MSN Sports Filter Interview: Rob Corddry

Excerts from and interview with Rob Corddry who will be starring in the upcoming film "Blackballed".

MSN Sports Filter Interview: Rob Corddry

For viewers of The Daily Show, Rob Corddry should need no introduction. If you're not watching The Daily Show...I'm sorry, the kind of help you need is beyond our meager powers.

Rob will soon appear in his first starring film role: "Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story", a tale of disgrace and redemption in the fast-paced, cut-throat world of paintball. He was kind enough to share a few moments with MSN Sports Filter to discuss paintball etiquette, gunplay in sports, and the Sox. Sports Filter's questions in bold.

How did you get mixed up in the high-stakes world of paintball
Let me ask you a question: how would you categorize paintball?

I guess somewhere in the Venn intersection of extreme sports and sporting, like hunting and whatnot.

It says it's an extreme sport, and it purports to be the third most popular extreme sport, although I think it's probably the least extreme.

Well, you don't get shot at while skateboarding.

Maybe not in your neighborhood.

Writing wise, how did the movie come together?

Brant [Sersen, the director] came up with the story after playing paintball. He got together with a high school friend of his, they contacted Paul Scheer and I, who they knew from the UCB Theatre. Me and Paul helped flesh out the story, and then we started casting a bunch of our friends.

What good’s being in a movie if you can't cast a bunch of your friends?

Exactly.

Your character in the movie is banned from paintball for the offense of "wiping". [removing paint from your outfit to make it look as if you haven’t been hit] Which is a worse example of cheating in sports: "wiping" or steroids?

Wiping, definitely. My character got kicked out of paintball for 10 years. In baseball, you can do steroids and still make millions, still chase a HR record.

And you can still get cheered by your home crowd in San Francisco.

Yeah, exactly. I don't get that at all. I'm a Sox fan – you wear your pants wrong, we'll boo you. We get six months of winter here, so…

Maybe it's the weather factor. Laid back Northern Californians are more rock n' roll about the whole steroids thing. Someone should write a dissertation on the effects of climate on the disposition of a fan base.

I will demand 10% of whatever you make off of that.

Great, I'll have my lawyer draw it up.

Let's make that happen, as they say.

The film has already played a bunch of festivals. Do you expect (or have you had) paintballers critique your portrayal of their world?

Brant was very particular about honoring rules and etiquette of paintball. For instance, if we had our gun plugs out, we always had masks on. We know paintballers are our main audience. Plus, they have guns – and they sting.

I make it a rule not to piss off people with guns, if I can help it.

I got shot in head by this one dude.

Really?

Yeah, we were shooting my big scene, my Willem Defoe moment I like to call it, and they hired this crack shot to shoot me in the chest. He fires and hits me right in the exact two-inch spot not covered by my helmet. And then I have to look at him smirking at me while I just wanna slap that smile off his face.

What other sports do you think could be helped by shooting at your opponents?

I think we're moving that way. Just this year, they finally cancelled Gun Day at Yankee Stadium…I think most sports could be made marginally more exciting by introducing gun play. Me, I would like to shoot at ski jumpers.

You could have the biathletes do that. They've already got the guns.

Ski jumpers or ice dancers. Those guys have really got it coming.

Here in New York, a lot of publishing companies play against each other in a pretty competitive softball league. Does The Daily Show have a softball team?

We used to, until the organizer quit and moved to LA. We used to play Howard Stern, Conan O'Brien, all the comedy shows.

Who were the heavy hitters in that league?

I don't think they're around anymore, but Tough Crowd used to be real good. They had a lotta alpha male comedians.

I can imagine a lotta classic beer-drinkin' sluggers on that team. I can see Colin Quinn having some opposite field power.

Colin Quinn's probably a power hitter, I have no doubt of that.

I know Jon Stewart's a big Mets fan. Is Yankee paraphernalia banned in the Daily Show offices?

I wish. It would make work so much easier. There’s an enormous amount of obnoxious, die hard Yankee fans that never cease to piss me off. Including my brother. I'm more of a romantic Red Sox fan; he's the guy who can tell you what Rico Petrocelli batted back in '67.

What're your hopes for this year for the Sox?

I don't know. It’s a completely new team, completely new players. Baseball season kinda snuck up and smacked us in the face this year, didn't it?

It did. I’ve been to two games at Shea already, though.

[This prompted a discussion about how one becomes a Mets fan, and how it took me years to realize that while Game 6 of the '86 World Series was triumphant for millions of Mets fans, it was a paintball shot to the head for millions of Sox fans. Rob admitted that now that the Sox have finally won a World Series, he can -- begrudgingly -- wish the Mets no harm. The conversation then turned to the issue of geographic fan demarcation.]

I wonder where the dividing line is in Connecticut for Sox vs. Yankees fans?

I would guess it's wherever the dividing line is for commuting to NY and Boston.

That makes sense. Hartford's a lot closer to Massachusetts, I think.

The last time I was in Hartford, it seemed very tense in terms of fandom. The local bars have to cater to both fanbases, but you could tell it was an uneasy truce—where to place the Yankees neon signs vs. the Sox neon signs, and why.

Someone needs to step in and keep the peace.

Hartford needs a Gandhi.

"Blackballed" opens April 13th at New York's Two Boots Pioneer Theatre, with a wider release to follow. Rico Petrocelli batted .259 in 1967.