The Post called “Eastbound & Down” “maniacally funny,” but back in their college days, show co-creators’ Danny McBride and Jody Hill’s humor was a bit — shall we say — cruder.
“One day we put a fart machine under the teacher’s chair,” says writer-director Hill. “During the whole class, we kept making fart sounds.”
“I don’t think people get separated in college, but our teacher literally said, ‘You and you, get away from each other!’ ” says McBride, who stars as washed-up baseball player Kenny Powers on “Eastbound,” airing Sunday nights on HBO.
No such luck. McBride and Hill have been friends and co-workers for years, since meeting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. (McBride was Class of 1998; Hill ’99.)
In addition to “Eastbound,” now in its fourth season, the duo produced a new animated series, “Chozen,” debuting in January on FXX and revolving around a gay white rapper who’s just gotten out of prison.
McBride also enjoys a busy film career, appearing in last summer’s “This Is the End” and 2008’s “Tropic Thunder.”
The actor often plays a loud, brash redneck onscreen, but in real life, the 36-year-old is more soft-spoken, and enjoys a fairly normal life with a wife and 2-year-old son. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to say.
Here, McBride spouts off about his show, his career and his family.
n “I don’t want to be cocky, but I’m probably the best father. But I don’t know. You hope you’re being a good father, but I guess we won’t really know until he becomes a teenager and we see if he’s popular or not.”
n “For me, “Gravity” was a pretty big stand-out. It’s good to see a movie that’s intelligent and a spectacle. After this summer, it was kind of like, f—! All the big movies weren’t geared towards my taste in movies, so it was nice to see a big movie aimed at adults.”
- “I was on my honeymoon in Bora Bora, and me and my wife ran into this couple in their 60s, and they were telling us how much they love the show and have a grandson who watches it. Then we’ll meet a 13-year-old kid who tells us how much he loves it, and I think, “This kid is gonna grow up to be somebody.”
- “Some fans tell me how they’re just like Kenny Powers. The fact that you’re telling me you’re like Kenny Powers makes me want to not hang out with you.”
- “We premiered the first episode of ‘Chozen’ at the New York Comic con. With New York, you wouldn’t even really know it’s going on unless you’re within a block or two of it. It’s awesome.”
- “I think it’s easy to get an audience to root for someone who’s an across-the-board good guy, because that’s how we envision ourselves. So it takes a little bit more brain power and it’s trickier to take a complete a-**hole [like Kenny Powers] and make an audience root for him or in some strange way, identify with him.
“ ‘Eastbound & Down’ is a character piece, so it could come back in 10 years and pick up with Kenny Powers at that point in time. It’s like our ‘Before Sunrise’ — a very dirty ‘Before Sunrise.’ ”