It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day

Since debuting in August 2005, the FX series It's
Always Sunny In Philadelphia has developed a devoted fan base, drawn to the
sitcom's grubby style, zippy pace, deadpan absurdity, and willingness to risk
tastelessness in the name of following through on a gag. The show, about
amoral, bar-owning bums, launches its fourth season on September 18. Recently, the
three men who created, write, and star in It's Always Sunny spoke with The A.V.
Club
about collaborating on comedy, determining how far is too far, and modifying
their career paths in the wake of the news that FX has ordered 39 more episodes
on top of the 13 set to air this season.

The A.V. Club: How far along into the new
season are you?

Glenn Howerton: About halfway. We're
pulling triple-duty right now, which is a little bit insane. We're in the
middle of writing and shooting and editing all at once. So there's a little bit
of insanity over here. But it's all good, man. It's all really good stuff. The
season's coming together, and it's lookin' great.

Rob McElhenney: This is definitely the
hardest fuckin' year we've ever had to do of the show.

AVC: Why is everything so compressed? Because
of the strike?

RM: It was a perfect storm. The strike definitely
condensed us, so we started later. And we're also up against Thursday-night
football this year, which is kind of our core audience, you know. Males in
their 20s and 30s. So we had to hit a certain airdate, before football started.
But we couldn't make September 4, and September 11 was the next date, and…
yeah, that's not a very good date to première a comedy. [Laughs.] September 18
was the last day that we could start airing before we started butting up
against football. So we had this brief window of opportunity to get the season
started. Plus Danny DeVito is directing and producing this huge Morgan Freeman
and Pierce Brosnan movie, and our co-star Kaitlin [Olson] broke a bone in her
lower vertebrae, so we had to shut down for a couple weeks. And here we are.

AVC: Have you had any conflicts with DeVito's
schedule before?

RM: No, this is the first year where we've come into
an issue, because it usually doesn't take very long for us to shoot. We're kind
of in and out.

AVC: Does DeVito play any kind of creative role,
aside from showing up on the set and doing his part?

RM: No. That's pretty much it. He's just an actor on
the show.

AVC: Do the three of you tend to come into the
writers' room with fully fleshed-out ideas, or do you just kick around premises
and see where they take you?

Charlie Day: A lot of times, we go into the room cold
and talk about what we could do an episode about, and start putting up note
cards. Other times, someone might have a particular idea that they came to work
with that day, and they'll say, "Hey, I want to riff on this for a little
while." Sometimes I'll be just listening to NPR in the morning, and they'll be
talking about North Korea, or the gas crisis, and I'll say, "We should work
this into one of our episodes." Other times, we'll be sitting in a room and
saying, "You know, poop's funny." [Laughs.]

GH: Sometimes there will be a million note cards on the board
that we never end up using, because we can never seem to fit them into a story.
And sometimes we go as far as to write the first draft of a story and then
realize that the entire storyline isn't working. Then we have to re-break it
and rewrite the whole thing. Then when we get down on the stage and actually
start shooting, we do a tremendous amount of rewriting on the day we shoot.
[Laughs.] Which should be obvious if you watch the show.

AVC: The dialogue does seem pretty
off-the-cuff.

GH: It is. We try to put a lot of focus on making sure
that every character has a strong force that's driving them to do the things
that they do. When you have a clear idea of what your character is trying to
accomplish, it makes it a lot easier to riff on things.

AVC: Are you responsible for your own
character, or do you all write for each other?
CD: We
all write for each other. You're responsible for your own character to a
degree, because when it comes to the final draft of the script, you might say,
"Well, I think maybe I could add this here, add that there." But I find that I
write just as well for the other characters as I do for myself. I think.
AVC: As the show's gone along, the characters have gotten more and more
well-defined. You've added backstory and character traits, like the way
Charlie's character isn't just the dumb guy who does all the hard work, but
also some kind of strange musical savant.

