Comic-Con: Erinn Hayes and the rest of the cast of Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital are always great to chat with. Hayes in particular is just incredibly quick and funny and talking to her I always have a smile on my face.
I talked to her at Comic-Con where she chatted about the upcoming season of Childrens Hospital, the foxy women of the show and her first… stab at a horror movie.
I saw a terrible slasher film recently.
Erinn Hayes: You did not waste your time on Final Stab. You cannot get that time back. That time is gone. You will never get that Final Stab time back.
You’ve grown your hair out though.
Erinn Hayes: I know. I got really drunk after college, and I was like, I’m cutting it off, I’m cutting it all off and then we did this movie called Final Stab that is – very professional movie – it was probably like 2001 or something, people take out cell phones to call and then they’re walking in the woods and the whole thing was filmed on a steady cam that they did effect [shaky cam], so it’s like how did you get that whole on a boat. I don’t know, I don’t know, there’s a lot of lightning, a lot of thunder, a lot of lightening. There’s no rain. My face is orange and my neck is white and I get to say things like, “I don’t’ care, find a f***** tampon, do whatever.” It’s kind of weirdly, the director – he makes all these movies and they’re very homoerotic, like the only people that are taking off their clothes are the dudes, but it’s pretending to be… you won’t get that time back.
Did you have to audition for this?
Erinn Hayes: I did. It was like a Backstage West submitted myself, got the job and made 100 bucks a day. And everybody has seen it because people who watch horror movies watch everything and they think it’s associated with the Scream movies.
So there is a lot of straight fact acting on Childrens Hospital, so I have to imagine that maybe like Final Stab and things like that were good training ground.
Erinn Hayes: Well, I think any actor who has worked a bunch, as all of our cast members have, you pay the bills and so you are doing – it’s not like you really believe in every single project you do and sometimes you get some scripts and you’ll be like, oh my God, I have to say, how am I going to say like really honestly with a straight face, like say something that is so dumb. So this is a nice breath of fresh air to be able to make fun of some of those like really important f*****g shows.
But of course you believe in Childrens Hospital right?
Erinn Hayes: I really believe in this 100 per cent. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done. It’s so – I wish we filmed for more than six weeks because it goes by so quick, we do an episode every two days and we’re performing two episodes at a time. We were just talking today, like on an episode, I can’t even remember they all run together, but it’s so fun and everybody is so good. It’s nice being on set. Everybody is wonderful, genuinely kind and funny people and then also incredibly talented and we get amazing guest stars to come on. Good people.
How did you get involved in this?
Erinn Hayes: I did an Emmy winning show that you remember called The Winner, that you remember, I did six episodes, really important work, with Rob Corddry and we really hit it off and stayed friends and then when he did this I was doing Worst Week and got off and I was like, please, please, give me one Friday off, they’re filming this thing and I really want to do it, so I got a Friday off and I filmed Friday, Saturday and maybe part of Sunday for the first season. We filmed it so fast. It was just a week long shoot for the web series. I think everybody who was in this has done some project with Corddry.
Do you get all the scripts before hand, before you start shooting for the six weeks?
Erinn Hayes: Not all of them. You get a bulk of them and then later you get maybe like the last three or something, but they are working so hard all the time, those guys. Scripts change considerably and characters just get – one thing is Lake [Bell] and then it ends up being [Rob] Hubel, I mean we’re pretty interchangeable. If someone’s not available for some reason and if something comes up that day they just switch the character and don’t have to change any dialog. That’s how committed we are to character throughline and arc.
The three women started off pretty foxy on the show, like by design it’s supposed to be a sexy show where everyone is having sex and everyone looks good. It’s actually kind of rare to have an attractive woman also be funny, is that like a tricky balance to achieve?
Erinn Hayes: There are more opportunities for funny women these days. I just don’t buy that anymore that there aren’t that many funny pretty women. I just think that there are more parts being written but there are just so many more opportunities and on this show especially they write so well for everybody. I agree with you, those ladies are foxy and I am happy to be part of the ladies of Childrens Hospital.
