Exclusive: Evan Handler on Another Season of Californicating

Lost, Californication, Sex and the City.  All three are fantastic television shows on which Evan Handler has left his memorable comedic mark.  The man can do funny six ways from Sunday - see sympathetic nice guy funny on Sex and the City, lovable assh*le funny on Californication and creepy mental hospital imaginary friend funny on Lost.  This season on Californication, Handler looks primed to ramp up the assh*le factor when his character tangles with Kathleen Turner, while in the midst of a divorce from Marcy aka "Cokey Smurf."  Handler let me in on some of the insanity that's on tap for this season so expect some minor spoilering to follow.  We also talked SATC and of course, Lost.  Handler also revealed some interesting tidbits on creator Tom Kapinos' original vision for our beloved Charlie Runkle - a bit of a surprise.

UGO: Tell us about where things pick up this season, in particular with the mess Charlie's made.

Evan Handler: Well, season two was the crumbling of the Runkle empire with Daisy and porn acting and ending up selling BMWs in the valley as predicted by Charlie's assistant, the little suicide girl. Season three has Charlie back in the agent's saddle, working for a character played by Kathleen Turner and the tables get turned on him. Charlie becomes the sexually harassed. Kathleen Turner plays a sexually voracious, foul-mouthed boss who's constantly hitting on and demanding sexual favors from Charlie Runkle. He gets Rick Springfield as a client and Peter Gallagher is on the show playing the dean of a school that Hank starts working at. It's filthier and more foulmouthed.

UGO: So has Charlie learned his lesson at all?

Evan: I think both Charlie and Hank learn their lessons over and over again. It doesn't stop them from continuing to make mistakes. But they're the kind of mistakes that everyone makes over and again.

UGO: Like sleeping with porn stars?

Evan: Well, who was it that said with men, fidelity is in direct proportion to opportunity? I think the point Tom Kapinos (creator and executive producer of Californication) tries to make, especially with Hank Moody and now more with Charlie, is that these are the stumbles that people make and marriage and long lasting relationships don't necessarily live or die by the making of a mistake. What you have here are relationships that are long lasting and enduring with these really exaggerated mistakes on the part of both parties, certainly in the case of Marcy and Charlie. Season two was the destruction of the Runkle empire, in season three the working phrase was the "War of the Roses." Marcy and Charlie are living together while divorce proceedings are going on. Charlie declares himself unable to pay rent and a mortgage at the same time. So he's representing Rick Springfield while his wife is f*#king him in another room in the house and various others as well. And hi jinks ensue from all that.

UGO: I was a big fan of Sex and the City. Sometimes Californication feels like a male version of SOTC to me.

Evan: Sex and the City was really about the friendships of those four women and all this really perceptive dating stuff. Each show kind of had its bon mot of dating observations. What I find really nice about Californication is that it portrays a kind of sexual antagonism that occurs between men and women that I found in my personal life but hadn't really seen represented openly before. Whether that's just banter and teasing or actual sort of warfare, I think it's really good at that and for a certain number of people anyway, it's a pretty accurate representation.

UGO: There's definitely some crossover in territory covered with those two shows.

Evan: Both shows are funny to me in different ways. The response to Harry Goldenblatt is funny to me because here I am playing the role of a guy who supposedly could never ever have a woman as attractive as Kristin Davis. I'm well aware that there's a wide open world out there where guys who look like me and worse, have luck with all kinds of women. There's this kind of fantasy concept that filmgoers and TV watchers accept that says the beautiful woman who's just not the most beautiful woman on Earth plays the unattractive sidekick. And therefore I play Harry Goldenblatt. It's just a construct that's accepted that I don't think matches the real world. Then in the Californication world I could never play the role of the guy who gets the women because it's a different thing. But if you go online and read the comments and such that people made about Sex and the City, they really take it to heart. There are people who get into debates and forums about how Harry could never score Charlotte.

UGO: How much input did you have in the development of Charlie's character?

