The Continuing Development of David Cross
If you're talking specifically standup, the biggest difference is that you used to really only be able to do sets at comedy clubs, which there weren't that many of, and I cut my teeth during the 80s comedy boom. I happened to be in Boston, which was great for a person like me, who wasn't particularly audience-friendly, because they just had to fill slots. There were so many: every country western bar and college and coffee house and Laundromat. There were standup gigs everywhere. Chinese restaurants, oddly enough, a lot of the time. But now, with the internet and the ability to get your shit shown potentially by a million people in a week, is the biggest difference. That certainly wasn't the case when I was coming up.
When Arrested Development ended in 2006, did you or anyone working on it ever think you'd have the chance to revisit it?
No. Absolutely not. For us it was very unceremonious dropping. It was a relief, in a sense, because we lived week to week, day to day really, not knowing if it was going to be our last week. It's a shitty way to do a show and a shitty way to do any job. The idea of grassroots saving the show was fairly new.
It was almost like you guys were making a show for rewatchability, before people were rewatching stuff in general.
I don't know how much of an edict that was, but that was certainly something Mitch [Hurwitz, the show's creator], and James Vallely [one of the head writers] thought about, and took pride in that there were all of these extra jokes in there that paid off on that second or third watching. But you certainly can't pitch a show that way. "People won't like it the first time, but by the second or third time they're really gonna like it!"
So you come back to this character you essentially thought you were done with. Was it difficult to get back into playing Tobias?
No, no. All I did to prepare really - I needed to refresh my memory on certain little nuances and ticks that the character had. But I just watched like three episodes. I hadn't seen any of them since we did the commentary for them. So it was kind of fun to watch, and I had never seen any of them with my wife. There were a couple of times on set [filming season four] where they would show you something - not that you weren't matching it, but it was to show you "This thing happened. This scene is taking place 12 hours after this episode of the third season. So take a look at this." But outside of that, it was a pretty easy character to slip into. The key to Tobias is not saying contractions, saying the whole word. Like instead of "can't" saying, "cannot." That's pretty much it.
Did you have to get ready to wear those jean shorts again?
Well, I certainly gained a little weight since we stopped shooting in 2006 - that became apparent. You know, I look six years older.
That much time has passed for the characters, right?
Yes and no. There are flashbacks, flash-forwards. There are a couple of scenes that take place shortly after the last episode. But we travel quite a bit, through them.
The fact that you were shooting for Netflix - did that affect anything? For example, did you have to bleep curse words?
Oh no. Not at all. In fact, I think there was one joke for Tobias where I said one curse word - I think there's two or three times I say it, which is kind of surprising. Yeah, you can say whatever you want.
What are the things you love most about living in New York?
The tangible, moment-to-moment things I miss [when I'm away] more than anything, it's walking. When I go to LA, my wife has an apartment on the West Side in Venice, and I stay there. You can walk for a while, but aesthetically, it's not as pretty. Where I would walk a 3-mile circle in Los Angeles, you kind of see the same old shit. Jamba Juice and CVS, and some sushi place and one of those haircut barbershop things, and a tattoo parlor. In New York, when you walk three miles, you travel through all different kinds of neighborhoods. You see people, there's everything happening on the street. There's just an energy - the visuals are beautiful.
Is there any small tidbit you could share about the upcoming Arrested Development season?
I'm so sworn to secrecy on all of it.
All of the episodes are going to come out at once. Do you recommend people watch them in order, or out of order, or all in one day, or space them out?
The way it's designed is, there's a story being told. So if you watch it sequentially you'll get that story - but you don't have to. It is not paramount to your viewing experience. If you do watch it out of order, it'll be interesting because there's nothing detracting about that. But your experience will be different. You can't make a mistake. The only thing you can do that's dumb - some characters have two parts - is watch the second part first. Outside of that, you can watch George Sr.'s episodes, then you can click over and watch Lindsay. Everybody at some point interacts with the other people. It's like a large venn diagram.
What are some other projects you've got coming up?
I did two indie movies. One is out now on video-on-demand and iTunes, and it comes out in theatres April 12th. It's called It's a Disaster. It's really good. I saw a screening with a real, actual audience at the LA film festival. And there's another movie called Kill Your Darlings that I have not seen, - but I assume it's good. It has a pretty killer cast, and just got picked up at Sundance. I start work tomorrow on The Heart, She Holler, the PFFR [mini-series] production for Adult Swim.