She has a sense of humor sharper than a knife. She's a helluva lot smarter than Cranky and she's delivered more good roles in her relatively modest film career than bad ones. In short, just as I wrote about William H. Macy, you probably won't go wrong if Janeane Garofalo is in a flick. So, what is she doing in a movie based on a comic book? In Mystery Men, Garofalo plays "The Bowler," daughter of a deceased superhero who picks up the mantle to save Century City from an evil supervillain. This is the kind of stuff she skewers when onstage . . .

CrankyCritic: Well, you sure don't strike me as a comic book type.

Janeane Garofalo: For me personally, I never fantasized about being a superhero nor was I interested in superhero type comic books. Now that I'm older, I'm not interested in superhero comic books, but I do read the graphic novels like 8-Ball and (Peter Bagge's) Hate and Love and Rockets and stuff like that. So I have come to like comic books.

CrankyCritic: Works for me. So when you picked up that bowling ball did you feel empowered?

Janeane Garofalo: Not really, actually. Probably just the opposite since I have zero upper body strength and it was a real bowling ball and I had to pose holding the ball in front of a green screen so they could later CGI things and was like shaking.

CrankyCritic: It certainly looked like a real ball.

Janeane Garofalo: It was heavier, actually. The fiberglass with the skull in it is really heavy. Holding it behind me was impossible.

CrankyCritic:

Janeane Garofalo: That's the thing. I thought of it as human. I truly never think of a backstory or bio for the characters I do but I really did it this time because I was inspired by this book I read called "The Portrait of a Walrus as a Young Artist". Great book. It was about this girl whose stepfather was a great bowler, and reluctantly followed him into bowling. Her real father was a tortured artist who killed himself. She went into bowling because she figured that, "If you're really into bowling your mind can't get into the complex things like the artists do and then you don't lock yourself in the bathroom and kill yourself; If I just bowl and live in that world, I don't have to be complex". I thought, well, this is fortuitous that I'm reading this book. So I wrote Kinka Usher [the Mystery Men director] this huge backstory. He probably thought I was an idiot. I clipped out pages from the book and said "Without plagiarizing, see if any of these things inspires you." So I decided that I'm a girl that wants to go to grad school and because my father's been killed I have to do this bowling thing and try in some way to avenge his death. And that's what I decided to do. That had nothing to do with the script that was sent to me.

CrankyCritic: And talking to the bowling ball?

Janeane Garofalo: I think that was me and Kinka and Brent, who did the rewrite on the script. The conversations with the bowling ball were basically made up. I told Brent I think I'm going to say this or have this argument with my dad. A lot of stuff got cut out. I haven't seen it yet so I don't know what's in there. There was a far more complex father daughter relationship that I really doubt made it into the final cut of the film.

CrankyCritic: Then, since you haven't seen the film, you don't know that at the screening last night, when you came on screen the audience went nuts!

Janeane Garofalo: Oh, that's so nice. [laughs] I don't know why that would be. I guess this is the precursor to the Janeane Garofalo backlash, which is inevitable if somebody cheered when I came on.

CrankyCritic: So how does that feel, when someone recognizes you...

Janeane Garofalo: Oh it's weird to hear because, on a day to day basis, I have yet to find anyone who has any idea who I am who could spell the name even remotely correctly, if that's a sign of anything. If I go home for Christmas, forget it. There are relatives that think I've only been in The Truth About Cats and Dogs and that's it. I'm not kidding. It's not that they don't care. I went out for drinks with Bill Murray a few weeks ago and we were walking out of the bar and these guys go DAN AYKROYD! [laughs]

I'm thinking if Bill Murray doesn't get known – this man is like part of our cultural fabric-- If they don't know him then it's going to take me another 20 years before anybody would know that I've been in more than one film.

CrankyCritic: Does it feel surreal to you to be hanging out with, or be friends with these people?

Janeane Garofalo: I'll never get over that I get to sometimes spend time with Bill Murray. For my freshman year in college they decided at Providence College to do these placement things, like for remedial skills, because the students were tested for these things. This is true. This is how stupid I am. I was put into a class called "The Spirit Of Math". Think about that. "The Spirit Of Math". For my verbal placement I had to write an essay on any topic in the world. I wrote about Bill Murray and filled an entire blue book about this performer that was my favorite performer of all time. And then to go on years later and meet him and work with him and now occasionally hang out with him -- I don't mean to paint a picture like we're best buds or anything and if he ever read this he'd probably think I'm the biggest loser in the world -- but the fact that I've actually gone out to a bar and stuff with Bill Murray; I could die tomorrow. And that I've gotten to meet Albert Brooks; To have actually had a conversation with Albert Brooks is amazing to me.

