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The prequel to the cult hit TV show, Strangers With Candy, has had a strange and difficult journey to the big screen. For those who don't know, it's your typical story of an ex-con former junkie whore who, as a 47-year-old, decides to end her years of being a runaway by going home and picking up right where she left off... as a high school freshman. The movie premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and was immediately picked up by Warner Independent, but was then shelved for nearly a year because of "clearance issues." Luckily, ThinkFilm picked it up and decided to actually release it.

I had the good pleasure of speaking with the creators and stars of Strangers With Candy at the Sundance Festival: Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello have the easy rapport and playful infighting of friends who have been working together for years. For example, at the end of the interview, Stephen let out a loud "Fuck!" after smashing his finger between two tables. Amy immediately turns to me and says, "I hope you got that on tape. Can we hear it? Rewind it!" Our conversation took place just before they went into meetings with distributors to sell the movie.

17 months later, I spoke with director/star Paul Dinello after the movie had a wildly successful, sold-out Gala screening at the Seattle International Film Festival. We spoke about the delay in the movie's release, the changes he made to it since the Sundance screenings, and his take on the cults that are slowly forming around his friends Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris.

January 2005

The first question I have - I was wondering if you wanted me to ask it in a confrontational manner or just as a standard question?

Stephen: Bring it! Bring the fucking hammer down! We need it. We deserve it.

So you take a pretty actress, you ugly her down, make her a prostitute... isn't this a boldfaced grab for an Oscar?

Stephen: Busted!

Paul: You saw through us!

Stephen: If we don't get a nod next year -

Amy: Films like this don't get nominated.

Paul: Yes they do.

Stephen: I'll quit the business if we don't get a nomination!

Paul: We were going to even make her retarded, just to hedge our bets.

What kind of changes did you have to make in order to make it a prequel? I know you had some casting changes.

Paul: We didn't make those changes based on the prequel-ness of it. I mean, it's only partially a prequel, then it sort of passes up the time that the show is and then maybe, I don't know, it covers everything. In some instances actors weren't available and in others they had sort of outgrown their roles. We liked the feeling of placing young high school students against Jerri Blank, and if you have a 40-year-old Derrick, it sort of takes away from that.

Amy: The only one who didn't age was Tammi Littlenut (Maria Thayer), thank God.

Paul: Which is odd because she's, like, 42. That actress.

The music was great.

Stephen and Paul: That was Marcelo Zarvos.

When did he come into the process?

Amy: He was pretty much the last one, right?

Paul: I had a lot of temp music in, so he had -

Amy: Tell him where the temp music came from.

Paul: Shawshank Redemption and Schindler's List.

Amy: It's a comedy!

Paul: Well, we knew we always wanted the music to be overly dramatic, to play against the ridiculousness of the situations.

Amy: And to manipulate feelings.

Stephen: Exactly. To underscore the pathos of each moment.

Paul: But Marcelo worked non-stop. I would go over to his house, he would show me stuff and we would talk about it and stay up all night and rework it. Then he flew to Prague in a whirlwind, recorded it there, and we got it in at the last minute. He didn't sleep. He showed up at the sound mix with his stuff and we slapped it in and it was perfect.

The movie does have a very strong Schindler's List vibe.

Amy: Oh good, that's what we want.

Stephen: But more uplifting.

Paul: But not as funny.

I'm curious about the writing process and how you guys work together.

Stephen: We improvise for each other.

Paul: We create an outline and figure out what the scenes are going to be. We order those and sort of figure out what we need and what's missing, and then to flesh out the scenes and, like, we'll say, "This takes place in a bar and Jerri is trying to pick this person up, but what it's really about is that she's searching for some information." Then we'll just improvise in the characters voices and flesh out the scene that way.

Speaking of structure and scenes, I like the way that you justified the weeklong span of the movie through the sudden and desperate need to win the science fair.

Stephen: We found in the series that we always worked up to an event that would change the students' lives if it were successful or unsuccessful, like a dance. Afterschool Specials tended to have that. It gives you a lot of license. You don't have to worry about the structure so much, because just the want of the person gives you the structure; it's the want to succeed at this thing at the end of the movie, and so you can play a lot more.

Amy: We did it in Wigfield, too. We pretty much had a week to prove we were a town.

Stephen: One month. One month!

Amy: It was one month.

Stephen: But which month?!?

[To Paul] I read that it was almost a surprise when you were asked to direct this?

Amy: We've always wanted Paul to direct something. He was the perfect person.

Stephen: We knew it would be the perfect thing for him to do, and we convinced him that he should do it also -

Amy: - and that he should put us in it.

Stephen: I hope he's convinced it was the right thing for him to do, because it obviously was.

Amy: Yeah.

So a lot of the Afterschool Specials have messages. I was wondering, what's the message of this film?

Stephen: Don't betray... betry!

[Amy giggles.]

Paul: That no matter how hard you try, you cannot change your lot in life. It's all futile.

Amy [as Jerri Blank]: People don't change. Changes. Changeless.

Are you going to go back and work on some sort of a show? Or are you splitting up?

Stephen: We would like to work with each other, but we just don't know.

Amy: We were never a team or a group in the first place, so we can't split up.

Paul: We have a couple scripts that we wrote that have parts for Amy -

Stephen: - and ourselves.

Paul: We'll probably do another film at some point where we'll all be included in various ways.

To each of you, what are you doing next?

Stephen: More Daily Show for me.

Amy: Crafty Beavers and I are working on a hospitality book. So I'm working on that when I get back.

Paul: I'm going to do another film.

Stephen: We want to do another film with him, too. We've got three different ideas; we just don't know what to do.

Paul: We've got to see if the money's right.

Stephen: Right.

Amy: I always thought it'd be funny at the end of Strangers where you decide this was Jellineck's film all along. You know what I mean? So we actually are all playing ourselves.

Stephen: A Geoffrey Jellineck production.

Amy: Yeah, that way it would be an excuse for anything anybody has a problem with... it would be Jellineck's fault.

Stephen: Oh, that was Jellineck. That edit? That was Jellineck.

Last question is about the distribution prospects. Does it look good?

Amy: We've had a lot of people call that are interested.

Stephen: Yeah, we just had a meeting about it.

Paul: Six or seven companies are sort of...

Stephen: And um, well, you'll be the first to know. We're finding out soon.

Amy: Why? You interested?

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