David Schneider interview

Written by: Jude Evans
Published: Friday 13th October 2017

It's a busy time for writer, performer and director David Schneider. BCG caught up with him to hear about his various projects...

The Death Of Stalin - the film you wrote with Armando Iannucci and Ian Martin - is in cinemas on the 20th October. How did the premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival go?

It was a fantastic experience! We were flown out to Toronto.

First class?

I turned right on the plane. I'm not complaining though, as it is unusual for the writers to be flown out at all. One of the great things about Armando is he makes sure his writers are well treated and respected...

It was great - there was the red carpet - Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs, Andrea Riseborough came.

It's such an exciting moment when you realise that the movie that you were once-upon-a-time writing in your messy office, still sat in your pyjamas at 3pm, has suddenly become a proper movie. Then cut to - as we say in the movies - the premiere, and it's actually happening.

What really brought it home for me was the usher at the end of the red carpet intoning her repeated "Death Of Stalin, upstairs on the left. Death Of Stalin, upstairs on the left..." like it was an actual real movie. Which it now is. There are even posters on the tube and everything.

Then [at the premiere] there's the tension, as to whether actual members of the public are going to like it. It's the first time it's screened in front of real people, rather than cast and crew and friends. Is it going to have the right effect? Is it going to get those laughs? Everyone on the film felt guardedly positive, but you sit in anticipation, you never know. And then the first laugh comes and then the next and then you can feel them getting involved and you think: Ok, maybe it is going to be alright after all.

Did you practice your wave?

No, as a writer your job is to fade in to the background. Unlike, in my previous acting roles where you can be a bit 'show offy' and 'look at me'. It's like with directing, well, TV directing anyway: you stand back and be proud... quietly. Like the shepherd in Babe at the end of the film, you can just quietly say to yourself, "that'll do, pig". Not that I'm calling anyone a pig, least of all myself. That would be wrong. I'm Jewish!

You wrote the play Making Stalin Laugh in 2001. Did this influence The Death Of Stalin idea?

They are very similar; both are dark comedies.

Ever since I worked on my PhD in Yiddish, back in the day, it was something I had wanted to write. I came across the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre, who had absolutely thrived under Stalin at first. They were internationally respected and famous, which was unusual for a Yiddish theatre company, and then Stalin turned against them and against Jews, and a lot of them ended up killed by the regime.

It doesn't sound like a comedy obviously, but, like the film, it's funny, because that's how I find it easiest to tell a story and because of the absurdity of that world.

Plus it was about theatre people, and theatre people are funny, they still bang on about "how dare you steal my laugh!" even in the darkest of days. Their world under Stalin was so bleak and so absurd that humour bubbles up automatically, dark humour. You need it to escape the bleakness. When people are in terrible situations, they make jokes and use humour. So as long as you remain true to the reality of the situation and don't minimise it, you can find the comedy...

Armando came to see the play. It just so happened that Armando was thinking about writing a film based on the French graphic novel, The Death Of Stalin by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin. My play had very similar subject matter and I had already immersed myself in Soviet history, so Armando asked me to write with him. It was very good timing really...

Was it a good laugh writing the film?

We did have great fun writing it. At first it was Armando and me and Armando's assistant, Peter Fellows, in the room. We'd come up with ideas and sometimes we'd get all excited like kids and stand up and act them out.

I remember us working out the physical comedy of moving Stalin's unconscious body, getting up and performing it to each other. Because Armando and I go back so far and know each other so well, it just felt like when you muck around with your mates and have a laugh.

Though, after that, there was the hard work of writing the first draft, getting to the end of that, playing around more and so it continues. Then Ian [Martin] joined us, as I had to go and direct a series of Josh, and he brought his incomparable magic to the process.

The third series of Josh is now on iPlayer, and being repeated on BBC One on Fridays. When you were asked to direct the show, did you think it would become this popular?

I don't think you really think 'this will be popular, I'll do it'. You just do what you think you'll enjoy, and I certainly enjoy doing Josh.

After 25 years, I'd sort of realised I much prefer writing and directing and being on the other side of the camera. Don't get me wrong, I do like the fame of acting, I'm shallow in that way. But it took me a while to discover that what I am best at is writing and directing and that I enjoy it more than the acting.

I was asked to direct Josh by the producer, Simon Mayhew-Archer. I enjoy directing less experienced actors, like Josh was when he started. Simon knew that I had directed some of The Armando Iannucci Shows and knew me from Alan Partridge etc, from when he was about 6. We met and got on really well.

