Brent Butt, an acclaimed comedian and creator of hit TV series Corner Gas, is one of the most recognizable faces in the country. His folksy humour and positive disposition has endeared him to Canadians young and old. Although he's been out of the public eye for a while, he's back in a big way in 2014 with a new cross-country stand-up comedy tour as well as his first feature film to be released in March. Butt is in town to perform this weekend to perform at the venerable Winter Garden Theatre, Feb. 15.
How have you been preparing for this cross-Canada tour?
Nothing but sit-ups and wind sprints every day. No, I’m planning on doing a lot of new material on the stand-up tour, so I’m getting that together. The rest, you can only prepare so much then dive in and just do it.
What kind of material are you working on, a few ice storm jokes?
I’m working on some ice storm stuff. I wouldn’t say, in my stand-up, anybody is grappling with anything big. I don't pontificate and pretend to have all the answers. If anything, I’ll be presenting a lot of questions, hopefully humorous questions.
Is stand-up as rewarding as it was back when you were becoming a household name in Canada?
Stand-up is still it for me. It’s the thing. It feels like everything in my life is an offshoot of stand-up.
And you have a new movie to promote. Tell me about No Clue.
It’s a comedic murder mystery thriller. I’m a big fan of murder mysteries, film noir, detective movies, and I wanted to write a comedy but not a zany, wacky detective comedy. I wanted to write something dark and gritty, with real stakes and a real kind of danger, and have it be just comedic because the main character is in over his head.
You started your career here in town. Is there anything special you like to do when you’re back in Toronto?
Yeah, I always hook up with a core group of Toronto buddies, mostly stand-ups from the late ’80s, early ’90s, and go to the Pilot Tavern down on
Cumberland. That was a very magical place for me and for stand-ups in general. Wherever comics were performing in southern Ontario, everybody would race back to make sure they got last call at the Pilot. They didn’t rope it off, but the back section was known as the place all the comics were. There’d be 30 to 40 stand-ups in any given night, talking about shows, commiserating, making each other laugh. It was the only place in the world you were a somebody as a stand-up.
You were behind Corner Gas, and now you're making your own movie—why do you like to make your own projects?
The appeal of it is just that it's kind of cathartic. I have a lot of ideas in my head and if I don't get them out, you know, my skull will crack open.
What is an average day for Brent Butt?
I really have to consciously talk myself off of Twitter…. I'm a big Canucks fan, big into watching hockey, mixed martial arts. I like going to the movies, although I've been kinda too busy, so I have a wealth of movies I'm behind on. And then just strolling around with the dog, going to the dog park, dog beach. And, I have a regular poker game with my buddies that I've had for a lot of years, mostly comics. I also pop up at clubs and pubs unannounced to try out new material. That's always a lot of fun for me.
You spent a lot of time in Toronto when you first started out. Why did you end up settling on the West Coast?
I was in Toronto for first 4 or 5 years of my career, and then I kind of had some potential jobs in Los Angeles and it just seemed like the next logical step—to pursue show biz down there. I didn't have paperwork, so legally I had to come back to Canada. And the realization came that I had about a month's worth of standup already booked in B.C., and so I kinda thought to myself, I'd never spent any time in Vancouver, and it always seemed like such a nice city. Why don't I just, you know, spend two or three months here in Vancouver kicking around. I got myself an apartment in the west end, rent was month by month, and I never left after 20 years. I've got no desire to live anywhere else.
