Times Colonist

Parker joins Despicable Me 3

South Park co-creator voices former child star bent on world domination

- JOSH ROTTENBERG

To the easily offended, Trey Parker has long been a kind of comedic super-villain.

For decades, Parker and his longtime collaborat­or, Matt Stone, have been blowing up taboos left and right on their Comedy Central show South Park, in films such as South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police, and in their Broadway smash The Book of Mormon.

The two even showed up once in Hollywood’s holiest spot, the Academy Awards red carpet, dressed in drag and tripping on acid — either one of the most awesome or most appalling moments in Oscars history, depending on whom you ask.

It only seems fitting, then, that Parker has now been cast as an evil mastermind, albeit an absurd one, in Despicable Me 3, the third instalment in the smash animated franchise from Illuminati­on Entertainm­ent and Universal Pictures.

In his first animated voiceover role outside of South Park — on which he performs characters, including Cartman, Stan and Mr. Mackey — Parker co-stars opposite Despicable veterans Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig as Balthazar Bratt, an embittered, mullet-wearing former 1980s child star who is bent on world domination. Parker said he took the role partly because the offer was so unexpected, but also because it would be something his then twoyear-old daughter could watch.

Parker, 47, sat down in the production offices of South Park, which will kick off its 21st season in August, to talk about playing a cartoon baddie, maintainin­g his comedic edge as a middle-aged dad and doing topical satire in the age of Donald Trump.

Q: Do you watch many animated kids’ movies?

A: Now that my daughter is almost four, I’ve seen every kids’ movie there is three times. Some of them are so great. The Illuminati­on stuff is so visual and so cartoony. It’s not what I lovingly call “Ameritrash,” where it’s all about: What was the point and what did the character learn?

We just saw The Good Dinosaur. Dude, that movie is like — what’s the movie about the guy who got raped by a bear? Q: You mean The Revenant? A: Yeah, The Revenant — it’s that heavy. One horrible thing after another happens. It is sad after sad after sad and you’re crying the whole time, and you’re like: “Who made this movie?”

These Illuminati­on movies are the polar opposite of that. We’re not going to be crying. We’re just going to go have some fun. It’s a ride and it’s just about what’s funny. And I appreciate that.

Q: Your Despicable Me 3 character is like if Corey Feldman or Ricky Schroder had turned evil and become super-villains.

A: I always had Kirk Cameron in my mind just because of all the stuff I’d seen of him. You know, he got really religious, and he just seemed so pissed. At first, I was actually like: “Maybe I’ll do Kirk Cameron’s voice.” But then I saw that he’s such a blank slate, there’s nothing to do.

Q: This is the first major project you’ve ever performed in that you didn’t also write and direct. Was it hard to relinquish that kind of total creative control?

A: [The 1998 comedy] BASEketbal­l is the only other thing I didn’t write and direct. People always assume I wrote and directed BASEketbal­l and I have to go: “That was not me. I did what I was told — and I did it because I was 27 years old and I thought this was going to be it and I wanted the $200,000.” (Laughs)

Normally if I’m involved in something, I can’t help myself — I’m immediatel­y like: “Well, what if we did this? And what if we add that?” And when I started this movie, I was like: “I’ve got to just let them do their thing.” It was actually a little intoxicati­ng. All I’ve done is my own stuff, so to finally be like: “I’m going to do other people’s stuff and go have a sandwich afterwards” — I was like: “This is pretty sweet.” I might do that again.

Q: Still, there’s this idea that when a comedian starts doing movies for kids, it’s a sign they’re losing their edge.

A: There were people going: “He’s got a daughter — he’s going soft now.” Meanwhile, I’m writing last season’s episodes of South Park and I’m like: “Just watch the show.” I definitely don’t feel that way. I have those two lives.

Q: South Park turns 20 this year. Has it got harder over those years to do satirical comedy, especially now that everyone on the internet can make their own jokes off the latest news within seconds?

A: Yeah, and it’s also just got boring. We weren’t ever really that show. We would do an entire season and there would be one moment that played off something that had just happened and people would go: “South Park is the show that does that.” And that’s just not true. We’re not.

We did start to become that, though, especially the last season. We fell into the same trap that Saturday Night Live fell into, where it was like: “Dude, we’re just becoming CNN now.” Matt and I hated it, but we got stuck in it somehow.

This season, I want to get back to Cartman dressing up like a robot and screwing with Butters, because to me that’s the bread and butter of South Park: kids being kids and being ridiculous and outrageous. We probably could put up billboards — “Look what we’re going to do to Trump next week!” — and get crazy ratings. But I just don’t care.

Q: Do you think Trump is funny?

A: He’s not intentiona­lly funny but he is intentiona­lly using comedic art to propel himself. The things that we do — being outrageous and taking things to the extreme to get a reaction out of people — he’s using those tools. At his rallies he gets people laughing and whooping. I don’t think he’s good at it. But it obviously sells.

Q: Do you and Matt have an end in your heads for South Park?

A: Every year in the middle of the season, we say: “OK, this is it.” And we really thought that two seasons ago, when we were doing all the PC Principal stuff.

The witch hunt is coming. Our day is coming. One of these days, out of nowhere, we’ll do something and they’ll go: “How dare you?” — and we’ll be done.

 ??  ?? Balthazar Bratt, one of the characters in Despicable Me 3, voiced by Trey Parker.
Balthazar Bratt, one of the characters in Despicable Me 3, voiced by Trey Parker.

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