CD: Well, you know, I don't think anyone who writes a
television series has a master plan from the beginning, and knows all the
character traits, and everything that's going to happen. We wanted to do an
episode where we write music, or have a band, and so we said, "Well, what's the
best way to service that? One of the characters should have some musical ability.
Wouldn't it be funny if, maybe the guy who seems the most hopeless actually has
a ray of light, a talent?" Although not much of a talent. [Laughs.]

AVC: Oh, come on. Don't sell yourself short.

CD: Wait 'til this season. There'll be some more music
coming. There's a musical on the way. Charlie's opus. And the gang performs it.

RM: I think the more depth you build into the
characters, and the more you see where they came from, the more fun you can
have. Setting up different characters in different relationships is always
helpful as you move forward.

AVC: Which characters do you think play best
off each other?

RM: Dennis and Charlie, really.

AVC: Why?

RM: I don't know. [Day and Howerton are] just
unbelievable actors, and they're also really good friends. They have great
chemistry onscreen. It's really fun to write a scene for them and watch what
they do to it.

AVC: Have you been surprised by the way your
careers have evolved, going from actors to writer-actors? And not only that,
but comic
writer-actors?

CD: Oh, very surprised. Maybe in the back of my head I
had aspirations, but no immediate goals. When it started happening, it was a
little bit of a shock to the system. Now I find that the majority of the year,
I don't spend acting. I spend it either writing or editing or producing, or
putting things together. So it's as shocking as it is tragic. [Laughs.] No,
it's good. I really enjoy it. And you know, it's a valuable skill set. I certainly
feel like more of a grownup.

GH: I was entirely wrapped up in the idea of becoming
an actor. I learned how to write on the job, basically out of necessity. I
always thought it'd be fun to write something, but it never was an ambition of
mine, per se. I just thought, "Well, maybe I'll do it one day just for the hell
of it and see if it works." And the other sort of weird thing about this is
that the three of us, being actors, of course had done comedy before, but none
of us primarily came from comedic backgrounds. One of Charlie's biggest jobs,
prior to doing [It's Always Sunny], was playing the drug-addict brother on Third
Watch.
I'd done a bunch of episodes of ER. Rob was doing primarily dramatic movies. I had
done a sitcom prior to the show, and so had Charlie, so our backgrounds had a
pretty good mix of dramatic and comedic things. But none of us were in
Groundlings or Second City or anything like that. [Laughs.] I don't know how we
ended up doing this.

AVC: Is the partnership
between the three of you fairly even?

RM: I take lead in the
show-running responsibilities, in terms of being the liaison to the network,
and dealing with the creative team over there, and working with the marketing
and publicity departments. I'm sort of manning the ship as far as that goes.
But from a creative standpoint, we all work together equally and have a sort of
two-against-one rule, which makes things very easy. We work so closely together
that we had to figure out a way to communicate with each other, because
otherwise we'd just be at each other's throats all the time. When you're dealing
with subjective matters, there's no wrong or right answer, it's just, "What do
we think is best for the show?" So we could get into hourlong conversations
about why somebody thinks something's funny and waste tons and tons of time,
but the good thing about having the triumvirate is if Charlie and Glenn both
agree that something works and I say, "It doesn't work," then I just have to
trust their opinion, and we move past it. And that doesn't mean that they won't
hear me out. I'll get a chance to talk it over and say, "This is why I feel
this could work." We're pretty honest with each other, and open-minded. Most of
the time we're able to take our egos out of it, and say, "Okay, why do I feel
this way? What's the right thing to do in this given situation?" Then once
we can separate that and figure out, "Okay, this is what it's really about," we can have a
conversation creatively. In any situation, it's going to be either A or B, and
if there's three of us, every single time, there's going to be somebody siding
with another. Then we move forward.

AVC: FX has renewed you for two more years?

GH: They renewed us for 52 episodes. That includes
this year. So however many years it takes us to make that amount of episodes is
what they've essentially committed themselves to. It's pretty damn exciting. I
don't know too many shows that can boast of a 52-episode pick-up. It's really,
really exciting.

AVC: Is that going to limit your ability to do
other things?

