Where there's Fred Willard, there's a funny way

Busy times for the laugh-a-minute actor who enlightened ‘Best in Show’

	Willard is "obviously one of the funniest people, ever," says director Christopher Guest.
Nick Ut / AP

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updated 4:18 p.m. ET July 21, 2006

NEW YORK - He plays the gladdest of glad-handers, the hardest of blowhards, the goofiest of goofballs.

The words that spew from his unfiltered mouth!

You cringe. Then you cry, laughing.

Story continues below ↓

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He's typically the third guy through the door, and you're always glad to see him — because Fred Willard probably gets more laughs per minute of screen time than anyone in the movies.

At 66, he's working as much as ever. This summer he's in "Monster House." Later this year he'll be in "I Could Never Be Your Woman" (starring Michelle Pfeiffer; directed by Amy Heckerling) _ and in his fourth Christopher Guest film, "For Your Consideration," about three actors whose performances in an independent movie ("Home for Purim") get awards-season buzz that changes their lives.

As his character in Guest's "A Mighty Wind" might ask: Wha' happened?

Willard, as sincere and circumspect in an interview as his on-screen characters are clueless and narcissistic, felt he was enjoying a "pretty good" career — then landed a role in Guest's 1996 mockumentary "Waiting for Guffman."

"God bless Chris Guest ... and I mean it sincerely," Willard said during a recent trip to New York, where he starred in wife Mary's play "Elvis and Juliet."

In "Guffman," Willard plays a travel agent who's never left his small town and talks openly about his penile reduction.

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A mighty role
Most memorable of all, though: his performance in Guest's "Best in Show" as the broadcaster whose canine ken wouldn't fill a Chihuahua's brain — so he makes up things as he goes along such as: "And to think that in some countries these dogs are eaten."

Roger Ebert suggested that he should get an Oscar nomination, and the Boston Society of Film Critics named him best supporting actor in 2000.

"He's obviously one of the funniest people, ever," said Guest, who met Willard almost 40 years ago when they did a play in New York, long before they worked together in 1984's "This is Spinal Tap."

"He's one of the great improvisers. And it's not as if you can just pick anyone to do these movies, and so he became one of the main people because he's one of the best at it," Guest added.

Willard remembers the first time he took direction from Guest, during an improvised scene in a Chinese restaurant. No one said anything for a while, and he figured that he should say SOMETHING. "So I said, `You know in China they'll bring a live monkey to the table and cut its head off so you can eat the brains.’"

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