Tom Green has spent the last 20 years grossing-out and shocking audiences with his pioneering style of comedy.
In that time, the Canadian comic has polarised fans, confused critics and established a new style of comedy that has made way for shows like Jackass.
But it was in high school where Tom first performed his material to a live audience.
Tom says he ran and won every students council election in high school, using it as an opportunity to test out his material. “While the other candidates were doing their speeches, I’d walk up on stage with the other candidates behind me giving their speeches, and I’d walk out with a giant suitcase [after my speech] I would open up my suitcase in the background and start calmly making a salad,” Tom says. “I had a chopping-board in the suitcase and started to cut up the carrots and the tomatoes and the lettuce.”
As a student representative Tom organised assemblies and Christmas shows, where he hosted a ‘Letterman-like’ talk show for the school.
Since then, Tom has hosted his own MTV comedy show, directed and starred in Freddy Got Fingered and has had a short-lived marriage to actress Drew Barrymore.
Throughout his career, Tom has left many critics confused and outraged with his films and comedy style.
In 2001, his film Freddy Got Fingered won Worst Movie at the 2001 Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies).
Even though he jokes about being the first ever actor to receive an award at the Razzies, Tom says he was offended when he found out about the award. “I had assumed that someone who was in the position of giving out a cheeky award would have gotten the joke. And the fact that they didn’t get it and labeled it ‘worst’, yeah it was offensive to me, I can be honest about that.
“But to sit at home and sulk about it didn’t seem in keeping with who I was and what I stood for. I showed up in an old rusted limousine that I rented, I rolled out my own red carpet and wore the tuxedo that I wore on my wedding day. I gave this ridiculous speech about ‘this is the tuxedo I wore on my wedding day, so that should tell you how much this award means to me’.”
Last year Tom decided to return to stand-up comedy, after he was sidetracked from it as a 16 year old due to a recording deal for a rap album.
“I’ve tried to create a nice balance between the absurdity and silliness of what I’ve done on some of my movies and my TV show with some of the more traditional stand-up comedy aspects of stand-up,” Tom says.
“I can tell you though in Australia, the audiences are really encouraging me to focus more on my silly side, which I think is really fun.”
Tom Green will be performing at the Enmore Theatre this Friday, April 16, as part of his Australian tour. Please visit www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au for more details.
by Ehssan Veiszadeh
