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
It's a lot easier to say you're a comic than a performance artist.
There were nude pictures... a lot of it is erotic or sexual. But I don't view my collection as dirty in any way. I view it as art.
I've been super lucky in that I've either been in or helped create situations where I do what I want. I'm super lucky. I get to do what I want and create art and make people laugh, and it's really fun.
I spent an awful long time 12 years ago thinking to myself, you know, this can't be my final thing. I'm a big believer in the happy ending. I want a Pee-Wee movie to have a happy ending. Pee-Wee gets his bicycle back. I don't know what the ending is to my story. But I think it's going to be a happy one.
Look at me, I'm getting defensive about something that happened so many years ago, somebody said. I'll have to find out who that was and if he's still alive.
I was Pee-wee Herman for so many years that it wasn't really a question that I didn't want to do other things.
But I don't know. Pee-wee just kind of popped out one day, pretty much fully fleshed-out and fully formed.
I don't really want to direct myself, but I'm certainly torn in that direction.
It's the most natural progression for me to becoming a singing sensation next. And so many people have offered to be on it. Eddie Van Halen... and Prince, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper will probably be a backup trio.
The first time I met Prince he invented me to his birthday party in Minneapolis. It was a costume party and I came as a beatnik - a beret and a charcoal goatee. He was dressed like an executioner. I talked to him for awhile and he didn't know who I was, and when I told him he was real surprised.
I usually go in ahead of time, like at a rehearsal, or a meeting, and tell them, "It may appear that I'm going to go haywire, but I'm not." I always map out what I'm going to do. Still, a lot of it is improvised.
I think the first time I was on The David Letterman Show, he didn't quite know what to expect. I think people generally are just a little afraid.
I can be on the Tonight Show, but not with Johnny [Carson]. He uses my name in his monologue all the time.
I feel the only way I'm going to be successful in moving on is if I keep a separation.