How hard is it to stay in character and to make sure you can answer questions that are specific to the show?

J:  To be honest that’s what keeps you engaged after a while - being on your toes and trying to think on your feet.  I have more of a problem coming up with original answers for stuff I’ve answered before because you fall into ‘message tracking - go see film,’ which is why it’s nice to do things out of character. 

Ever get tired of answering the same J-Roc questions over and over again?

J: Of course.  There are some questions that need to be asked and make sense to be asked – but its fun to do stuff out of character. 

Do you actually like rap?

J:  I do.  I’ve done a lot about rap today with Clattenburg, and we were talking a lot about how old school hip-hop had a sense of humour about it, and its genesis and origin was guys taking shots at each other, chirping each other’s mama and stuff like that, and it’s kinda one of the things I miss in music today.  Now I like T.I. for example – those things are the new pop music – all those choruses of hey, ho and gangsters uniting – it’s OK.  But I like the old school stuff. 

Are you worried that now everyone will only think of you as J-Roc?

J:  I guess I’ve been working in Canadian TV long enough that depending on the age some folks seem to know me as J-Roc, some folks know me as Jonovision, or Street Cents for those who are my age.  The nice thing about the character is that it’s always been a side dish on the show, not really the main event.  Even Bubbles, Mike Smith, when he takes off the glasses he’s not totally recognizable, but for John Paul and Rob, who play Julian and Ricky, they really can’t disguise their look.  If I de-bling myself it’s hard to recognize me, God-willing.  The thing is it’s a high-class problem.  The way I look at it, if folks take half an hour a week to watch the show, and in the case of a lot of people who watch this show they take seven hours a week to watch the show and reruns, and have drinking games and invite people over and stuff, I can take 10 seconds to say “Know what I’m sayin?” or “thanks for watching the show”.  If people didn’t watch the show, I wouldn’t have a job so I’m very thankful. 

Are you going to miss the show?

J:  I am.  It’s kind of like a time lapse photograph.  We shoot in the summertime, mostly so Randy doesn’t need to roll around with no shirt on in February, so it’s been like summer camp for the last seven or eight years.   So it’s nice to pick up with people where you left off, but we’ve always all had other lives during the winter.  I don’t know if it’s really sunken in yet – it’s like if you were a teacher and you retired you wouldn’t know how you felt about it until September.  Next April when I haul out my musty do-rags maybe it will hit a little harder then.  But the other thing is that one of the wrestling matches Clattenburg has had over the last few seasons was when to call it quits, so there have been a few seasons where we thought maybe this will be the end, and regardless of how I felt at that time I’m glad it wasn’t because I think this movie is the way to end it. 

So the new movie is the end of J-Roc?

J: I think this is the end of J-Roc.  Never say never, but certainly the way it looks today is that it’s the end of him, but it was also the natural, logical conclusion for that character after never achieving anything for as long as he did.  For all of the characters one of the things Clattenburg has wrestled with is, you know - how many words does Ricky mess up, how many kitties does Bubbles have, how many drinks does Lahey have, before there are no new avenues to explore. 

Are there are only so many variations of the core jokes that can be come up with?

J:  Yeah because then you tend to evolve your characters – Ricky gets his Grade 12 and suddenly its Trailer Park Boys: The College Years, and suddenly it’s evolved so far past what it once was that people don’t like it anymore anyway because it’s jumped it’s own shark.  So that’s been the wrestling match – how do you resolve these characters in a way that will satisfy everybody but also leave some questions while there’s still an audience. 

What’s next for you?

J:  I have a show called TV with TV’s Jonathan Torrens and it’s going to debut on TVtropolis October 9^th. 

People will see you on TV and be shocked to hear how you actually sound.

J:  You know, it was in the last year I was standing outside a hotel in Halifax and this cab pulled up and a guy who was probably in his late 70’s with a bowler hat and a bowtie got out and he had a cane – and he looked over at me and said “Do you know what I’m saying?”  I think that was one of the moments where I thought ‘man, we grossly underestimated, first of all how many people would respond to the show and second how it doesn’t discriminate based on age or socio-economic barriers.’ 

What sort of audience were you originally aiming for?

J:  To be perfectly honest I think in the beginning we were aiming it at ourselves.  We were sitting around trying to make each other laugh, and it felt like this is really fun and kinda self-indulgent and silly, and I think that is a palpable spirit, especially in the early seasons.  That’s one of the things I think people really tweaked to. 

How did the show get started?

J:  It started as a short in the Atlantic Film Festival ten years ago.  It had early versions of Ricky and Julian and Mr. Lahey was I think a pet store manager.  Barrie Dunn – who plays Ray – saw the short and said that it shouldn’t end here because it’s really funny.  So that was how it came about. 