Josh and Tom Craine, the other writer, and Simon are genuinely lovely human beings and it's all very collaborative. We've assembled a lovely cast who all get on famously as well. It's a very happy family...

Your podcast Strong & Stable is back with us for a second series. Are you pleased how it's going?

We've been getting really good people. David Baddiel, Armando came on, Mark Steel, Alastair Campbell. We've got Emily Thornberry and Anna Soubry coming up in the next couple of weeks.

We also have a great team of writers. The trick was bringing the comedy together with politics and satire, making sure there were loads of jokes in it.

There are a lot of great political podcasts out there but I wanted to do one with jokes. Deezer approached us looking for a podcast that had that a Daily Show feel to it and, I think, I hope, we've got that.

It's also a good vehicle for me to vent my anger. I am very obsessed with politics, especially since Brexit, I've become a bit of an angry bore, so this was a great way to be angry and funny at the same time.

You have a social media company now, That Lot?. How's that doing?

Really well, thank you. We seemed to have answered a need that is out there, for good writing and video - for 'strong content', as we say in the trade.

We do a lot of topical stuff, such as the Have I Got News For You Twitter and Facebook accounts, along with Channel 4's social media and so on.

I was getting a bit fed up with the struggle to get things made on TV and film and I was wasting a lot of time on Twitter, building up a profile there - mainly of Partridge fans and people who think I'm David Schwimmer from Friends, but they all count - and thought maybe I could look at getting stuff made online. So I got together with David Levin, who was the UK's first and foremost professional tweeter (yes, that was his actual job), and we started this company. Now there are 45 of us - lots of fresh-faced youths.

They're so young that I don't know whether to employ them or breastfeed them. They know their stuff though. Experts at specific platforms (Snapchat, Instagram etc), innovation, design, video and they're fast. Now I am constantly making stuff, creating funny things and videos etc. It's busy but rewarding.

In the 'good old days', a person could send a synopsis straight in to a TV station or production company - what advice can you give to current aspiring comedy writers?

I think these are 'the good old days' right now. In the old days, you had very few outlets if you wanted to write comedy. Now it's much easier to get your work out there, get your work made, seen and build a profile.

Commissioners can be lazy. Present them with a three minute video and they are much more likely to watch it and get a sense of what you're about, than if they have to read a script.

Now you can make stuff yourself, build up a profile on Twitter or wherever, make YouTube sketches and become a huge influencer overnight. There are so many avenues now...

And keep at it. John Cleese famously got a rejection letter for Fawlty Towers - a copy of the letter sat framed on the wall of the old BBC comedy department. It stated that the show was preposterous, the character was not believable, no mileage in this. So, what do they know? Just keep going, I say.

One of the best bits of advice I was ever given was "nothing is wasted". Even if you get rejections, as long as you keep making stuff, writing stuff, creating stuff, you'll get better.

Back to the topic of the movies. Can we talk about your other film scripts?

One was made, called All The Queens Men [an action comedy war film, in 2001]. I'm proud of the script still but the final film didn't really work - there are so many moving parts in putting a film together. It's never going to be a Shawshank Redemption.

I've mainly done what other film writers do - got stuff that's nearly been made but hasn't quite; and I've been brought in to 'punch up' existing scripts, etcetera.

With Armando, because he is so good at what he does, so brilliant and respected, things happened very quickly. Often it's "here's a little film I have been developing for 37 years" but with Stalin, it all moved relatively quickly.

Do you have any more films in the pipeline then? Where you can write, act, produce, direct and make the tea?

There are quite a few lined up where I make the tea!

There are a couple of projects [I'm developing], but if I told you details about them I would have to kill you. "I'm talking to a few different people". I hope that makes me sound busy and important. As soon as they're happening, I'll let you know...

Are we going to lose another British talent to the States? Promise us at BCG that you will not start wearing tight t-shirts, due to working out at the Muscle Beach Gym in LA?

The tight t-shirt thing is already happening, that's in the bank. I'm middle aged and starting to get a middle aged spread, so all my t-shirts have become tight. As for LA, who knows? I don't have any particular ambitions. It's all about the work that comes up, and I have That Lot now and all my worker children who I have to breastfeed, so I imagine I won't be Muscle Beaching any time soon.

The Death Of Stalin is in cinemas from the 20th October.