Evan: When I read for the part in front of the Showtime executives, I had a few pages and David (Duchovny) was there and read with me but he had no pages. So we basically did some of what Tom had written and then we kind of went off and took it to other places. Back then Charlie was a very different thing. Californication was originally a screenplay, Tom's talked about that. And then Showtime was interested in doing a series so it was adapted for that. This character of Hank's friend in the screenplay was a guy whose big shift came when he came out of the closet as a gay man, even though he was married to this woman. And somewhere along the line, before we started shooting, Tom said to me "you know, I was thinking the stuff from the screenplay that I brought in doesn't really match anymore so would you be disappointed if Charlie really isn't a gay character?" And I said "no that's fine with me." So it became something completely different. So the scene we did in the room that day had to do with Charlie secretly being a gay man and Hank not even knowing yet and everything was kind of weighted with double entendre. That's all to say that it was set up really early on and Tom is just a guy who is so incredibly open to people's ideas and contributions and yet really firm about what he wants. That's really rare to find, a fantastic combination. So with him it's like if you think of something to say, whether it's in front of a studio executive or with the camera rolling, he's like just do it.

UGO: Charlie is very involved with Kathleen Turner and Rick Springfield's characters this season. How was it working with those two?

Evan: Kathleen is so iconic to so many people and yet physically she's quite different than she was in her heyday and I think that's something the show definitely plays on. She's not used as the icon of desirability but as a frighteningly aggressive sexual creature. Kathleen is an experienced theater brawd. She's one of the gang and knows her stuff and it's shop stuff and doing the work, so it was great, really. Rick was a great guy. I think I spent more time nude in his company than any heterosexual man should. Every season Tom (Kapinos) does an episode that is more like a one act play, like the dinner party episode last season, and this season it's where all the women that Hank is involved with, who are all aware of each other as people, wind up coming over as well as various other family members at the same time. Meanwhile Charlie and Rick Springfield are engaged in a threesome with a stripper and another stripper is passed out on the floor. So there's a lot of door slamming and people arriving and being hidden in rooms and Charlie and Rick carrying the unconscious stripper off to hide her. At one point, Charlie is forced to buy drugs for Rick Springfield. Rick was a great sport, he was like "bring it on! Do whatever!"

UGO: What was it like to wrestle Peter Fonda? (the two have a scene where they grapple this season)

Evan: When the day started, we were just supposed to do a marking rehearsal with no pads underneath and Peter just launched himself at me on the bare ground. So from that point on, it was either me and a stunt guy or Peter and a stunt guy. They didn't let Peter near me after that because I think he didn't quite understand until the pads were down, that no actual tackling was supposed to happen. But you know pinning and wrestling a sixty nine year old man is an odd experience.

UGO: Speaking of odd experiences, let's talk Lost for moment. Have you been keeping up with the show since your episode, "Dave"?

Evan: I have, yea. I hadn't followed Lost until they offered me that role. I had glimpsed it a couple of times and thought it looked like nonsense and then I started watching the DVDs they gave me and I just thought it was fantastic, some of the best television story telling I'd ever seen. Especially the episode "23rd Psalm," Mr. Eko's back story. I just thought it was incredible. It feels to me like it's really become a different show now but I have continued to follow it.

UGO: So was the character of Dave just presented to you or did you have a say in developing him?

Evan: It just arrived. I was told that those two guys (Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse) had written it with me in mind, but you never know, people tell you that (laughs). When I wind up on a set with people who are open to your suggestions and humor and aren't afraid of spoiling what they set up, I have a better time and this was one those times. I called those guys up before hand and gave some suggestions and some wound up in the script and some didn't. Just little tiny ad libs and they were very open to it. And Jack Bender who directed the episode, was very appreciative of my stuff so I brought a few small things to it.

UGO: There's been a lot of talk of old characters returning for the final season. Is that something you'd be interested in revisiting?

Evan: I would have loved to have gone back sometime ago, but there's never been any mention of it to me. Actually, I did run into JJ Abrams once and he said "I guess we could bring Dave back" but it's never been brought to my attention. But i loved the show and the experience was great. It was muddy and there were lots of mosquitos but it was amazing.

Californication season two is available on DVD now.  Season three premieres on Sunday, September 27th at 10pm on Showtime.