ANDY DICK IS MY HERO!
Matty Slick-Haxx
Football movies are nothing new, if anything there’s too many of them. Since I am not really that
inclined toward physical activity that doesn’t involve a bed or dancing around in my underwear, I was
a little hesitant when the guys over at TheCinemaSource.com invited me to a screening of Andy Dick’s new movie Division III: Football’s Finest.
I watched the trailer, however, and almost died laughing. Dick plays a psychopathic
coach at a small liberal-arts college trying to put together a winning season in order to save
the football program. What ensues is nothing but hilarious: Jousting on bicycles, obese nutritionists,
and a handful of cast members from MadTV.
Oh, and MOST importantly! The GORGEOUS man who is Marshall Cook (one of the film's
lead actors, as well as its writer, director, producer and editor) spends a lot of his time on screen shirtless. WIN!
After
the screening, which was part of a nationwide college tour ahead of the
film’s release, I got a chance to sit down with both Mr. Dick and
Marshall and have a little heart-to-heart. We talked about the film,
future projects, and an accidental overdose on GHB all while devouring
triple-chocolate frozen yogurt.
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How did you get involved with the project, how did you meet Marshall?
AD: I met Marshall on the set of a movie I can’t remember and then we did a short film together called
AdCorp, Inc., which you can see on his website. Then he encouraged me to finish the movie I wrote
called Danny Roane: First Time Director. So we have known each other for just about seven years now.
It started off as a short film, correct?
AD: Mhmm.
What was the progression from short to full-length feature?
AD: I guess in his mind he shot the short film knowing that he was going to make a feature, And I was
just along for the ride.
MC: I did the short film to explore the characters and give a visual in to the script. I took the short and
cut it down into a trailer and paired it with the script. It made it much easier to get sold. The hardest
challenge was staying excited and motivated.
How many clipboards did you go through?
AD: [chuckle] About twenty, that’s the product of me having a lot of downtime on the set. I was trying
to write while on set, but also tried to come up with a few things I could throw in throughout the movie,
and the clipboard gag was one of them. There was a lot more beating of people than you see in the film.
MC: We had a bunch of running gimmicks, there was the glasses, the bike, clipboards. I really like to set
up pay off for the audience. I think a lot of times, people don’t give the audience enough credit. They
really spoon-feed them: "You like this, don’t you! Cause remember this, and then that, and now you
laugh!" It’s kind of insulting sometimes.
Do you do a lot of your own stunts?
AD: All of them! There are even more that didn’t make the film where I got hurt.
Did you hurt anybody else?
AD: I did hurt the guy I ran over when I was jousting, I mean, I RAN him over!
You totally ran him over! You were talking about future projects that you and Marshall wanted to work on, what are those?
AD:
Marshall wants to do a horror film and I want to do a Daphne Aguilera
movie. [Daphne is a Dick drag character who claims to be Christina’s
“cousin.”]
I love the way that you guys have been getting hype about the movie with the college tour. How’d you come up with that idea?
AD: I saw Kevin Smith do it with Red State and thought we should do that because our movie is about
college football. Marshall booked the whole thing himself.
It was like a MadTV reunion, I loved it! How did that happen?
AD: It was actually accidental, I just happen to know all of them. There were going to be even more but
there were time conflicts with other projects. I’m not from MadTV or SNL, I just happen to know Mo
Collins, Debra [Wilson], I worked with Will Sasso for four years on Less Than Perfect.
So, I just knew them from separate things. We actually did realize
until we looked around and were like, "Wow, they all really were on MadTV."
How much of this was based on the true events?
AD: He [Marshall] brought the football and wrote a story around how he had been snubbed by previous
coaches. I brought in the emotional part of my character, which is a guy that really had a lot going for
him and it trying really hard to do his best but flailing.
The
more he tries to more desperate he seems. Those are my favorite parts.
Like where my character is just trying, trying to give Marshall’s
character one more piece of advice but I can’t even pull the fucking
story together.
It’s
sad, it’s desperate. I feel that way in real life. Don’t people
remember that I am here on this planet to make people laugh, why do you
keep harboring the whole drunken Andy thing? That is just a small part
of me that I struggle with, that I don’t need to be public. You know, I
might, there might be a chance I may never drink again, then again there
is a chance I might!
I loved the love interest in the movie. What was her name?
AD: Oh, Alison Haislip! She was on G4’s Attack of the Show, backstage on The Voice.
I loved her nose.
AD: She has a cool-looking nose.
Marshall, did anyone ever taint your football water with GHB? Please tell me that never happened.
MC: No, uh, we came up with that because of our executive producer. We ran into a bunch of guys that
actually give themselves GHB to party.
AD: And I did it!
How was that?
AD: It was a trip, I did it and I did too much and they had to lock me in a room for I think like ten hours.
That’s all I can remember, I was in my own world. It’s a frightening trip. Because I did more then you’re
supposed to, so we wrote it into the script where I accidentally overdose peewee kids. They don’t die!
None of the kids die in the movie! They just went into a deep slumber.
MC: Everyone was laughing over the line when he says that no one died.
Marshall, where did you learn to edit?
MC: I learned in school, I pretty much just used my school for the resources and then tried to graduate
early. I felt like it was waste of time and money, but I wanted to get that degree. Looking back now, it
would have been smarter to drop out but you "gotta get that degree!" I really just locked myself in a
basement with a travel video of me and my family from Australia and I saw the principles from class and
then just guess and check. A lot of guess and check. What does this filter do? What does that filter do? I
edited the movie on my laptop.
What was the big switch that made you move from playing football in college to pursuing an acting career?
MC: I played through my sophomore year, I quit my junior year. I had already been cast in Jeepers
Creepers 2 before I quit. Then I got the acting bug again, I have always been acting, every since I was 18
months old. I acted through junior high and then football kind of took over. I played through high school
and wound up playing Division III and was like, ‘"Where is this going?" And then with Jeepers Creepers
I saw myself nine feet tall on a movie screen and that was pretty cool! And I got paid for it. Football
wasn’t going to do that, it wasn’t going to be a career. So, I quit. Practice wouldn’t let you audition so I
gave that up. I still have nightmares about football though. Unfinished business, like I am about to play.
Football blue balls?
MC: Yea [chuckle], in a way. This movie is one big therapy session for me.
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Division III: Football’s Finest comes out November 18th. Get more info about the film at Marshall’s
website here!
