Paul Reubens
Paul Reubens
Paul Reubens is an American actor, writer, film producer, game show host, and comedian, best known for his character Pee-wee Herman. Reubens joined the Los Angeles troupe The Groundlings in the 1970s and started his career as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. In 1982, Reubens put up a show about a character he had been developing for years. The show was called The Pee-wee Herman Show and it ran for five sold-out months with HBO producing a successful special...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth27 August 1952
CityPeekskill, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I'm the person with the final say on everything. I really love being in that position.
I remember one play [when I was kid] was about this murderous mad scientist, and my whole part was to be the guy who got thrown into a vat of acid as the curtain went up. I was very pissed off at these older kids; they'd outsmarted me.
I just feel in a lot of ways black people are so much looser and cooler. Just as a culture, it's so much more real.
Why would I, in a million years, want to do anything even remotely having to do with child molestation on a children's show? See, I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.
It's a lot easier to say you're a comic than a performance artist.
I was looking to be pale, you know, like the kind of person who has that pigment in their skin where no matter what the weather is they have pink cheeks. I had a couple of friends like that. But it was all very instinctive in a way. I never really thought that much about it.
I wasn't a great improviser when I started there; I'm not really up on current events. I would always just mug, just try to get my laughs from making faces. So I decided to do a character who should never have become a comic - somebody you would see at the Comedy Store and go, "This person is never going to make it."
The original suit was designed by a guy named Mr. Jay from Hollywood. But nowadays I'm having the suit duplicated. At this point I have about three good suits and about three really raggedy ones.
I'd love to do a talk show. But I'm too busy for it. It's just too much work.
I was always in disguise. I'd wear masks or weird get-ups so you couldn't recognize me. I was always afraid that if somebody caught on that it was me, I'd never work again.
I enjoy getting to be arty and quirky and weird and all the things that I don't have that much choice with. You just sort of use what you got.
We're in a situation now where fewer and fewer small films get made. People want these big giant tentpole sort of things, and I don't know, it's getting harder and harder to make a small movie.
I take having a kids' show real seriously. I think it's an enormous responsibility.
People read so much into what I do. It's fascinating to me because some of it's probably there, but I haven't thought of it.