Lunatic: First, will you wear this headset like in Jerry McGuire?
Mohr: Maybe if you asked me five years ago.
Lunatic: Forget it….. How did you first get interested in standup comedy?
Mohr: I don’t know. It was just something I was always attracted to when I watched TV.
Lunatic: Was their any specific comedian that inspired you?
Mohr: Whenever I watched Star Search when it was good, I always really enjoyed when the comics were on. I used to memorizethe bits from what they were doing for my friends. And I always liked comedies.
Lunatic: Did you do the “Star Search type thing?’’
Mohr: When I started doing standup comedy as making a living I got offered, you know, well not offered Star Search, but you got offered to audition for Star Search. And I always said “no” ’cause I was already making a good living doing standup and I didn’t want to be on TV as an amateur being judged by people . . . and I’m already pulling down a living. So I thought was counterproductive to go out ’cause what if like Metal Lark Lemon’s manager give you half a star? I’m already making money. So why go out on a limb as an amateur?
Lunatic: How did you get discovered for SNL?
Mohr: I auditioned at a comedy club where the talent scout that came and they had a special evening where she just came to watch certain people and they liked me enough to have me audition again at a different comedy club in front of Lorne Michaels and the cast . . . and I found out the next day that I got it.
Lunatic: Christopher Walken has played a major role in all of our lives, especially yours. What was it like to work with him in Suicide Kings?
Mohr: It was like a dream come true, y’know? You joke around with the guy. You do impressions of him and make fun of him and he laughs at it. When you get back to your trailer and you have a couple hours to kill and you realize, here’s the guy who did the Russian roulette scene in Deer Hunter. And then you get the chills and you’re like, it’s kind of creepy, y’know? We watch Deer Hunter, Henry Thomas and I put Deer Hunter on the Russian roulette scene. We were supposed to be afraid of him at some point in the movie, but we became very friendly with him. And you shoot out of order, so then we’re going back in the script to the point where we’re in beginning of the movie when we’re really afraid of him. But we became so friendly with him, so we were able to put on The Deer Hunter scene, the Russian roulette scene and we watched it and we were so freaked out that then we saw him we were like flinching, y’know. “Pull an empty chamber of that gun, Mikey?”
Lunatic: The television show Action was very hyped, but it didn’t do too well . . .
Mohr: I didn’t know there were six networks until we came in sixth place in our time slot. I think we got beat by soccer on Telemundo. The guy in the fuckin’ bumblebee suit that fights crime beat us.
Lunatic: It’s ironic how a major theme of that show was “in Hollywood, you’re only as good as your last film.” Has it been at all hard to rebound from Action?
Mohr: Television and movies aren’t really applicable towards one another. Unless you leave TV to do movies. If you started in TV and do movies, you’re kind of silly like David Caruso. Like if you do TV all the time and your movie bombs it doesn’t really matter. Like David Duchovony did Playing God but that bombed, but he has job so he just went back to his job. You want to rebound, but you want to choose your projects carefully and even if something’s not so great, it’s good to have something that you’re that working on in the meantime, so that people, you know, . .. America has a short memory.
Lunatic: What was your worst experience as a stand-up comedian, aside from tonight’s performance?
Mohr: (Laughs.) I think it was tonight’s performance. I can’t think of a second place. Maybe last night’s performance.
Lunatic: Where was last night’s performance?
Mohr: It was at Syracuse, and I took a bottle of Ex-Lax. I thought it was . . . milk. I projectiled shit all over the stage. That was like in the first minute of my act so for the whole hour I just like waddled around in my own . . .
Lunatic: Adam Sandler interviewed with the Cornell Lunatic two years ago . . .
Mohr: I was funnier than him, wasn’t I? C’mon.
Lunatic: Oh, you beat him out.
Mohr: Ah, good. He got paid more than me, I know that.
Lunatic: We asked him, “dare, double dare, or physical challenge.” He opted for the physical challenge, which was twenty push-ups. He could only do six. Can you best that? And if not, we do have a giant peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the other room. If you can find the yellow flag in under thirty seconds, you win.
Mohr: How about I just beat six?
Lunatic: Six? All right, do seven.
Mohr: All right, here we go.
Lunatic: Somebody take a picture of this.
Mohr: No pictures of me on the fuckin’ ground! How about like this? [Jay Mohr begins to do “clap push-ups.”]
Lunatic: It’s more than I’ve asked for.Wow! You obviously work out.
Mohr: Thank you! [He continues doing “clap push-ups.”]
Lunatic: You’re in pretty good shape.
Mohr: That’s true.
Lunatic: Have you considered adult films?
Mohr: Adult films? [He gets up.] Not even winded!* Who wants to feel my muscles?
Lunatic: Can I give you a free copy of our magazine?
Mohr: Yeah, I’d love it. Thank you. I’d like it to be noted that I am not winded after the push-ups.
Lunatic: I’ll make an asterisk at the bottom.
*Jay Mohr was not at all winded by the push ups. However, at one point during the interview, he mistook a bottle of Ex-lax for his tuna sandwich and proceeded to projectile shit all over Cornell President Hunter Rawlings III and our lack of an endowment.