Morgan Spurlock
Director, star of fast foodtargeting documentary Super Size Me
Recess: Can you just tell me a little about your film?
Spurlock: Super Size Me is a look at the obesity epidemic in America. It focuses on a lot of the causes of the obesity epidemic, specifically to see the impact that fast food culture has had on America. I eat nothing but McDonald's for 30 days straight, to, um, some really frightening results.
How many calories were you eating per day?
On an average, about 4,900. When you're doubling your caloric intake, you're gonna pack it on.
There were some pretty serious consequences to your health. Were you ever scared?
In the movie you talk about people suing McDonald's. Is that the solution you're after? Do you think people should sue fast food, and should they win?
There's two sides to the problem: There's corporate responsibility and there's personal responsibility. I don't think lawsuits are the answer, but I do support people's right to file. Right now anyone who has sued the food company--they've all been thrown out. What they've just passed in the House--which is really scary--is House Resolution 336, which is the 'personal responsibility in food consumption act.' For us to give corporations a get-out-of-jail-free card is ludicrous. For me, if you want to pass some legislation that makes sense, say all of these food companies need to give 1% of their advertising budget to healthy eating campaigns. If you look at McDonald's, that's 14 million dollars. That's still 7 times what the five-a-day fruit and vegetable campaign gets. We say we care, and we say our priorities are there, but we do nothing to support that.
During the film, you couldn't get in touch with someone from McDonald's. Have you heard from them now?
No, they still haven't called me. They're calling their lobbyists... and their publicists. They may not be talking to me, but they're definitely hearing the 'deafening roar' of what the movie is doing.
Will you ever eat fast food again?
Um, yeah, but I won't go to these chain places. If I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go someplace that has a really good burger.
Harry Shearer
Actor, director, radio personality and "Simpsons"voice man
Recess: What's your favorite voice on "The Simpsons?"
Shearer: Probably Montgomery Burns. I think it connects with a lot of people's sense that they work for a jerk. It's a fun character. In comedy, there's nothing more fun than to play a character who's pure evil, and he's as pure evil as I've seen.
A lot of people don't know about [your radio show] Le Show. I was wondering if you could tell us about it, and maybe we can lobby UNC to pick it up.
It's an hour a week. I give it away to radio stations free. It's about whatever's been going on that week. It's more focused on media and the political world; I play some music, and I do some comedy sketches. It's a show that's totally personal. It's whatever I think is funny or smart or worth doing. There are no meetings beforehand and no memos after.
You do so many different things. What do you enjoy most?
People like Michael McKean and Christopher Guest (co-stars and writers of This is Spinal Tap) and me, we're always asked [that question]. We all sort of have the same answer. We enjoy doing everything we do.
That's why we do it. Show business is really driven by this desire to put people in a box.... and we've all been fortunate enough to have careers where we can say "No, we really want to do everything." We've conspired to figure out ways to play music every once in a while and get paid for it, because that's something we enjoy. I love directing, but acting is fun, and writing--once you've done the writing--is fun. I don't trust people who say they have fun writing. Writing is very hard work, but it's fun once you can look back and say "Hey, I wrote that."
Speaking of Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, are you planning anything together soon?
Christopher's planning a new movie, and I hope he'll want to include Michael and me in it. I have a stage play, a musical comedy about J. Edgar Hoover, that Michael and Chris are both performing in. So we all try to work together as much as we can.
Do you have any advice for young actors on how to convert their early success into career longevity?
Oh, God no. Except the same advice I give to anybody about show business: that it requires talent and luck of course, but really just brute persistence.
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