Mustache Shenanigans: Making Super Troopers and Other Adventures in Comedy

226 Pages·2017·7.11 MB·English

by  Jay Chandrasekhar

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Copyright © 2017 by Jay Chandrasekhar
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This book is dedicated to the many hilarious people whom I’ve been lucky to
call friends.
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1
Childhood
CHAPTER 2
High School: A Narc’s Tale
CHAPTER 3
Race in America: A Case of Mistaken Identity
CHAPTER 4
Colgate to Chicago: Making Strangers Laugh
CHAPTER 5
Colgate Part 2: The Seeds of Broken Lizard
CHAPTER 6
New York City: Hacking Our Own Path into Show Business
CHAPTER 7
Puddle Cruiser: How I Made a Film, When I Wasn’t Sure How to Make a
Film
CHAPTER 8
Super Troopers: How It Happened and Almost Didn’t
CHAPTER 9
Casting Super Troopers: How I Almost Played Farva
CHAPTER 10
Making Super Troopers: How We Focused on Jokes We Thought Were
Funny
CHAPTER 11
Selling Super Troopers: What It Was Like to Sell a Movie at Sundance to a
Major Hollywood Studio
CHAPTER 12
9/11: Another Case of Mistaken Identity
CHAPTER 13
The Macho Contest, aka Wild Times on Club Dread
CHAPTER 14
The Dukes of Hazzard: Smoking with Willie, Fighting with Burt, and Other
Stories from the Deep South
CHAPTER 15
Jackass Number Two: The Story Behind the High-Wire Act That Was My
Collaboration with Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass Crew
CHAPTER 16
Beerfest: Origin Story
CHAPTER 17
Television: Or, Models Talking Tough
CHAPTER 18
Super Troopers 2: Bigger Mustaches and Hopefully Funnier (or as Funny)
Jokes
PHOTOGRAPHS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
E
very morning, at my small, private, suburban Chicago grade school, we all
stood and said the Lord’s Prayer. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t Christian. I
loved it anyway. Afterward, we put our hands on our hearts and recited the
Pledge of Allegiance. I loved that too. Saying those words, along with my 250
schoolmates, made me feel like I was part of a tribe. And I needed to be part of a
tribe. Perhaps starting Broken Lizard (our own little tribe) is evidence of my
continuing need.
They say that first-generation Americans are highly patriotic. For me, that
was true, and it still is.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
As a kid, I loved those words. Those words meant that, though my sister and
I were the only Indian kids around for miles, we were still equal. Eventually, I
came to learn that Jefferson didn’t mean for it to apply to people who looked like
me, but thanks to Dr. King, President Johnson, and many others, equality
became the law of the land—for everybody—and I intended to hold America to
its word.
My parents were like propaganda specialists, instilling in me the idea that I
could accomplish anything I set my mind to. America was fair and rewarded
hard work. They drowned me in compliments, telling me how smart and good-
looking I was, regardless of evidence that I was never much better than a B
student and I was, objectively, an awkward-looking child. It’s like their plan was
to stuff me with confidence, hoping to stay ahead of the real (racist) world that
was bound to break my heart. It worked, because if you looked at my grade-
school notebooks, you’d find whole pages filled with the words “Jay the Great.”
Even the name my parents gave me oozed confidence. My full name is
Jayanth Jumbulingam Chandrasekhar, which literally translates to “Victorious
Large-Penis Rising Moon.” It’s a family name. Though they never told me about
the “large-penis” part. Instead, I found out at age twenty-five, from an Indian
friend’s mom, who saw “Jumbulingam” in the credits of our short film and burst
into laughter. When my friend called to tell me the good news, I immediately
called Mom.
called Mom.
“Does my middle name mean ‘large penis’?” I asked pointedly.
She laughed. “Well, literally, sure, but it’s really just a euphemism for
power.”
“You could have told me that earlier, Mom,” I said, truly annoyed. “It might
have been helpful.”
When I was young, I didn’t understand that my color might be a hindrance to
my dreams. And like any kid, I had big dreams . . . eventually. At age five, I
wanted to be a garbage man so I could drive one of those big red trucks. Soon
after, I decided I would follow my hero, Walter Payton, and be the starting
running back for the Chicago Bears (yes, the first Indian in the NFL). Later,
thanks to Muhammad Ali, I wanted to be the heavyweight boxing champion of
the world (yes, the first Indian in professional boxing). President of the United
