Eliot Stein's interview with Dennis Miller
©Eliot Stein

ELIOT: What is meaningful in life to you?

DENNIS: My wife and my kids. My brothers and sisters and my friends!
Showbiz was very important to me at one point in my life...but now it is
less so.

ELIOT: Let’s find out about your childhood. Were you a happy child?

DENNIS: I was a quiet kid in school. I was average in mostly every way...
My mother was a delight. She was good to me.

ELIOT: Were you cynical as a child? Many people feel your comedy is
cynical.

DENNIS: My comedy is the comedy of pragmatism. The world around us
encourages you to be cynical. I live in a world where I've seen cops beat
the hell out of a guy...and then a  woman cuts her husband's penis
off...it's a cynical world.

ELIOT: When did you start doing comedy?

DENNIS: I got out of college in 1975, I have a B.A. in journalism...I got
out of  college and started doing comedy in Pittsburgh!

ELIOT: What was your first big break?

DENNIS: Saturday Night Live--I came on in 1984 or 85.

ELIOT: How did you get to do the news segment?

DENNIS: That's all I was hired to do. I'm not an actor. I think they hired
me because I also wrote 90% of the news segment.

ELIOT: How long and how much research goes into a comedy
monologue?

DENNIS: Each one of my HBO specials takes about 2 months of intensive
work.

ELIOT: Please comment on the death of John Candy.

DENNIS: I did not know him. He must have been a sweet man. The death of a
young father is a sad thing and I mourn his loss like everybody else.

ELIOT: Some people may be surprised that you didn't know him. Why do
people assume that all comedians in Hollywood know each other?

DENNIS: Most people think of us as guys who bond together out of our
need to be around laughter.

ELIOT: You do some of the best political comedy around.

DENNIS: I'm bored by politics. I poke fun at it as a catharsis. It's fodder
for humor. I don't care for it otherwise. 

ELIOT: Which magazine would you like to be on the cover of? 

DENNIS: I'd like to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. 

ELIOT: Dennis, what do you think of computers and the Internet?

DENNIS: The info. superhighway is a fortunate casualty of contemporary
American culture. I don't think it’s been paved yet.

ELIOT: Why did you choose a deadpan style of humor as opposed to some
other form?

DENNIS: I would say that when I first started on stage I was really shy
and it worked.

ELIOT: Who are the comedians that you admire. Living or dead?

DENNIS: Bob Hope, David Spade, Steve Martin--those are the guys who jump
to mind!

ELIOT: Who were you closest with on SNL? Who do you keep in touch
with?

DENNIS: Mike Myers and Phil Hartman...Victoria and David Spade.
I talk to David Spade most of the time. And I haven't seen the others
in ages. I do care for them all. I will always have fond memories of our
friendship.

ELIOT: Dennis, a lot of your humor seems to come out of anger and rage.
Do you feel less angry now that you have kids? What kind of jokes do you
tell them?

DENNIS: My comedy might be angry. My day to day life is very tranquil.
It's all an act. The stage Dennis might come off angry, the real Dennis
isn't. I tell my kids knock-knock jokes!