Wonderwall Interview - October 31, 2009

[size=150:3mb87o2b] Jemaine Clement on "
Broncos"
and "
Conchords"


By Melissa Hunter

Jemaine Clement stars in "
Gentlemen Broncos,"
the latest film by husband-and-wife team Jared and Jerusha Hess (of "
Napoleon Dynamite"
fame), and his performance as the arrogant, morally bankrupt sci-fi writer Chevalier is not to be missed. Wonderwall sat down with the "
Flight of the Conchords"
star, who opened up about New Zealand, the future of "
Conchords,"
and his secret aspirations of being a computer programmer.

On being an audience member first, and an actor second:

"
I love movies. If I hear about a cool movie from a director I like, I don't want to ruin it by being in it. I don't want to see myself in it, it would ruin it for me. I'd just rather see the movie."


On the dangers of traveling with facial hair:

"
I always get stopped in Canada. I did actually try to sneak in there once, so they always check it out. When I came to 'Gentlemen Broncos,' I had quite a thick beard, so I got searched on every single possible point I could be. I don't mean bodily, I mean of the journey."


On breaking our "
Conchord"
-loving hearts:

"
We probably won't [do another season]. It will be a hard decision to make. We haven't totally called it off, we'll be saying whether or not in the next month. It's really hard to do. After the pilot, we couldn't imagine doing the season, and [when] we heard we got the season, it was like the worst news we could ever get. We're like, 'We got to make more of these? It was so hard to get through one.'"


On acting being Plan B to his bygone dreams of computer programming:

"
I thought I was going to be a computer programmer for a while ... I always wanted to do something creative and I always remember thinking that computers were going to be able to do so many things but they'll never be able to create something on their own, so that's what I'm gonna do. Because even writing a computer program, it's conceivable that computers will be able to do that better than people one day. So yeah, I didn't know I'd be acting."


On being the second biggest fish in the small Kiwi pond:

"
I live in a very small city;
it's like 120,000 people. And Peter Jackson lives there as well and I never, ever see him. He just hides away. Sometimes I feel like doing that as well. When the first review that came out for 'Conchords,' it was quite an average one in the States, and the main entertainment news in New Zealand said, 'Conchords show fails in America!' We're in the news a lot there and I don't enjoy that part of it, but I still love the country."


On how Larry David just gets him:

"
I love 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' And he always says he's not gonna do [another season] and he comes back and does it again, so who knows. And I totally relate to him, he always talks about it like he hates [the entertainment industry], and when I'm doing it, I do hate a lot of it, but it is fun as well sometimes and it has some rewards."