How fun was shooting that scene with Justin Long?
Fred Willard: For three days I had to come in and the director said, “Stay on the floor and look down. You’re looking closely at the weave of the carpet. You are interested in what you see in the carpet.” At least I wasn’t forgotten—it was centered on what I was doing down on that carpet. You strike comedic gold when you are paired with Christopher Guest in his mockumentaries, like This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration and Best in Show. How much of those characters—like your wisecracking dog-show announcer in Best in Show—is written for you and how much is just you ad-libbing? Fred Willard: Christopher Guest would tell us what kind of dogs were coming out and we just went on and on. In Waiting for Guffman, he shot 30 hours of film and cut it down to 85 minutes, so a lot of my favorite things were cut. As the announcer in Best in Show, I thought, I’m going to say anything that comes into my mind. I wasn’t judicious—every bad joke, every good joke
