INTERVIEW – ‘It’s Always Sunny’ star Glenn Howerton talks award snubs, superhero auditions and jumping to FXX.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia just saw the debut of its ninth season with no signs of slowing, as it’s already been renewed for a tenth season. Glenn Howerton plays the dastardly comedic Dennis Reynolds, as well as continuing his role as writer/producer on the fan favorite cable series. I had a chance to chat with Glenn on a conference call and pick his brain about getting into superhero films, as well as hear his thoughts on those pesky awards shows and why he likes playing the bad guy. Here are the highlights:

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What’s your approach when you write the show to keep the balance, so you’re not going over the line of comedy and into the realm of just being cruel?

That is a very good question, and it’s kind of a difficult question to answer in some ways, because I don’t totally know the answer, other than to say I think the reason it works is because none of our characters, at that end of the day, get away with their behavior. They’re not celebrated. They don’t, generally, achieve their goals. So, I think it’s become pretty clear to our audience that, you know, our behavior is ultimately self-destructive. Even though, the characters lash out at each other and other people, I think it’s generally understood it is to their own detriment.

I think that in some ways, seeing the lesson be learned, not by the characters, it’s just so obvious that this type of behavior is not rewarded in any way, and I think that’s why we get away with it. Then, I think, you combine that with a certain amount of, I don’t know, wish-fulfillment, I guess. But, ultimately, I think it’s because the behavior is never rewarded.

The Emmy Awards happened recently, and still no love for It’s Always Sunny. What’s up with that?[pullquote_left]It’s just so obvious that this type of behavior is not rewarded in any way, and I think that’s why we get away with it.[/pullquote_left]

I’m the wrong person to ask. I don’t know if you saw the last week’s episode, but we did an entire episode, essentially, about that. I’m not really entirely certain, all I’ve got are theories, and I’d be happy to spout them for you, but I don’t really know.

I think first impressions are huge in this business. I think we started as a very, very small show, and I think we looked so low-budget and FX wasn’t known for comedies, and I don’t think people really paid any attention to us. We didn’t have Danny on the show, and I think because it took so many years for it to grow its audience… I think that first impression of a low-budget, we-don’t-need-to-pay-attention-to-this-small-cable-comedy thing kind of stuck. It seems like, though, the Emmys, in general, they really love cable dramas. But, they don’t really seem to love cable comedies. I could be wrong; I don’t pay that close attention to it. I wish I knew, my friend.

Do you think there’s anything Its Always Sunny can do to push you into Emmy territory? 

I don’t know that there’s anything we could do. I know that there’s nothing we would do. Even if somebody said “Hey, all you got to do is this.” I mean, look, we would do it if we didn’t feel like it was compromising the integrity of our show, or what we like to do on the show. If it was just sort of a matter of like “hey, if you just tweak this a little bit, and it’s not going to change anything, and you’ll win an Emmy,” it might be worth a shot. But, you know, I do and I don’t care about winning an Emmy. It’s always nice to be recognized by your peers, I guess. I don’t know, really, who sits on the Emmy board, I don’t know if those are my peers. It’s weird. I just don’t pay attention to the politics.

Would it change anything at all for you if you won?

Oh, if we won one? Look, I have an ego. Do you know what I mean? I’m definitely not so anti-awards and things like that that I would be like “oh … that.” I wouldn’t get up and do a Marlon Brando thing, and just be like “Yo, what about the Native American thing?” But, would it change—I don’t think it would. I don’t know. I don’t really know. I think, probably, many, many people who probably have ignored us for many, many years might perk up a little bit and say “well, maybe I should pay attention to this show, maybe I should watch it.” I think most people, at this point, nine seasons in have either watched it and didn’t like it, or, they watch it and they love it and they’ve already made up their minds about the show. I don’t know that it would make much of a difference.

Can you share with us some upcoming guest stars that we can expect to see this season?

Oh, guest stars. Yes, we’re going to have, I think actually this week, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, the famous WWF/WWE wrestler is going to be back. I think that episode is this Wednesday. Really excited about that episode, actually.

Then the week after that, we’ve actually got Seann William Scott; he’s going to be in an episode. Dude is super fun, super funny. We’ve also got Josh Groban doing an episode; I think the week after that. We’ve got a lot of fun people. Then, of course, we have a lot of our recurring cast, the McPoyles, and Artemis, The Waitress. We’ve also got Mary Lynn Rajskub from 24, she is going to be back of the show this year, too. Got to have us some Cricket. Yes, we will definitely have Cricket in the show. I’m not sure which episodes, I don’t know how long we are going to have to wait for that, but he is in there, for sure.

Dennis can be a pretty creepy sociopath-type character at times. Are there more of these dark moments for the character in store this season? [pullquote_left]He’s definitely come very close to crossing some lines that you don’t really recover from.[/pullquote_left]

You know, it’s a funny question for me to try and answer because we do work very, very hard to—I guess you could argue that things like having the conversation about the implication is pretty dark. But, it’s weird, I get a little bit defensive about that, because in a way, for as dark as it is, I think the character does make it very, very clear that he wouldn’t ever actually hurt these women. He just wants them to think that the possibility of them getting hurt is there, so he can get his way. It’s still dark, but I’d say that’s one of the darker things.

