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"Even at my young age, I said no," Harland Williams recalls of how he reacted when his parents offered their much-teased son the option.
"I said, 'For some reason, God gave me these goofy ears. There must be a plan for them' ... They're mine and I'm supposed to look like this. I wouldn't change anything. But I get by. I'm married. I've found a woman who will love me."
Proof in the picture
Good thing we're running Williams' photo, don't you think, or you might have wondered whether his wife, actress Wendi Kenya, had taken pity on Elephant Man or something. In fact, Williams is -- subjective female editorial opinion here -- completely adorable. Those wide ears, those wide eyes, that chin -- okay, that no chin -- give the comic and actor the air of a perpetually surprised innocent. Which he is -- perpetually surprising. And which he isn't -- innocent.
On stage, he combines nasally, vaguely Southern/Jimmy Stewart diction and a habit of addressing audience members as "friendly fella" with material like the one about his 67-year-old father's "interactive" tattoo.
"He went out and got a tattoo of the Disneyland log ride on the crack of his ass," says Williams. "He says every time he takes a shit, he feels like a kid again."
The North York-raised 36-year-old is one happily busy beaver.
While his Comics episode was airing on CBC last night, he was at the Masonic Temple headlining the Comedy Network's second anniversary party. His new standup special, Harland's Hilarious Hour, airs Oct. 24 on the Comedy Network.
Tonight he makes his fifth appearance on Letterman. Tomorrow he flies to L.A. to tape a new special for U.S. cable.
"I'm glad it's busy," he says. "The other end of the spectrum is sitting in the corner with a jar of Skippy peanut butter waiting for your phone to be reconnected. I count my blessings every day."
He's in two current movie comedies, Dog Park and Superstar, continues as the voice of Newton on the cartoon Ned's Newt, writes and illustrates kids books about an apatasaurus named Lickety Split, and has roles in two midseason U.S. network primetime series.
Spade sidekick
On Sammy, David Spade's autobiographical NBC cartoon, he'll be Spade's brother Todd.
"It's kind of hip. It's based on his kind of movie star lifestyle and his father, who shows up to kind of wallow in it after abandoning the family as kids. He's a womanizer and an alkie and troublemaker. It's cool."
On Fox's Mike & Gary, a claymation adventure which Williams describes as "a techno version of Davey and Goliath," he'll be the voice of Mike.
"It's edgy, man," he says. "I'm surprised a lot of it is going to be on TV. In one episode, my character is at the White House and does Hillary. One of the lines is, 'I put the rod in Hillary Rodham Clinton.' It's a crazy show. I think young kids, like the Dumb And Dumber crowd, are just going to go nuts for it."
The under-10 crowd has always gone nuts for Williams, who is best-known for playing likable goofs in movies like Rocket Man, Half Baked, Down Periscope and Dumb And Dumber. He was a serial killer in There's Something About Mary; a woman in Disney's Mrs. Headmistress.
Ready for anything
"I don't want to be niched and go, 'I'm the dumb weird guy' my whole career, or 'I'm the sexy guy.' I'll be all those guys. Bring it on," he says now, and indeed, movie audiences are about to see his more dramatic side.
They'll see his every side in The Whole Nine Yards, a Pulp Fiction-esque Bruce Willis feature in which Williams does his first screen nudity.
"The script called for Rosanna Arquette to be completely nude and me to be partially nude," he says. "Rosanna refused and she ended up doing it in lingerie. But for some reason she insisted I be nude. I was going to object but I thought, it's like I said, I'm up for any acting challenge."