‘Misery Tour’ Proves to Be His Road to Happiness

A happy Richard Lewis: Not only is that notion improbable, unsettling--it also seems profoundly unnatural.

For the last 26 years, this ever-depressive stand-up comic has taken to stages dressed in black and, while fretfully tugging at his mop of hair, has hilariously enumerated the woes that make his life an angst-sodden misery. With neo-Catskills timing and post-Kafka punch lines, Lewis has presented himself as the sinking man’s comic, a Job without the patience--he who suffers life loudly as he fights losing battles with Dates From Hell, Bosses From Hell, Family From Hell and other dispiriting foes.

But the Lewis relaxing in a New York hotel room before the final show of a year and a half road swing--the archly named “Magical Misery Tour”--seems remarkably stress-free and--could it be?--contented.

“I’ve never been happier,” the 49-year-old New York native and longtime Los Angeles resident says with a laugh. “Tragically, who I am on stage has been pretty much who I was off stage, and don’t get me wrong--I’m still riddled with angst, but I’m absolutely excited about the work I’m doing now.”

Lewis has become a master of mining personal distress for laughs, but the work that has made him so cheery these days is a dark, serious and decidedly unfunny stretch for him. In the film “Drunks,” airing Sunday night on Showtime, Lewis plays the lead role of a tormented alcoholic who falls off the wagon after attending a particularly wrenching Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Lewis was first glimpsed playing it straight in “Leaving Las Vegas,” in which he portrayed an agent irked by Nicolas Cage’s alcoholic screenwriter. He also has dramatic roles in forthcoming films “The Elevator,” “The Game” and “Hugo Pool.” The more familiar, miserable Lewis can be seen when his final “Magical Misery Tour” show airs as an HBO special next month.

“I’m a drunk in November and a stand-up in December,” Lewis says. “If that doesn’t show range, I’m leaving the business.”

Actually, he’s just getting back to business. In 1993, after four years on the sitcom “Anything but Love” failed to kick-start a film career for him, Lewis stopped working entirely so that he could do some deep thinking about his future.

“I was really proud of that show, and I wound up doing some projects with people I worshiped, like Mel Brooks on ‘Robin Hood: Men in Tights’ and Don Rickles [in the short-lived Fox sitcom “Daddy Dearest”]. But nothing I was doing was going to get me a meeting with Scorsese or Redford. I couldn’t even get auditions around town. You figure I’ve been on Letterman a billion times, I’ve done a series, why can’t I read for a part? But it’s hard for anybody to buy you as a character when you’ve got 25 years of stand-up persona behind you. I was pigeonholed as the depressed guy. Which, by the way, I found very depressing.”

Stand-up had long been a refuge and a release for Lewis, but even that work became unsatisfying.

“I didn’t have a lot of people to talk to growing up,” he explains. “Consequently I felt more comfortable in front of strangers, and it became cathartic to go onstage. Doing stand-up was better than going to a shrink, and when people laughed it was like we were all in a great therapy session together. Fast-forward 20-some years, and I was totally burned out. I’d lost my passion for it. So I just stopped cold turkey.”

During his time off, a call from director Mike Figgis led to his part in “Leaving Las Vegas,” and Lewis’ experience on that film further stoked his desire for acting challenges. When a personal manager suggested that the best way to secure more acting opportunities was to hit the road again and raise his stand-up profile, Lewis unhappily began the “Magical Misery Tour” in July 1995. And when the opportunity for the part in “Drunks” appeared that fall, Lewis went after it fiercely.

“I was beyond any fear of embarrassing myself,” he recalls. “I went after that part like a savage beast--I was so hungry. I read for the director, Peter Cohn, and did a lot of ad-libbing. I ended up making him cry and I thought, ‘This is good.’ But I didn’t get the part. I had to read again and go through another 10 hours of torment. Then I got it.”

Lewis, who does have some training as a Method actor, attended several AA meetings to research his role as an addict-alcoholic who has not found any peace through sobriety. But he stopped short of violating his own clean-living habits.

“I lived the role--all but the drinking and drugs. When I stopped working I got into a whole fitness thing and I didn’t want to lose that. Frankly, I’ve never shot heroin, but I’ve been to enough bar mitzvahs and weddings where I overdid it--that gave me enough sense memory for the part.”

The comic-turned-actor says that his most daunting dramatic challenge was in suppressing some of his trademark stand-up gestures. “I’ve had this bad habit of doing too much with my hands and touching my forehead. When I got ‘Drunks,’ I made the pledge that I would not touch my head in this movie. And I don’t. I think even if they had changed the script so that I got shot in the head, I would have kept my hands at my sides.”

“Drunks” was first screened at last year’s Sundance Festival, where Lewis got not only a meeting but also a hug from Robert Redford. After airing on Showtime, the film will receive a theatrical release in January.

Lewis’ blossoming film career has put the joy back in his stand-up work and, as he looks to the future, he sounds anything but miserable.

“I actually thought for a while that if I got happy, it would ruin my career. But I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my life. Granted, I’m a bottomless pit of dysfunction, but I’m learning to relax and enjoy my accomplishments as I’m accomplishing them. I’m actually smelling the roses. It’s a very pleasant aroma.”

* “Drunks” airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on Showtime.