Exclusive Interview with Louis C.K. | Comedy Central Insider

It sounds like the show came together organically, with you editing and figuring it out as you make it. How much thought went into how the segments fit together? Specifically with Nick DiPaolo, who in one segment has a lot of tension with you and then in another episode, you end up fighting with him. Was that planned out or did it just come out of your real relationship with him?

I like that we have an antagonism, but we’re friends. Nick and I have never gotten into a fistfight of course. But we are on the opposite sides of the spectrum politically, and the thing I always feel about that is we’ve always been friends.

When I grew up you’d say things like, ‘My Republican friend.’ You could have friends that didn’t agree with you and you could still be human beings. And I think because of Glenn Beck and all these other shows, where people only watch their ideology, it’s hard to be friends when you disagree. And I think that’s a shame. So for me it’s fun to show the way Nick and I used to be screaming at each other and then the next minute we’re making jokes about some lady in the emergency room.

And we have history. We’re both 42. At the end, there’s more to gain from being pals.

It’s important to me that when Nick and I have those arguments [in the show] that I be as unreasonable as he is. Like I call him a Nazi in that scene, which is not okay, it’s really not fair. I wanted to be the instigator. I didn’t want to be like Aaron Sorkin who writes an eloquent liberal and a dumb conservative and let’s see who wins. I wanted it to be like Nick’s arguments were thoughtful and mine were, ‘You’re just a Nazi.’ I was just being relentlessly bigoted.

That bothers me more than conservatives who are stubborn. Liberals who aren’t thinking through. Even though I agree with the liberal, it really bothers me when they aren’t thinking through and are just being babies.

Louis C.K.: Escape to reality : Punchline Magazine

I think everything is funny. I don’t think something has to be comedy to be funny. Actually, more cases than not, comedy is not that funny. Like, one of the funniest movies of all time to me is Goodfellas. I probably laughed harder at Goodfellas than I did at any SNL picture, because you’re taken to this real place, and you get to these nervous moments, and then someone says something, and you just die laughing. Raging Bull is hilarious. More comedians quote lines from that movie than they do from Bill Murray or whoever else. And, that’s a dark fucking movie.