Provincetown Advocate

November 6, 1986

By Bonnie Barber

Penn Jillette, who dumped 500 hissing Madagascar cockroaches on David Letterman and who has performed nationwide in an often macabre magic/comedy show for the past 12 years, is terrified about playing the role of Big Stoop in Norman Mailer's film Tough Guys Don't Dance. 

"It will be the first time ever that I've performed without my hair (he has long bangs covering over his forehead), my glasses, my normal voice, and my fingernail," said Penn, who is an astounding 6' 6" tall.

While one may get the impression that Penn must sacrifice a fingernail for his part in some strange Hollywood twist on Chinese torture, this is not the case.

Rather, he will have to remove the red nail polish that adorns the fourth fingernail of his left hand.  Red fingernail polish, the powers that be decided, is just not appropriate for a serious Southern preacher like the Big Stoop

In addition to parting with his red fingernail, the Greenfield native will also have to have his normal voice behind and affect a Southern accent.

But at least he got away with his hair.  "Norman asked me what I thought about cutting it," said Penn.  "And I said, 'What do you think?' "  End of conversation.

So Penn (he uses only his first name on stage and screen) will be allowed to keep his locks, pinning up the long hair in the back and combing back his long bangs.

Mailer first approached Penn about playing the Big Stoop after seeing Penn and Teller, his partner who also uses only one name, in their successful off-Broadway show, which by the way, is off-Broadway by choice.

Although they have been offered bigger venues on Broadway, Penn and Teller found the confines of the 240-seat theater they're in more to their liking.  And of course, the perverse joy they got by turning DOWN Broadway theaters must also be taken into account. 
The partnership of "a high school drop-out (Penn) and former high school Latin teacher (Teller)," arose out of a shared hatred for magic, theater and comedy.

Since they despised all of these things, they decided to combine these very elements and create a show that would improve on them all.  After 12 years of performing their show in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other places in the U.S., they arrived in New York a year and a half ago and became overnight celebrities.

"It's fun to be in a Mailer movie," he said, referring to it jokingly as Tough Guys Don't Act.

What also endeared Mailer to Penn was an interview he did years ago with punk rock chronicler Leggs McNeil.  Penn said Mailer and McNeil engaged in a furious "rap" about the merits of television, especially Gilligan's Island, which Mailer had not seen. After a somewhat less than cordial interview, the pair took off for a Ramones ( a punk rock band) concert together.

To Penn, a huge music fan who was his own record label, this was the height of coolness that Mailer could have displayed.

No stranger to movies, and obviously television, Penn has appeared with Teller in My Chauffeur (which he described as a "surprisingly enjoyable teen exploit movie in which we were covered with naked women"), and with Meg Tilly and Judge Reinhold in Offbeat.

He also had a guest starring role in the two-hour Miami Vice episode filmed with Don Johnson and see how much you love life," Penn said sarcastically of his Vice experience.

Penn and Teller also have a special that will air on cable's Showtime channel in February, called Penn and Teller's Invisbile Thread.  The premise of this "science fiction thing is that 230 of the most interesting people in the world get held at gun-point for 72 hours."
Some of these 230 interesting people are G. Gordon Liddy (the Watergater who established quite an acting career for himself), Andy Warhol, Dick Cavett, Peter Wolfe (ex-member of the J. Geils Band), punk poet Lydia Lunch, the rap group Whodini and legendary N.Y. talk show host Joe Franklin.

But even with all this media exposure and experience, Penn said he has no desire to leave behind comedy and magic and get into acting full time.

He said his reasons for appearing in three movies have varied.  "I did My Chauffeur because I owed the director a favor.  I did Offbeat because I wanted to learn about being on location and in movies for Penn and Teller projects, and I'm doing this for Norman," Penn said.  

Although Penn just arrived in Provincetown, he was already inquiring about where he could find his favorite haunt--McDonald's.  Naturally, he was crestfallen to learn that the closest McDonald's is 40 miles away.

"Even Berlin has a McDonald's," he said.

But now that he has completed his scenes at the Nauset Fellowship Church in Eastham, Penn can return to New York, where he is known by all McDonald's employees, and indulge in his favorite McDonald's food.  The "all-American" Big Mac, large fries, and large Coke."