Q & A with AL FRANKEN : He’s Doing the 12-Step Comedy Rag

Stuart Smalley may not be a licensed therapist, but he is a member of no fewer than five 12-step programs. In February (apparently undaunted by the poor showing of fellow “Saturday Night Live” character Pat in his/her first feature film), the show’s font of recurring self-affirmative wisdom (“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and doggone it, people like me!”) gains even higher power, starring in Paramount’s feature film “Stuart Smalley,” directed by Harold Ramis in his first outing since “Groundhog Day.”

The quivering host of his own self-help cable show, Smalley is played by creator Al Franken, the Harvard wise-acre who tagged the ‘80s “The Al Franken Decade” and whose screen credits include co-writing “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Franken, 42, put aside his caring, nurturing pose during the film’s shooting to meet with Calendar . . . after gifting the crew with esteem-building hand mirrors.

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Question: How did Stuart come to be?

Answer: I go to Al-Anon, a 12-step program for family members and friends of alcoholics. One valuable thing I learned in Al-Anon is that you can learn stuff from people who aren’t necessarily smarter than you. Which is kind of an obvious thing, but I didn’t understand that. I’d be in an Al-Anon meeting and I’d hear somebody say something and I’d be very judgmental and say, “Oh, that person’s an idiot,” and a month later that same person would say something that would touch me very deeply.

I was brought up to do well in school, and you learn from people who know more than you, and that’s about it. So Stuart is kind of a character that people can learn stuff from, even though he’s an idiot. For every hundred steps forward, he takes 99 backward, but he does end up one step ahead.

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Q: Were you concerned that Stuart Smalley might offend other 12-step believers?

A: I was never really worried about that because I knew what my intention was. Now the biggest fans of Stuart are people who know all about this stuff. So, he’s kind of a . . . I don’t want to say a cult figure, but I get letters from people.

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Q: Did Al-Anon change you as a writer?

A: The kind of comedy we do on “Saturday Night Live” is kind of antithetical to any kind of feeling. The smart ass, “Saturday Night Live,” Lettermanesque comedy--that’s what I valued as a person, that cynicism. Al-Anon opened me up to another side as a person, which changes you as a writer. So I wanted to explore that side.

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Q: In the movie, Stuart tries to save his dysfunctional family. Did you grow up in a dysfunctional family? Or around them?

A: Well, you know, I don’t discuss my own family life. My dad was not an alcoholic. He died (last) December; I miss him every day, I loved my dad very, very much. So, in no way is this my family, at all. A lot of what I came up with is through experience with other friends and in Al-Anon, hearing the stories that are sometimes hilarious, sometimes very moving. So, it’s not about my family. Harold (Ramis) told me Rodney Dangerfield said everyone is normal until you know them.

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Q: When you graduated from Harvard, you started doing stand-up comedy and writing with your high-school buddy Tom Davis. You were among the first writers hired for “Saturday Night Live.” What was that like?

A: It was very exciting. The first day I got there and started meeting everybody else, I knew this was going to be a hit because (we thought) we should all be on TV. Although I didn’t understand what was going on. The power of it, what was happening to everybody. People would get intoxicated with power, success, some crazy things started happening.

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Q: What did drug abuse have to do with the pressures of the show’s success?

A: I really don’t know. I think John Belushi was a drug addict and he died. If he hadn’t been a big success, would that have happened? I don’t know. Maybe. Just as many people who aren’t very successful have problems with drugs and alcohol.

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Q: What about you?

A: I did my share of recreational drugs. I was lucky in that I never became addicted to anything. There’d be cocaine around the show and if it was (mid-week) at 3 in the morning and I wanted to finish something I was writing I’d do some. But for some reason, toss of the dice, I was not addicted, at least not to drugs.

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Q: What have you been addicted to?

A: Well, in 12-step jargon, I’ve sort of been addicted to co-dependent attitudes. Deriving my self-worth from things outside of myself. Addicted to other people’s feelings. I used to be the person who needed to control things, otherwise I didn’t feel safe. That sort of classic co-dependent behavior. It was harder to define than (if) I was addicted to alcohol or cocaine.

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Q: You’ve witnessed your share of dysfunction on “Saturday Night Live.” Has that changed over the years?

A: It can be a pretty brutal place to be. Because everyone wants to be on, wants to be the star of the show and every cast member who comes in wants to score, and every writer thinks their stuff is the best. So there’s a lot of competition for not much time, there’s a lot of people who are very good who get overworked. And they resent it. There’s just a lot of jealousies and gossip. It’s that kind of place, not unlike probably most offices. It’s always been that way.

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Q: Will you be on next season?

A: I don’t know. My contract is over. They want me to return. But I’m talking about what capacity I’m going to do. I love the show, it’s a great thing to be involved with, I love New York, so I’m just not quite sure.

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Q: Is Al Franken a perfectionist?

A: Yes and no. What’s funny is you’ll sit in Al-Anon meetings and a person will go, “I’m a perfectionist.” And you look at this person and you’ll go, “Hard-lee!” So it might surprise some people to hear that I am. Because I think that I am, but not to a really horrible, obsessive degree. To make things work in comedy, it helps both to understand how much work it takes and also to know when to let go.