Last season, in order to stay in character as playing this Brian LeFevre personality that Dennis was playing, I almost—well, not me, but my character almost had sex with, like, a small Asian caddy, just to see how far he would be willing to take this whole thing. So, yes, he’s definitely come very close to crossing some lines that you don’t really recover from, but, yes, there’s definitely going to be some more of that this year. It’s sort of the nature of the character at this point.

Game of Thrones writers D.B. Weiss and David Benioff wrote an episode for you guys this season. How did that come about and what can we expect from that episode?

[pullquote_right]It was not a publicity stunt at all, even though we have been talking about it because it does make for very good publicity.[/pullquote_right]Well, I will tell you that it was not, I can promise you, it wasn’t calculated at all on our part in terms of garnering more attention. It was not a publicity stunt at all, even though we have been talking about it because it does make for very good publicity. I think Rob [McElhenney] and Kaitlin [Olson] had just met David Benioff and his wife at a couple parties, and they just kind of became casual acquaintances and friends. They both expressed mutual love of each other’s shows. They’re huge Game of Thrones fans and were, I think, very shocked and surprised and pleased to hear that both D.B. Weiss and David Benioff are like the biggest Sunny fans on the planet, which seems very incongruous and strange.

They are actually massive, massive fans, and I think they just floated the idea that they had an idea for an episode, and they really wanted to write one, and we just thought “let’s just see if that could work.” It’s really the only time where somebody from outside of our “organization” has successfully written an episode, I’ll put it that way. We took them through the process, and gave them the best shot. We actually brought them into the room and broke the episode with them, and sent them off to write a draft, sort of incredibly shocked that they would even have the time or the energy to do it. They came back with a great episode. We, of course, did what we always do, and we had to do some re-writes, but really not that many. It was pretty solid.

Do ideas for the show just normally come about when you’re hanging out having fun during your personal time with the cast?

[pullquote_right]I have to admit, I really do enjoy playing bad guys.[/pullquote_right]Sometimes they definitely hit us when we’re all together, but most of the time I would say, sort of the seeds of those things hit us in the off-season. I know, for me, I’ll get an idea for something or a story line or, you know, even a B-story or a C-story, and I’ll kind of make a note of it in my phone, I’ll just write it down. Then, bring it up once we get in the writers’ room. We really do reserve most of the actual, you know, sitting down and kind of coming up with ideas for when we are in the writers’ room. But, yes, certainly occasionally, we’ve all been kind of talking about something and a good idea for an episode pops up.

I read on your AMA recently on Reddit, someone asked if you’d want to play The Riddler and you said yes. Have you ever pursued, or been pursued, for any of those big budget superhero films?

Not really. Let’s see, I think ten years ago, I auditioned for the Superman reboot, and that was about like two years before that actually came out, the one with Brandon Routh. But, that was before Sunny. And then, I did audition recently for the Guardians of the Galaxy, to play the role (Star-Lord) that Chris Pratt is playing. I know that the director (James Gunn) of that movie, supposedly, is a big Sunny fan, which is cool. But, usually, they’re already looking for some giant movie star to play those roles.

I certainly don’t have anything against doing something like that. I have to admit, I really do enjoy playing bad guys, and extremely evil people, which is why it’s a lot of fun for me to play Dennis, or at least the challenge is making Dennis, you know, likable even though he’s such a despicable person. I think playing something like The Riddler would definitely feel like it was in my wheelhouse.

What was your reaction when you first heard that the show would be moving from FX to launch the new FXX channel?

[pullquote_left]I think all of us kind of feel like our audience is the kind of audience that will find the show no matter where it is.[/pullquote_left]I didn’t really have a strong reaction at all. I wasn’t disappointed or excited, just kind of, I don’t know. It’s odd, you would think that there would have been a bigger reaction from all of us. But, I think, all three of us were just kind of like “Okay, let’s do it.” You know? I guess mildly honored to be launching an entire new network. Maybe slightly worried that it wouldn’t work out, but not that worried. I don’t know, I think all of us kind of feel like our audience is the kind of audience that will find the show no matter where it is.

Most savvy young TV watchers these days, you punch in the title of the show you want to watch, and your DVR finds it, and then you record it, and then you watch it, and it doesn’t matter what channel it’s on, you know what I mean? It just kind of is. We were a little bit bummed that FXX is, at least initially, in less homes than FX, and that’s definitely a disappointment, I know, to the fans, and definitely disappointing to us, as well. I would say that would be the only thing that I had sort of a strong reaction to, but we’re not really asked to consult of those decisions, so I think we just took it in stride. It certainly didn’t affect what we were doing on the show. It’s the same show.

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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia airs Wednesday nights at 10pm, exclusively on FXX.