GH: Not anymore than it already has. The three of us,
because we write, produce, and act on the show, don't have time to do anything
else anyway. Luckily I was able to pop out a little while back and do that
movie The Strangers. I kind of jumped out one day and did another part in Crank
2, with
my buddies who wrote and directed that, and the first one. Personally, I've
gotten to slip out and do small things. But it's tough for us to get out and do
anything else, as the schedule is now. We really pour our hearts and souls into
this show. We really care about it and want it to be special. We do, however,
have another pilot that we're working on for Fox. We're trying to figure that
out. It's tough, but we're motivated, and we're excited, and the new pilot is
super, super funny. We are going to put that together.

AVC: This is your science-fiction
parody Boldly Going Nowhere? Are you going to perform in that as well as
write?

RM: Well, we can't. We have a
commitment to Sunny. We just got picked up for 52 episodes! That's where all of
our time and energy is being spent. However, we are developing it. We've
already written the pilot, and we're mapping out the next six episodes on paper,
and we're hiring a show-runner who's going to man the ship. We are going to be
heavily involved in the first season. But we won't be acting in it, because of
our commitment to Sunny.

AVC: Is knowing that
you'll be doing this for three more years exciting, or stressful?

RM: It's terrifying. I mean,
look, it's the greatest job in the world, and it's super, super fun, we love
doing it. That being said, it is a lot of work, and it can be really, really
stressful, and difficult at times. When it's working, when all pistons are
firing, it is the greatest job on the planet. So I look forward to those
moments when we're just having a blast on set, and in the editing room, and in
the writer's room.

CD: It's a little bit confining, but you know, this is
a good problem to have. So we just try and look on the bright side, and hope
that when it's all done, people will still work with us.

[pagebreak]

AVC: Can you reveal anything about what you're
going to be doing this season?

GH: We have a very exciting episode called, "Mac and
Charlie Die." I'm excited about that one. Pretty epic episode. We've also got
an entire episode where we try and sell Paddy's [Pub] as a historical monument
in Philadelphia. And so, in order to prove that Paddy's has a tremendous amount
of historical significance for the birth of our nation, we actually flash back
to the year 1776. Almost the entire episode takes place in the year 1776. So
it'll basically be our characters in corsets, and baggy half-pants, and flowing
shirts. [Laughs.] Pointy hats, and things like that.

CD: We haven't shot it yet, but despite that, it's a
favorite. Hopefully we won't ruin it.

AVC: Don't the episodes usually come out as you
planned them?

CD: You never know. There are certain episodes that on
the page we thought, "Oh boy, this is going to be the funniest episode." And
there are other ones that went in, fingers crossed, saying, "Oh well, let's
hope something good comes out of it." Oftentimes, those ones wind up being the
best ones.

AVC: Do you pay much attention to the fan
reaction after the fact?

CD: A little bit. From time to time. I try not to take
too much of it to heart, 'cause everyone's got an opinion. And obviously,
comedy, or art in general, or television, or whatever you want to call it… it's
all subjective. But I do like to know what people are thinking. I don't know
how long I'll keep doing that. [Laughs.] As it goes on and on, I might become
more fearful of it. For the time being, I'm not opposed to reading what people
write.

AVC: Glenn, do you and Charlie have the same
Philadelphia connection that Rob does?

GH: No. I'm from Alabama. And when we originally
started talking about doing the show, it took place in L.A. and had something
to do with the industry. But then we started talking about going to Philly and
shooting a bunch of Rob's old friends from high school, who were just these
really funny dudes living in Philly. When we brought the show to FX, they were not that excited about a show
that took place in L.A., because at the time, a lot of shows were being
developed like that. So Rob pitched the idea of making them more blue-collar
and setting it in Philly, which was a sort of combination of the two ideas we
initially had. And they loved it. So that's where we went with that.

AVC: Why is your character the only one of
three main men on the show who doesn't share a first name with the actor who
plays him?

