I was going to be a movie star. That didn\u2019t happen for various reasons \u2014 some out of my control and maybe some that were of my control. But then I got The Drew Carey Show<\/em>. Tor the first year, I wanted to get off the show. I loved Drew. I love the cast. But I didn\u2019t want to do the show. Bruce Helford [the showrunner] wouldn\u2019t let me off, thank God. So, in the second year, once I realized it was going to go for a while, I actually fell in love with the format. It was an unrehearsed play and an audience that is right there giving immedia<\/a>te feedback. It was that love that I got when I was in that theater in Paris. That immediate feedback is just fantastic, and it\u2019s less clinical than a single camera comedy. People laugh!<\/p>\n

\n Are you in a wait-and-see mode on a second season for Lucky Hank or are you working on anything else?
<\/strong>I have been upsetting my representation because this is my daughter\u2019s last year at home \u2013 she\u2019s graduating high school \u2014 and I have very luckily put us in a financial situation where I can just do voiceovers. So, I don\u2019t want to work right now. I can\u2019t do another series because committed to Hank<\/em> \u2014\u00a0which I am, by the way, not just contractually committed! I don\u2019t want to be an alienated dad. I\u2019m totally enjoying driving my daughter to school every day, even though she\u2019s could drive herself. I pick her up and we listen to music. We listen to the soundtrack of Mamma Mia<\/em>. I\u2019m having a good time.<\/p>\n

\n Well, this was lovely. Thank you so much for speaking with me.
<\/strong>Wait, we didn\u2019t do the standard bullet point questions and had a real conversation. That doesn\u2019t happen very often.<\/p>\n

\n What are the standard questions that you get?
<\/strong>Oh, \u201cWhat\u2019s Bob like?\u201d Everybody wants to know what Bob\u2019s like. I mean, what am I going to say? \u201cHe\u2019s a monster. What an asshole!\u201d First of all, Bob is great! But people want to talk about greatest hits more than anything. I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve talked about Lawrence.<\/p>\n

\n The neighbor in Office Space<\/em>?
<\/strong>Not that I\u2019m not happy to talk about Lawrence. God bless that part, it\u2019s fantastic, but that was three days of my life. Napoleon Dynamite<\/em> was one day. I worked one day on Napoleon Dynamite<\/em>, and people always want to talk about it. I\u2019m happy for its success, don\u2019t get me wrong, but I worked one day. I have a whole other life, you guys. [laughs<\/em>]<\/p>\n

\n Few things resonate as much as smaller parts in cult comedies.
<\/strong>Totally. To this day, people still ask me what I would do if I had a million dollars<\/a>. I\u2019ll be in the parking lot, and they want an answer. And I hate to disappoint. I\u2019m an actor.<\/p>\n

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