States was a possibility (first Indian . . .). Heart surgeon was seriously
considered (not the first Indian). My race didn’t matter. In my mind, I was great,
and if I worked hard, America would reward me.
Then I grew up and realized that life was more complicated. Inside, I was a
red-blooded American, but that’s not how I was perceived by strangers. For
example, I was able to get girls, but only after months and months of a
personality-driven long game. I had to use wit, charm, and friendship before lips
ever touched, before I could get what my white friends just seemed to be handed.
Racial reality didn’t dissuade me from the idea that I could do great things, but it
did teach me that I would likely have to work twice as hard as everyone else and
would probably have to create my own path to get there.
Oddly, my being Indian is the very reason I made it in Hollywood—but not
because there were racial quotas for Indians. No. In fact, it was just the opposite.
When I was twenty-two, anyone with half a brain would tell you that my
chances of making it as an actor, never mind a director, were less than zero.
Because one had only to look at TV and movie screens to see that there wasn’t a
single Indian face on them. Well, there was one face: Ben Kingsley had played
Gandhi and had won an Oscar for it. But Gandhi was also the only Indian
Hollywood would ever make a movie about.
I had been acting in plays in high school and college, and I was playing leads.
But the best I could hope for in real show business was playing the convenience
store clerk, the cabdriver, or maybe a terrorist. Though, back in the eighties,
Germans usually got those roles. Ah, such an innocent time. And I didn’t want to
play those characters. I wanted to play characters in movies that spoke like me,
characters who had my own, American, accent. That, however, had never been
done. All of the roles for Indians were small and/or accented and, frankly, played
by white guys. When there was a major role for an Indian, Hollywood turned to
a white actor and put him in brownface. Peter Sellers was great in The Party
—“Birdie num num.” Fisher Stevens played an Indian in Short Circuit 2, a film
my dad counted among his favorites. When I asked him why, Dad said,
“Because there’s an Indian in it!”
When I told him that Fisher Stevens wasn’t Indian, Dad shrugged. “Eh, it’s as
close as we’ll get.” Those words stuck with me. This was America. Was that
really the ceiling for me?
Since Hollywood was never going to let me play with their ball, I made a
decision to make my own ball. I started a comedy group and learned how to
write and direct movies. My secret mantra became: Oh, you don’t think an
Indian kid can do that? Watch me, motherfucker. So I, along with my friends,
wrote a script called Puddle Cruiser. We raised the money and shot it. I cast
myself in the role of Zach, a college student, who spoke in my own voice. The
film got into Sundance, as did our next film, Super Troopers, and the rest is
history. Well, not exactly, but the rest—you’re about to read the rest.
To be clear, being Indian isn’t my whole story. Far from it. It’s just
something that informed my entry point into show business. Had I been white, I
would have approached this business differently. I would have graduated from
Colgate, moved out to Hollywood, auditioned as an actor, and hoped for the
best. I never would have learned to write or direct, because I wouldn’t have
thought that I had to. Had I been white, I never would have made Super
Troopers, Beerfest, or any of my other films, because I wouldn’t have known
how.
Look, I know I’m lucky—lucky to have this career, which pays me to write
and direct movies and television shows, and sometimes to act in them. I’ve had
enormous ups and some pretty big downs, but, on balance, I’m grateful—
grateful, but not comfortable, because this business is not designed to make you
comfortable.
Every week, someone asks me to talk to their son or daughter about their
decision to pursue a career in show business. They want advice. “How did you
do it? How did you get to make films with your college friends?” And while
they’re interested in my story, what they really want to know is, how can they do
it? Here’s what I tell them:
“Before you load your car for the drive to the left coast, let me warn you: At
its core, this is a business of rejection. It’s a massive ocean of ‘no’ surrounding
tiny, almost invisible islands of ‘yes.’ Even Super Troopers endured seventy-five
‘nos’ before we got to ‘yes.’ And though Los Angeles is known for always being
sunny, there’s an unseen cloud of sadness hanging over it, filled with the dashed