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It's a simple formula for success as a comedian: Start out touring small-town Canada, rise up the ranks to headliner, move to Hollywood, do a bunch of movie and TV work, then write and direct your own feature film. The end.
If it were that easy, you wouldn't be able to swing a drugged-up midget hooker on Sunset Boulevard without thwacking some muttering-to-himself funnyman in the head. But Harland Williams is living the dream. And although it wasn't easy, he almost makes it sound that way.
Hell, he even says he enjoyed touring the backwater burgs where he plied his trade in front of (we're imagining) stoic farmers, drunk rig pigs and the requisite oblivious teenage couple making out in the back.
"I've seen so much of the country, I don't usually come back to do the tourist thing," said Williams, who is coming back to do the stand-up thing tomorrow for two shows at Yuk Yuk's in Londonderry Mall.
"I think I saw it about eight times back in the day, driving back and forth to do one-nighters in coal-mining towns and lumberjack camps and things like that.
"I loved it, too, by the way. A lot of people don't like that beginning part, but to me that was kind of like the magical part. Those early years, it's a little more edgy, where you're like, 'What? Coal miners? I don't have any coal material.' "
From those humble beginnings Williams carved himself a niche as a sought-after comedic character actor, with one of his first (and best-remembered) movie roles as the obnoxious state trooper who chugs a bottle of suspicious yellow liquid in the Farrelly Brothers' Dumb and Dumber.
He was also the psychotic hitchhiker trying to sell Ben Stiller on seven-minute abs in the Farrellys' There's Something About Mary, an FBI agent hired to kill Bruce Willis in The Whole Nine Yards, the voice of the lumbering Lug in the computer-animated Robots and the cop who gets bested by a bunch of pets in Because of Winn-Dixie.
"I've worked my way to a position where I kind of get to pick where I want to work," Williams said.
"When I was working through all those mining towns, it's where I envisioned myself being. And not just from a snooty position, but I wanted to have that luxury to have time to work on movies and other things."
His latest other thing is a deal with a major studio to write and direct a feature film, though he can't yet disclose details.
"The last hurdle was to pitch a movie, sell a movie, and on top of it be able to write and direct it. I feel like once I've done that I've done it all. I feel like I've conquered every level of this town."
Still, the Toronto-born Williams always comes back to Alberta when asked because he feels a kinship with the audiences here. Heck, last time he was in Calgary, Williams met a farmer who let him drive his tractor.
"I go, 'Can I come out and cut your wheat? It's always been my dream to ride around in a big field in a John Deere.' And he goes, 'Of course!'
"He let me drive around all afternoon and cut his wheat, and I had my John Deere hat on. He said, 'You look more like a farmer than I do.' "
With these perks of superstardom, there's also pressure. Williams has felt it, and has seen it in his peers, including his Half-Baked co-star, Dave Chappelle, who went temporarily AWOL just as he was about to start shooting the third season of his Comedy Central series.
Williams hasn't talked to Chappelle recently and only knows what he's read in the papers, including reports of creative differences between Chappelle and network brass.
"I can almost guess with a guy like Dave that would mean he's probably a perfectionist and wants it just right," he said.
"I hope that's it, I don't know if it's something deeper or more psychological. I hope he's fine. My guess would be he's dealing with a lot and he wants to be really good."
Williams plays two shows at Yuk Yuk's tomorrow night, at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Tickets are $32.10 and available by calling the box office at 481-9857.