Preview
HARLAND WILLIAMS
June 23 and 24
Yuk Yuk’s (Blackfoot Inn)
Over his more than two decades as a professional comedian, Harland Williams has picked up some valuable career advancement tools, including the ability to be an entertaining and unpredictable talk-show guest. No matter what show he’s a guest on, Toronto native Williams excels at trading humorous barbs with his host.
"When I started doing those shows, all they wanted me to do was standup," he recalls. "Standup is obviously an art, but what I’ve learned over time is sitting on that couch is also an art form."
Having sat down with practically every celebrity with their own desk and microphone, Williams has developed a shortlist of his favourite hosts.
"I think me and Conan (O’Brien) have a really good rapport together," he says. "He likes my zany sense of humour and loves it if I kind of go off to left field. He just goes there with me. But I really love doing (David) Letterman, too. I just think he’s so clever and I’m just in awe sitting with him, more than anything else."
Williams has one of those distinctive faces and onscreen personalities that stick in your memory even if his name doesn’t. Starting with a bit part as a state trooper who inadvertently drinks from a beer bottle full of pee in 1994’s Dumb and Dumber, Williams has since turned up in many movies and become a consistent scene stealer. His recent credits include a role as a cop in the critically acclaimed family drama Because of Winn-Dixie and a sizable voiceover part in the computer animated flick Robots.
One of his most notable supporting roles came in 1998’s There’s Something About Mary starring Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz. Williams played a deranged hitchhiker in a memorable scene with Stiller, but was given no onscreen credit for his hilarious performance.
"That was kind of a weird decision that my agent and I made," explains Williams. "I was coming off my starring role in Rocketman and I was doing the lead in another Disney movie (the TV flick Mr. Headmistress). We were concerned that the Something About Mary role on paper was only two to three pages."
During shooting, however, Williams improvised his scene until it was about twice its original length. Directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly decided to leave most of the impromptu zaniness in the film, which of course went on to become a huge success. "I have always regretted not putting my name on there," says Williams, "but at the same time, it sort of creates a bit of mystery about the whole thing."
Along with his film work, Williams has written and illustrated the Lickety Split series of children’s books and is part of the music act The Cousins, currently preparing to record their second album. The duo consists of Williams and his cousin, Barenaked Ladies member Peter Hearn. While these projects prove Williams’s versatility, his mainstay is as a skilled standup comedian and it’s in that capacity that he’ll be seen this month at Yuk Yuk’s.
Although a longtime U.S. resident, Williams is happy to be playing north of the border again. "I am totally Canadian at heart, still think of it as home and I love coming back," he says. |
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