GH: Initially, when this project was a home movie, the
three characters' names were Rob, Glenn, and Charlie. When we decided to make
it in Philly, and when the show became a reality for me personally, I knew that
if the show became a hit, I didn't want to be known as Glenn, the guy who
played himself on a television show for six years. You know what I mean? I
wanted to distance myself a little bit from the character. To try and make it
just a little bit clear that I'm not this actual person in real life. Rob kind
of did the same thing, even though his nickname is Mac. And Charlie, we pretty
much just talked him into it. [Laughs.] We just felt like it was such a strong
name for the character. And he didn't have any problem with it.

AVC: Is there a limit in the show to how
redeemable you can make your characters? Or how outrageous you can make the
action?

CD: Yeah. I think so. I think so. I think the limit is
when it's not funny. I think it's such a gray area, that you really just have
to stick to your gut with when it's funny and when it's not funny. You know, if
it seems like our characters are doing malicious things with malicious intent,
then maybe it's not funny. When you sort of see their twisted motivations
behind it, or how they justify it in their minds, then I think you can still
find the humor in it. But we'll see. As society changes, the show will change.

AVC: In what way? More twisted, or less
twisted?

CD: We'll all get more twisted and more cynical.

AVC: Is there anything you've come up with for
the show that you've ultimately nixed as being too extreme, too far out of
character, or too repellent?

RM: I know we've changed a couple of things, but I
can't think of anything where we've flat-out said, "No, that's not going to
work." Generally, we tend to stay away from things that are just gross, or
shocking for the sake of being shocking. We don't want to do that. We tend to
stay in the arena of, "Okay, what's going on in the world?" and see where we
can go with it. See if we can make it funny. If it just seems cruel, we'll nix
it right away. Although in the first year, the gym teacher that molested
Charlie was going to be a priest, and we didn't nix that; that was nixed for us.
Which sucks, but what are you going to do?

GH: The only time we ever say, "We can't go this
extreme" is if it's not funny. We'll never stop ourselves from going to a
really bizarre, strange, or taboo place if it's funny. It just so happens that
we all have pretty demented senses of humor. So what we tend to find funny are
things that are a little bit fucked-up. [Laughs.]

AVC: You also don't seem to spare the squalor,
at least in terms of the sets on the show. Everything looks very dank.

RM: Yeah, I turn on the TV and I see everything
lookin' so glossy and pretty. You know, those people with their apartments in
New York City that are the size of airplane hangers, and decorated from
Williams-Sonoma, and yet they're all in their early 20s and haven't figured out
what to do with their lives. I don't understand that. What planet are people living on? So
we wanted to do something that, while it's heightened, and the situations are
ridiculous, at least the world the people live in is a little more believable.

AVC: It's strange to see a show in which the
home viewer doesn't necessarily have an active rooting interest in the people
they're watching. The audience doesn't necessarily want any of you to succeed
at any of your schemes, and yet we don't dislike you either. It's an odd
balance to strike.

GH: I think maybe on some level, it's a heightened
version of rooting for the underdog, even though you know the underdog is going
to fail, and even though you know they probably should. But I think you do in
some way find yourself rooting for these characters, because for all the crazy,
messed-up things they do, in a weird way, they're very optimistic. I think
you'll notice that at the beginning of most episodes, our characters tend to
have a lot of hope, and a lot of ideas on how to achieve their dreams. Even
though we do a lot of dark, heavy things, we usually start every episode like,
"Hey, I found out a way in which we can make our lives better." And then boom,
we set out to do that, and the way in which we do that ends up being a little
fucked-up.

AVC: And then boom, the title comes up.

GH: [Laughs.] The title comes up, and you realize, "Oh
boy. This is not going to go well."

AVC: Do you have a favorite episode title?

GH: Oh God. "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom" is pretty tough to
beat. [Laughs.] I think that's a good one. I have a personal favorite from this
year, "Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life."

RM: I would say "Who Pooped The
Bed?" might be up there.

CD: I think probably "Charlie Goes America All Over
Everybody's Ass." I don't know how I got away with that.