Page 56 - Peter Farrelly Issue

Cooper: I didn’t know you’d worked with them.
Farrelly: Yes, she’s got her shit together, more than any- body I know.
Farrelly: Yeah, (with) them and Eddy Murphy at the same time, when I first came out here. I was in awe of them. First of all, they’re so talented, but great, great guys. And Eddy was great, too. I was lucky, I started with really nice people. It was great.
Cooper: Was she working? Was she a housewife?
Cooper: Anything you could say, advice-wise to any people reading this who might be in their home in Rhode Island or wherever thinking they’re a good writer and they want to come out to LA?
Farrelly: When my father met her, she was in nursing school, and then she was a housewife when we were growing up. Then she went back to school and became a nurse practitioner, and she worked until really very recently. I think it was a year ago she stopped—she was only working for the last 10 years like one day a week. She’d go in and give shots and do this and that. They finally asked her to leave them alone. (laughs)
Farrelly: Wow! That’s a tough one. I’ll say this. If it’s in you and you really want to do it, it’s the only thing you want to do, like it was for me at some point, but not until I was in my 20s, you’ve just got to do it. If you fail, it’s like Jim Carey said, his father he said could have been a great comedy writer or comic, but he didn’t. He took the safe way. He was an accountant. And he ended up getting fired from his accounting job, and he said he realized, “If I’m going to fail, I wanted to fail at something I love because you can also fail at something you don’t love.”
Cooper: (laughs) That’s pretty impressive. Nurse practi- tioner today is not the easiest thing to get.
Cooper: That’s great. And that’s funny, that you were going to be an accountant.
Farrelly: Again, same system. It just kind of comes. If we like it, we send it to him. He either likes it or doesn’t like it. When we both like something, you know.
Farrelly: I don’t think it ever crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be an accountant. There was nothing else I was trying to be. I think my brain grew late, when I was in my 20s, I started getting some clarity.
We’re at the point now where we’re going off doing our own separate things. Life’s been too complicated to be having us both work on the same thing. Plus, it’s annoy- ing after 30 years to have to listen to the other guy’s ideas. Both of us would rather do it ourselves.
Cooper: I think it’s hard for most people. I know there are some people who say, “I was always going to be a doctor,” or “I was always going to be whatever,” but I think the majority of us wander around for many years if not for our whole life.
Cooper: But you still go on tour? Farrelly: On tour?
Farrelly: My father told me that he was a doctor, and when he was seven, he knew he wanted to be one and he became one. I remember when I was 22, he said, “So what are you going to do?” And I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “God damn it! You have to have an idea! You’re 22!”
Cooper: It sounded like you were in a band. That’s where my mind went.
Cooper: (laughs)
Cooper: Is there any way you could pick up some lashes for me while you’re in the store?
Farrelly: Most of my friends, honestly, they really didn’t figure it out until almost 30, if not 30. It takes time to find what you want. Not many people know when they’re seven or even 18, or even 22.
Farrelly: (laughs) Yeah, I’ll mail them to you. I know where you are. I’ll send them to the golf course.
Cooper: Or 81. Farrelly: That’s right!
Cooper: Hey, it was great talking to you.
Farrelly: No, she was great. She was really good.
Cooper: How does it work with you and Bobby? How do you make a decision on what projects to work on?
Farrelly: (laughs) We still make things together; it’s just different. Like, I just wrote the script that he just direct- ed. But rather than both of us doing everything, we kind of split it up a little better. I’m now pulling up. My daughter, believe it or not, I’m taking her to an eyelash store. So, I’ll have to be pulling off here.
Cooper: It sounds like your mother’s figured things out, though.
Farrelly: Yeah, really fun! Great talking to you, too, as always.
56 ABILITY
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