Steve Martin has won five Grammys, an Emmy and an honorary Oscar. But the beloved comedy legend is still surprised by his own success.
“I think I’ve done really, really well, considering I have a really boring name,” Martin deadpans in a recent interview with USA TODAY and New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.
Over the course of a year, the longtime friends recorded a series of conversations about Martin’s varied talents and interests. The result is a new audiobook, “So Many Steves: Afternoons with Steve Martin” (Pushkin, out now). Divided into six roughly 25-minute chapters, the audiobook dives deep into different facets of Martin’s life and career, including his writing, music and comedy.
“Any interesting career in the arts is sort of like a mountain range: You admire it for the shape of it,” Gopnik says. “Though I have favorite movies and books of Steve’s, what I admire is the Steve-ness of it all. It has so many different peaks and a few valleys but in various heights and shapes. You look back on them and say, ‘Oh, there’s the Martin Rockies.’ “
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More:“So Many Steves” on Audible Premium Plus for $15
‘Why can’t you be more like Steven Spielberg?’
The book charts Martin’s progression from absurdist comic to Hollywood star, with films like 1979’s “The Jerk,” 1987’s “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” and 1991’s “Father of the Bride.” Looking back, he estimates that you have to make 40 movies to get five good ones.
“Even with a great director, a great writer and a great actor, it doesn’t mean you’re going to make a great movie,” Martin says. “It’s a little bit of calculation and a lot of luck.”
Gopnik singles out 1987’s “Roxanne” and 1991’s “L.A. Story” as two of Martin’s best films, for their “beautiful marriage” of poetic and comedic sensibilities. Martin recalls getting mixed reactions at a test screening for “L.A. Story,” which went on to become a respectable box-office success.
“I saw it in the afternoon with nobody in the audience and thought, ‘It’s just so unusual. I love it,’ “ Martin recalls. “And then that night, we screened it for people who looked a little puzzled. You’re high at 2 p.m. and depressed at 9 p.m.”
Throughout the book, Martin reflects on the invaluable lessons he learned from working with directors Mike Nichols and Carl Reiner. He also shares an amusing story about a star-studded dinner he attended with Steven Spielberg decades ago. Martin brought along his then-girlfriend, who asked him afterward, “Why can’t you be more like Steven Spielberg?”
“He was having a very sophisticated conversation with her about the history of Serbia because she was Serbian and he knew all the history,” Martin says. “Three months later, I said, ‘Were you really that interested in that conversation?’ He said, ‘Nope.’ “
‘Time has run out’ to write another musical, Steve Martin says
Martin, 77, studied philosophy in college and intended to become a professor. But he still believes he would have found his way into music or comedy eventually.
“I’ll bet you somehow I would have gotten a workaround to get on stage,” Martin says. “I was interested in comedy from age 10. But when you turn 18, you wonder, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ And I did feel a need to get somewhat educated.”
The stage has always been where Martin has felt most at home. In one chapter, he says he was “never happier” in his career than when he was making “Bright Star,” the Tony-nominated musical he wrote and composed with singer Edie Brickell. The show closed on Broadway after a short run in 2016, and Martin says it’s unlikely he’ll write another.
“Time has run out,” he says. “A musical takes five years. I’m 77, so 82? I want to be (with) family. It’s hard, it’s heartbreaking, it’s fabulous, it’s fun. But I’d rather do more contained things now.”
If there’s one dream role that got away, Martin says it would’ve been playing con man Harold Hill in “The Music Man.” (“I couldn’t sing it,” he laments.) There’s also been “a lot of talk” about adapting his 1986 comedy “Three Amigos” for the stage, although “it’s not for me (to write). I’m not going to do it.”
Meryl Streep is ‘a delight’ in ‘Only Murders in the Building’ Season 3
In the book, Martin talks at length about his approach to live comedy, incorporating music and assorted props into some of his most well-known bits, which included “The Great Flydini.”
Recording these interviews, “I discovered that he was genuinely passionate about banjo-playing long before he was a professional standup,” Gopnik says. “The banjo was, in fact, a thread that ran through his life.”
Martin breaks out the instrument on his comedy tour with Martin Short, his co-star in Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” He has no desire to do solo stand-up anytime soon.
“Sometimes I imagine, ‘What would I even do?’ I can’t come up with anything,” Martin says. “I come up with an idea for a bit and suddenly it feels like every other comedian. I’ve got a great new life working with Martin Short and that’s the stand-up I do now. When you’re with somebody (on stage), you have a story to tell about your relationship and you can riff on it. But when you’re alone, you’re just talking to a wall.”
Martin just wrapped production on “Only Murders” Season 3 for Hulu, featuring his “It’s Complicated” co-star Meryl Streep in a new role. Streep wrote to Martin directly asking if there was another project they could do together.
“She’s a delight,” he says. “She has the same humor as Marty Short and I, so there’s a lot of riffing and laughing and giggling.”
The book ends with a discussion of what Gopnik refers to as “hot ice cream”: the seemingly impossible feat you’d still like to check off. For Martin, the bucket list is pretty short.
“I’m just seeing what comes up,” Martin says. “I still incidentally write songs with people. I have a few writing subjects in mind. And I’m in love with doing our show, ‘Only Murders in the Building.’ That’s enough.”
More:“So Many Steves” on Audible Premium Plus for $15
