Clad in a robe and sneakers, Mark McKinney stopped to chat for the camera between shows at Town Hall last month. Here's what he had to say.
CRIS SALES: Mark, congratulations on the Genie.
MARK MCKINNEY: (Surprised) Oh, thank you. (In a cowboy drawl) So you heard about it down here.
CRIS: Why don't you tell everybody what you got.
MARK: I did a part in Bruce McCulloch's film, Dogpark, and I got nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the Canadian Oscars -- the Genies. And I won.
(Interruption of general whooping, cheering and applauding by crew and bystanders.)
MARK: A BIG sucker -- big freaking door stopper for ME.
CRIS: Just because we Americans are ignorant, what does a Genie look like?
MARK: Um. Kinda like a guy with really long arms. It's got a head and big shoulders and arms that sort of fold forward and go all the way to the feet. A knuckle-dragger, I call it.
CRIS: You've been on stage though for months now.
MARK: Since September.
CRIS: What has it been like coming from Fuddy Meers at Manhattan Theatre Club and going straight into the tour with the Kids?
MARK: I kinda liked it. I was sort of into being a work monster, what we call a work PIG, for a while. I mean, I could have probably used a couple of days off, but we were rehearsing in San Diego and it was nice -- you know, room service in the morning, which was nice. I had my family with me for the first part of the tour.
CRIS: You have a son, right?
MARK: Yes, I have a son who's about to turn four.
CRIS: When do you think you'll start letting him watch the old Kids in the Hall episodes?
MARK: He already knows this guy (makes "crushing" motion with thumb and index finger) -- he caught it on TV one afternoon. But he's not terribly interested in coming down to the theatre and stuff like that. It seems that every time I've brought him there's always been someone hammering a nail too loud or feedback through the speakers and he's just like "Later."
CRIS: Being the only one of the five Kids to come to New York, what made you decide to stay?
MARK: Well, it was kind of an accident. I came down to do Saturday Night Live. I did three years of that and then I left, and then I got a couple of films in a row so there wasn't time to move -- I thought I might go back to Toronto. Then I audition for a play at the Roundabout [Theatre Company] called A Flea in Her Ear. I had such an incredible time -- it was so much fun, the most fun I had had in years, that I just thought "well I think I'll just do this -- maybe this is where I belong" and I stuck it out.
CRIS: Do you want to do more stage work in New York?
MARK: Yes -- I like it. I really like it.
CRIS: What kinds of stuff would you like to do?
MARK: Well, I think, all kinds of stuff. I'd like to do some Shakespeare eventually -- though, I'd probably have to leave town to do that. (Laughs) Go out to Iowa -- some sort of regional theatre. I don't know, the part in] Fuddy Meers is perfect for me -- a lunatic with a hand puppet. CRIS: Will you be going back to Fuddy Meers once the tour is over. MARK: Yes, I'm planning on it.
CRIS: Thanks, Mark for spending time with us, but I have to ask you one last Comedy Central promote-y question -- what is your favorite South Park episode and why?
MARK: Oh, oh, oh. Gosh -- Oh, it was the episode about the politically correct classroom animal. What was he called?
(From the gallery came "Sexual Harassment Panda!")
MARK: Yeah -- the Sexual Harassment Panda that goes back to the land of the failed mascots. That was a pretty good one. And the original -- the very very first [five minute short film] was mind blowing. I saw it when it was just a cassette being passed around in comedy circles. It was pretty amazing.
CRIS: Well, again, thanks so much Mark.
MARK: Well, thank you.