When did you get involved in the show?

J:  Clattenburg and I used to work on Street Cents together a few years ago and he was the director of the show – late 80’s, early 90’s – and we just always talked like guys we went to high school with.  We went to school with a lot of J-Roc’s, so we always riffed back and forth to each other in that sort of voice.  When he was doing Trailer Park Boys he called and said ‘why don’t you play J-Roc, why don’t we put that guy on TV?’  And we had a lot of discussions about parody versus satire, and not wanting to offend anybody in the hip-hop community, but also wanting to take the piss out of those guys who deserve it. 

One of the funnier things about the character is that it’s relatable – everyone knows some suburban guy who acts like J-Roc.

J:  Right – even rural.  You go to any small town in Saskatchewan on any Friday or Saturday night and you’ll see some hardcore wannabe gangster rolling around blasting music.  It’s the pop culture now.  So the happy accident is that the hip-hop guys are kinda thankful someone’s taking a shot at these dudes, and the wankstas are saying ‘thanks for representin’ us on TV, dawg.’ 

Some people still take J-Roc seriously?

J:  I guess so, because he takes himself seriously.  He doesn’t feel sorry for himself.  And if he didn’t believe in himself, nobody would, because people barely do anyway.  But one of the nice things about the Sunnyvale microcosm is that there’s kind of a ‘oh that’s just…’ feeling about everybody.  Nobody calls Randy and Lahey a disparaging word we sometimes use to describe people in a same-sex relationship, it’s just ‘oh that’s just Randy and Lahey.’  Nobody calls J-Roc a whigger, ‘oh that’s just J-Roc, he thinks he’s black.’  Nobody calls Bubbles words we have in society for people who are kinda slow.  That’s the sweetness and kindness of Mike Clattenberg.  People who watch the show on the surface see a lot of swear words and dope and guns, but if you scratch just below that veneer there’s a big ol’ beating heart in the show. 

I have to ask how you come up with the names you call Randy.

J:  Most of them I try to make up on the spot.  Clattenberg offers some up of course, and it’s a nice set in that the best idea wins.  Whoever shouts out ‘you know what would be really funny?’ – it might be a sound guys, it might be one of the grips, because the crew is as funny as the actors, if not funnier.  The ones I’m really proud of that make it into the show are ones that are Canadian pop-culture specific, like calling Jim Lahey ‘Louis Del Grande.’   That’s a reference maybe four people watching would get, but those four people would love it.  Because we shoot on tape it’s cheap and we can do multiple takes, and it’s a little badge of pride that I don’t want to hit Randy with the same diss two takes in a row. 

How much of the show is ad-libbed?

J:  There’s a script and a storyline, and we usually do a few takes per the script, and then start trying stuff.  There’s a really nice blend of script and freestyle that ends up in the show.  The way J-Roc speaks is a peculiar patois, so you could never write all those ‘know what I’m sayins?’ Usually I would roll in with the intent, so like here’s the scene where I’m wondering where my DJ is, and then the words come, go, ebb, flow - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. 

Are the movies more polished than the show?

J:  Compared to the first one, the second is much less polished.  The first movie, just financially because you’re shooting on film you can’t afford to have that luxury of using a roll of film just trying a bunch of stuff to see if it works.  It’s so expensive to process it you can’t do that.  This film, because it was shot on video, we had that luxury creatively to do a bunch of takes.  Plus, this one looks more like a documentary, which is back to form for us. 

Was the first movie directed towards outside audiences?

J:  Much has been written about the first movie – I think it was the wrestling match between trying to satisfy loyal and long-time viewers while also potentially introducing a new audience to it.  So in places it kind of ground to a halt, just so you could bring people up to speed as to who the characters were.  It was like: ‘ No way, Bubbles!  For those of you just joining, Bubbles is the guy with the glasses and the cats and lives in a shed.  And now, on with the story.’  So I think anytime you do something like that it’s going to feel a little molasses-y or a bit like a greatest hits album.  Not to say anything bad about the first movie – it was an avenue well worth exploring and the natural evolution of the franchise to try to do a big budget-ish movie, but this one is much more us. 

So this movie ties up the loose strings for the fans.

J:  The interesting thing is, I think what makes comedy work is character. So, in Seinfeld - once you get the hang of it - Kramer enters and people laugh, in part because of his entrance, but in part because it’s like ‘Oh my God, Kramer’s walking into this building and it’s on fire, so what’s he going to do?’.   I think once your audience has an understanding of your characters to that degree, then you can focus on story.  So I think this movie has more of a story, and the stakes are higher, and there’s an actual ‘what’s gonna happen?’ in a bigger way than we ever have.  For long time viewers of the show, I think that’s something to sink your teeth into.