Character Actor Extraordinaire Larry Miller on Hulk Hogan, Booing, and Hair Replacement [An Interview, Part Two]

No...

Similarly, you’re not going to see Gone with the Wind for the same reason you might see Tropic Thunder, but they are all great. They are all wonderful. And let me tell you something about Hulk Hogan that you might find interesting, because it goes to show you that everyone is an interesting soul if you just get to know them. Every single day on that set in downtown Los Angeles, every single day the set was thronged with kids and their parents who would take them down there. They want to see Hulk and want to get something signed and they were kept behind ropes by security, and after the day Hulk would go into his trailer, and at the end of the day…hold on a sec...would you mind hanging on a sec?

No problem.

Just now my wife is taking one of the kids down to a test at school and this and that. She is going off to work. She is a writer at a Disney Channel show called Shake It Up and it’s a hit show. She is a writer producer there. So we are a show business family.

But let me tell you the rest of the story where I left off. The point is—bye, honey have a good day—so the point of the thing was that, after every single day's work, and those are long days on the set, it’s not tarring roofs but those are long days, and no one ever would've blamed Hulk if he just sort of leaned out the trailer door and waved to everyone and said to an assistant, “Bring the car around, I got to get out of here,” or “Here is a stack of pictures, you hand them out,” or something like that. But do you know there wasn't one single day he didn't go out there with a big smile and ruffle every head and sign every shirt and shake every hand. And you know what, it wasn't because he wanted to, it wasn't because it fed him somehow or he was vain enough to want to do it. It was because he didn't want to let one kid leave there without a handshake and a smile and a picture, and you know something, I thought that's pretty good. It may not be the kind of thing that gets on TMZ, but I thought quite a lot of him for that.

It’s definitely a key part of being a role model for children, even if it’s different than what people would think would come from him.

And remember something: wrestling is very good. I think too many of us feel the need to put something in a slot and either laugh at it or say “ah ha that is this thing” without really thinking about it and, you know what, wrestling is pretty neat. I’ve gone with one of my kids. It’s fantastic fun.

It's amazing fun.

Well, that is what I make of it. I mean, when in life do you ever boo? Think about it. What a great feeling! Ah booo booo booo booo!!! It is wonderful fun! I finally realized it. I wrote a column about it. People who put wrestling down don’t understand that it's like opera for people who go to McDonald's. And I think that's wonderful.

Look, I can't speak for other actors or writers or comics and people who look at the world differently, but I'm not Pollyanna, I'm not skipping through roses, I have my crankiness and my moods and my darkside. I'm just the same as everyone, just as you as anything, your temper kicks in, but when I wake up in the morning and I think "this is unbelievable," and when I have, you know, a job or get a chance to play the next part I’m in, or the last part, or this in the Paramount coming up—this is great! I can't tell you how I'm looking forward to it. Or having been on that set with Hulk, or on that other set in Shreveport, I had the best time. There are movies I've been in that haven't really worked out well, that could have been much much better, and really didn't work out well. But you know what, even along the way, I had the best time on them. I got up every day and I thought, hey, I'm in a movie, and I've been in a bunch of them, and I hope I'm going to be in a bunch more, but there wasn't one that I didn't think "this is great."

I had an office on the Universal lot for nine years, which was wonderful, it was part of a deal to write this thing. And that was as I was also being an actor and going on the road, and I'd come back and I'd still have an office in this company, which was just extraordinary. And what a wonderful opportunity, and there wasn't one day I didn't drive on that lot and think "this is unbelievable!" And I may be the only one in the history of show business who waves back at the people on the tour buses. You know why? I always think, and I mean it with all my heart, I always want to say, you know what, I'd be on the bus too. I love it too. I'd want to see it too. And I feel the same way right now that you do. And I've never lost that and I hope I never do. And that's why it is no baloney. If you said to me, you were just cast in Goodfellas 2 with DeNiro, made by Scorsese, would you enjoy that more than the job I just had in New York last week or coming to the Paramount this week, and the answer is, you know what, no. Because this is the job I'm really looking forward to. And I'm lucky because I love them all equally.

Do you also love Larry Miller Hair System [from Aqua Teen Hunger Force] and Reasonable Shirts [from Tim and Eric]?

Good Lord! You know, that reminds me of one of the jokes we put in the original 10 Things I Hate about You, the movie, and I love doing the TV show as well, but there was a lot of writing right on the fly, right on the set, and Gil Junger, who's a terrific writer as well as a director and he and I are in complete synch, we intentionally put in a hair replacement joke. As one of the daughters is about to go out, this guy is watching the commercial “This is the hair system for men, you spray it” or whatever the heck it is, and then you get to see the character reacting, cut to me just going "Interesting." But look, some people use vanity in different ways, certainly, but it’s not a part of this whole thing to me.

Thanks a lot for the conversation, you know, the regaling.

You're welcome, but in a way everything we do, you and me and people like us, is all regaling. And that's what it should be. And you know what, yeah, here's to both of us, all of us just being around for another 700 years.