When Brent Butt was 12, he told his mother he wanted to be a stand-up comedian.
"I often joke that she replied, 'Go do it outside,'" he says, just days away of the launch of his cross-Canada comedy tour.
Not to let the truth get in the way of a good laugh, his mother actually took him seriously. "She didn't scoff at it or pooh-pooh it. I just talked to her about it as she was doing the dishes."
Mrs. Butt, we thank you.
Creating Canada's much loved Corner Gas in his home province is proof enough that funny things can come out of Tisdale, Saskatchewan. (His mother knew it already, obviously, hence her encouragement of her youngest childs seemingly far-fetched dream.) His upcoming 17-stop hopscotch stand-up comedy tour, including a show at Vancouver's Vogue Theatre on February 6, will further cement this legacy.
But it's the March 7 release of Butt's movie, No Clue, that will earn Mrs. Butt the award for best supporting mother.
Butt wrote and is the lead character in the movie, directed by fellow Vancouverite Carl Bessai. It's about Leo, a speciality advertising salesman — think pens with your plumber's name on it — who's happily working away in his office when this dame (Amy Smart) strides in, "a stone cold, gorgeous dish full of red-hot fox meat who was set up under a hottie lamp until it was smoking kind of dame."
Kyra thinks Leo is a private detective but she's unwittingly walked into wrong office. Smitten, Leo decides not to tell her the PI is on vacation and decides to take on the case finding Kyra's brother. When he discovers blood in the brother's trashed apartment, he's clueless in that what-in-the-heck-have-I-got-myself-into kind of way. (You can watch the trailer at the bottom of this page.)
Although the movie is funny, it's not a comedy. As Butt told the cast and crew before filming started in Vancouver, "Forget it's a comedy. Just shoot it as a drama; then it's funny just because my character does some funny things."
At first Butt was worried the jokes — ordering a glass of chabonais in a fancy restaurant in hopes of impressing Kyra with his knowledge of wine — would knee cap the darker, grittier scenes, but he was over the moon when he first saw the rushes. Think Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe meets Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau.
The movie was made to entertain, he says during an interview at Calhouns, one of his favourite neighbourhood haunts.
Maybe it's his proximity to water but Butt uses a lot of swimming analogies to describe Leo's character: "You dont know how far you can swim until you're drowning in the middle of the ocean. Youll take more strokes than you ever thought you could."
Butt is calling his comedy tour Almost a Movie Star in deference to this addition to his résume but hes also happy to be going back to his roots as a stand-up comic. Theres nothing but a microphone, a stool and a glass of water on the stage with him. He likes to gauge the mood of the audience as he stands in the shadows listening to the warm-up act, trying to figure out what will make it angry and what will make it roll over and let you rub its belly?
Being alone with an audience expecting you to make them laugh seems a pretty intimidating task, but Butt has his inner 12-year-olds sense of anticipation. Ive been doing this for 25 years and its fresh and exciting every time.
Although there are many people who still mourn the end of Corner Gas, Butt needs to find ways of taking his imagination out for a walk. While he respects the show, and feels blessed to have been able to do it for 107 episodes, he didnt want Corner Gas to overstay its welcome. "You don't ever want someone to hand you your coat at the party."
He will always be grateful to Corner Gas for the way it pumped up his career and invites his fans to ride shotgun as he steered his career towards the next destination. There are 107 episodes of Corner Gas and you can see it three times a day on TV [as re-runs], he says, shortly after someone walks by his table at Calhouns and says, "Corner Gas" in passing. (Earlier, two construction workers outside Calhouns were debating whether or not that was Brent Butt who had walked in.)
"It's there but I cant keep going back to it."
After watching No Clue, no one will dare want to hold him back.
Almost a Move Star is at the Vogue Theatre on February 6. Tickets are are $39.50 and are available at NorthernTickets.com or by phoning 604-569-1144.. Enter our contest for two free tickets to the concert here. Find out more about the tour and his projects at BrentButt.com.
