Are you guys going to miss playing Bubbles, Ricky, and Julian?

RW: Big time. I love doing this character.

MS: We have a live show a themed show that we do so it’s not like we’ll never play these characters again - just maybe not in front of the cameras.  Yeah we’ll definitely miss playing them. 

A lot of people must think your characters are just exaggerations of your own lives.

JPT: Oh yeah. Everyone always says the same thing – jeez where’s your drink?

RW:  There’s a little bit of all of us in the characters I think, but not as much as people perceive.  

So has gotten to the point where you hear the same things on the street over and over again?

RW: It’s weird.  It built slowly and now it got to the point where we’re just kinda used to it – well you never really get used to it - but I’m known more as Ricky than Rob, that’s for sure. 

Is it going to be a problem going forward that you’re known mostly as Bubbles, Ricky, and Julian?

RW:  Normally I think it would be, but we have a new show that we’re working on that’s in development now and we play about 7 or 8 characters each with really heavy makeup, rather than one new character because we are kind of typecast.  So there will be seven new characters and hopefully they’ll embrace them and get a kick out of them. 

Who made the decision to keep going with the characters even outside of the show?

MS: I was a big advocate of that.  Just because I was a massive Spinal Tap fan and they never did anything out of character on camera.

RW:  It leaves it a little more mysterious as to who these people really are which is sort incorporated in the new show. 

Do you still encounter people who think the show is real?

JPT:  Oh yeah.

RW:  Not so much anymore.  When we first started though…

JPT:  You still get the odd person though…

MS:  It’s kinda like the wrestling mentality.  The real hardcore fans – they know it’s not real – same as wrestling – they know it’s not real but they want to believe it so bad.  They just suspend their belief and f**k it it’s real. 

It must be strange running into people like that?

MS: Oh yeah.

RW:  You would not believe some of the people we’ve met. 

It was worth it though?

J: Oh for sure.  I’m not complaining about anything.  It’s been a great ten years. 

For each season the story arc was somewhat similar – how hard is it to come up with new ideas for the show?

MS:  Yeah I mean it’s one of those shows where that sort of is the inherent arc that they’re gonna get out of jail, try to do something, f**k it up, and go to jail.  The trick it to put twists on other elements of it to beat the clichés and to keep coming up with funny sh*t.  And that’s intrinsically going to be the arc – you just need to think of clever ways to beat the clichés out of it.

RW:  Yeah – fresh scams, sometime Lahey wins, sometimes we win.  You change it up as much as you can, but it is a little bit restrictive. 

Is that one of the reasons the show is ending, or has it just run its course?

RW:  Yeah I think it’s – well I don’t think it’s run its course as far as the fans are concerned – but it’s an opportunity for people to move on and finally do some other stuff.  We as writers and actors, and for Mike [Clattenburg] basically doing everything – writing, producing, directing, editing.  It’s just a chance for everyone to pursue some other projects that we’ve wanted to do over the last ten years that we’ve never really had the time to do. 

So you’re looking forward to retiring the track pants?

RW:   I’d love to play this character if the opportunity arises – it’s a lot of fun, it’s great.  We’ll still do our live show if nothing else. 

(To Mike Smith) Do the glasses hurt your eyes?

MS:  They give you a bad f**cking headache, which I have right now from wearing them all f**cking day.

RW:  He can’t see a g*ddamn thing in them when he’s acting.  He’s been a blind person for ten years.

MS:  You just see colours and shapes.  Sometimes you don’t know who you’re talking to. 

So most of the interviews today been in character?

All: Yeah

MS:  All the on-camera sh*t today we did in character.

RW:  Most of our fans don’t really give a f**ck about Rob, Mike, or John Paul.  But now that’s it done people want to know what the deal is, but to this point the in-character stuff has been a much bigger hit than out of character. 

Was it hard to come up with Rickyisms by the end?

RW:  For some reason, no it wasn’t.  Most of them we’ve heard people mistakenly say I guess.  Some we come up with on the day, some are improvised. 

How much of the show is made up on the spot?

JPT:  We have everything scripted, but we like to f**ck around and improv.

MS:  We improv based on the script –we don’t just start making up sh*t blindly.

RW:  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  But some of the funnier stuff in the show and in the movies is improv. 

Are you going to miss all the guys on the set?

All: Yeah

RW:  All the cast and crew – it’s like a big family, so it’s kinda sad actually. 

The first movie seemed like it was more geared towards people who didn’t necessarily watch the show, but the new one seems like its more for the fans?

MS:  Yeah

RW:  This time we wanted to make the movie that Mike wanted to make the first time I guess – his vision and get back to the roots with the doc style, and make it just for our fans and not worry about anything else and people who hadn’t seen it.  The fans kept us going this long so we wanted to make a movie just for them. 

Are you surprised the show got so big?

RW:  I am – I never figured this many people would tune in, that’s for sure.  I figured a few would, but I didn’t know there were so many people with a f**cked up sense of humour like we have. 

Are you surprised that you have a lot of fans from different groups? 

JPT:  A lot of parents come up to us and say ‘you know what it’s the only time our kids actually sit with us and watch a show’ – so it’s bringing families together. 

What about the people who say there’s too much swearing and that sort of thing?

RW:  There are a few people like that, but if cursing offends you, you shouldn’t be watching Showcase for sure.  Unfortunately that’s the way people talk, so…everyone has a friend whose every second word out of their mouth is f**ck. 

Everyone seems to know people like the characters in the show.

RW:  Yeah everyone knows someone like the Trailer Park Boys – it’s crazy. 

Except for maybe Lahey.

RW:  That was one of the funniest things – when we first started writing the show we wanted a trailer park supervisor and an assistant trailer park supervisor – without even knowing if there was such a thing.  When we were scouting there was a trailer park supervisor who was similar to Lahey in some ways.  Kinda crazy.

JPT:  There was also a guy living in his shed.

RW:  That’s right… 

Where did the idea for the show come from?

RW: Well we were making some movies for the Atlantic Film Festival - short films - and Mike shot a music video in a trailer park years ago and we thought it was a neat backdrop I guess.  In some of the earlier shorts we worked on we played characters similar to Ricky and Julian and Mr. Lahey was in one of the shorts before that and we wanted to put these bizarre characters in that setting I guess.  But if your going to have these ridiculous characters you’re gonna have to have a lot of redeeming qualities – a lot of heart, a lot of love.  That’s what we were all about when we were writing, and I guess it worked out better than we expected. 

Are you happy that Canadians take such pride in something that the three of you came up with?

MS:  Yeah definitely.

RW:  That’s why we’re still here.  This could have been years ago and we could have gone south of the border I’m sure – we had a few offers - but we’re proud to be Canadian, it’s great that Canadians embrace it the way they do, and we’re hoping to stay here and work here the rest of our lives. 

I’ve read about people that want to drive up here from the US just to watch your movie.

MS:  We had our premiere in Halifax and some dudes were there from Virginia, some guys from NJ.

RW: Oklahoma

JPT:  4 guys drove up from Texas – 4 days straight – trying to find Sunnyvale.

MS: 4 f**cking days straight.

RW:  When you hear about stuff like that it’s overwhelming – you’re reached out to that many people.