I’ve been a fan of Ken Marino ever since “The State” on MTV. I still quote his character Louie’s catch phrase. Over the years he usually shows up playing the loud A-hole in movies or TV shows, and he’s a regular on “Childrens Hospital,” but Ken Marino got his very own movie. Bad Milo! stars Marino as a man with a colon demon who escapes at night and terrorizes his enemies. His very understanding wife is played by Gillian Jacobs. We got to speak with Marino about his unusual new movie, which is now available on VOD and in theaters this weekend. As we wrapped, I mentioned my appreciation for the underrated David Wain/Ken Marino film The Ten and got an extra two minutes with him!
CraveOnline: First of all, I want to dip my balls in this interview.
Ken Marino: Hey, I wanna dip my balls in it!
Thank you. I was worried, is that like asking Cuba Gooding Jr. to show me the money?
Possibly, I don’t know. I can’t speak for Cuba but I can say that if people still like “I want to dip my balls in it,” great. Fabulous.
Is Duncan in Bad Milo the part you were born to play?
Yes, this is my Macbeth. This is my Macbeth.
When you submit your For Your Consideration clip for the Oscars, what clips do you want to include? The toilet scene or Milo climbing back into your anus?
You know, I think it’s going to have to be both scenes. If I had to choose, this is like Sophie’s Choice at this point, I’d have to choose the re-entering scene. Or, perhaps, the scene at the very end with my wife because I think that says a lot about the film.
Have you been waiting for a Ken Marino vehicle?
My whole life, my whole life.
Because I have. I like seeing you show up as the funny supporting characters, but I always thought you should get your own movies.
I’ve had the opportunity to work a lot in this town lately. I have had the opportunity to pay my bills as an actor since I came out here in ’97/’98, but I haven’t had many opportunities to be the guy in a movie, so it was fun. To play this part in this movie was exciting for me because it was both a part where I could play it straight but also it’s absurd in its premise, so I get the best of both worlds.
Let’s talk about the shit stained shorts. When you go into wardrobe, you have to take off your clean clothes and put on these?
Well, unfortunately I went to the Lee Strasberg institute so I’m very method. I never took them off. After work I would just go home. It was not good for my marriage. They just stained some pants and I tossed them on.
On “Lost” they complained that the clothes stank because they were made up to look like they’d been stuck on an island for months, so you wonder.
I basically wore essentially the same thing and they just kept making it worse and worse, but it was fine. It’s all clean and fake dirt. Although, the director, Jacob [Vaughan] would through his shit at me if he didn’t approve of a take that I did, which I thought was a little much, but apparently that’s “the Duplass way.” Apparently on all Duplass movies, the director is allowed to throw his shit at you if he doesn’t like your performance.
What was your first meeting with Milo?
Actually, my first meeting was a day I wasn’t shooting. The first day Milo was on set was the day that Ms. Jacobs was getting attacked by Milo, so I stopped by because I needed to see him. It was really cool because there were two puppeteers. I think there were three actually. There were two working the body and then one guy working the face. He had a little electric airplane control kind of thing and he would make him snarl and his eyes move and eyebrows lift. So I got to meet him and it was awesome.
It was great because there’s no substitute for doing a scene with a real creature. It didn’t feel like a prop because the guys who were working it were so invested in making sure that the character, that Milo was really emoting and reacting. If he heard something, he would react a certain way in the moment. That was awesome. I think that that helps. That creates a certain tone and feel for a movie that you don’t get as much, say, if it’s all CGI. Which, for the budget we did this at, the CGI would have been three frames.
You may have heard this a lot already from horror fans, but were you familiar with Basket Case?
Yeah, Basket Case and Evil Dead II and Evil Dead, Dead Alive.
Well, Basket Case because it’s actually a brother he carries around in a basket, even the same size as Milo.
Right, right, well yes. I thought about Basket Case no more than I thought about those other movies. I thought you were talking about the practical monster of it, but Basket Case I thought about but I haven’t seen Basket Case in so long that I don’t remember specifically, other than the brother thing, which I even forgot about until you just mentioned it.
All those movies were movies that me and Joe Lo Truglio, a guy I was in The State with, we would watch in our 20s when we were just screwing around in Manhattan and had time to watch a bunch of movies in the afternoons and at night and late in the evening and early in the morning. We would watch a lot of movies of that ilk. So that’s why I was very excited to hear that there was a practical puppet in it and I was excited to be part of this movie.