CrankyCritic: Have you ever shown that essay to Bill?

Janeane Garofalo: I can't find it! I told him about it too. And of course when you tell people something like that they're "yeah..." 'Cuz to them it's annoying. I cannot find it and I'm sure it's somewhere in my parents house. I'd be embarrassed now if he read it, 'cuz it'd be really silly.

CrankyCritic: Do you ever get to back to those teachers and go "Nyah! Nyah!"

Janeane Garofalo: No. Because I still can't do math, so it's not like I've come a long way at all. I've always been fairly well spoken, luckily, because both my parents are fairly articulate and if I picked up anything, my parents are well read and well spoken. Somehow that just trickled down to their kids because I couldn't be a worse student and I couldn't be less intelligent in almost every faction of education. Science, any other thing. I'm still friendly with my high school history and math teachers and I'm sure they're still aware of my shortcomings as a student.

CrankyCritic: Can you imagine someone in college filling a blue book with an essay about you?

Janeane Garofalo: No! [laughs]

CrankyCritic: Do you still do standup?

Janeane Garofalo: I do it once or twice a week. Not paid or anything, at these quote unquote alternative venues. I hate to use a term like that. I still do that quite a bit. I rarely do paid weeks on the road or anything like that because it can be quite depressing going out on the road doing colleges and stuff. Now the age gap between me and college kids is so wide whereas when I started I was in college. Y'know even 5,6,7 years out it was the same but now I'm 34 years old and it's disheartening.

CrankyCritic: So what advice do you give to the person who wants to be the next Janeane Garofalo?

Janeane Garofalo: I don't have advice. It's so hard to do standup now. When I started in '85 it was easy because you could get up 7 nights a week. There were so many venues, so many open mics and so much opportunity especially in New York and San Francisco and Chicago and Los Angeles. Now you definitely don't have good audiences and you'd be hard pressed to get on once or twice a week.

CrankyCritic: So, what's been the most humiliating experience you've had up there?

Janeane Garofalo: Oh God there have been so many. I've had cups thrown at me. I've had people demand their money back. I've had managers not pay me. I've been fired after the first show of three shows in a night. I've been told by people that I'm in the wrong line of work. Any and every type of humiliation.

CrankyCritic: So why do it?

Janeane Garofalo: It never really bugged me. I knew I was going to be a standup comic. There was nothing that was going to stop me. That was my only career choice. I didn't want to be an actor. I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to be Dennis Miller or Paula Poundstone and that's what I wanted out of my life. So every bartender in Houston who'd say "mmm she's not funny" I would say "so what do you think is funny?" like, pretending that I was earnestly asking. And that would dictate to me if they had a point. I know that makes me sound very arrogant but if they were to say to me "I like Bill Hicks or Albert Brooks" I'd think "Oh shit. He's got a point if he doesn't like me." If they would say "I love Dice" or whoever the hell isn't funny, then I would go "that guy definitely doesn't have a point" and I wouldn't have to listen to him. Actually I'm complimented by the fact that he was not interested in me. So I would do things like that. Even when the audiences would turn on me I would ask them "Who do you guys like?" like pretending I cared [grins]. Their answers would tell me whether I needed to be depressed or not over their dislike of me.

CrankyCritic: Do you find life as funny as you make it for other people?

Janeane Garofalo: I don't know how funny I make it for other people but no I don't particularly find life all that funny. I find it more frustrating and annoying more than anything and I try to turn it into something. I get so angry watching television or sometimes reading the paper or watching films. Just pop culture in general.

CrankyCritic: You said you didn't want to be an actor. But now that you are?

Janeane Garofalo: I like it better now but I can't honestly say that a lot of time I love it. I can't say I like the hurry up and wait thing and the repetitiveness of it. You could spend the entire day doing a minute's worth of footage. The same lines over and over. I don't love doing that but I like the concept of being an actor.

CrankyCritic: If you were going to have a superpower...

Janeane Garofalo: Hmm. You'd think I'd have a witty answer to that, but I don't.

CrankyCritic: Reading Girl?

Janeane Garofalo: Ah! The ability to read faster! Yes! So I could read more.