B.L. You both are such masters at improvisation and have been doing it for so many years. Does it get any easier with each project?
B.B. I think it's different every time. Depending on your character, what the movie is about and, to me, it's always scary but in a good sense of scary because you know that there is nothing that you can do about it. At some point you actually just give up and go "I'm here and we'll just go with what's happening." I've learned a bunch of things from Fred and watching him in these movies. I now know that you're allowed to not plan exactly, but there's no points taken off for thinking in the evening before you go in to work in the morning. There are certain things that your character does that you need to prepare for. My character in this movie gets in front of large groups of people and introduces things all the time. So my character isn't very good at that so I have to prepare for that. The other things I didn't have to prepare for, other than doing a little homework as to who am I, what do I want. But in other cases, I actually did a lot of work because my character would be thinking for days about how to present these folk singers that he knows absolutely nothing about.

B.L. Fred, you have quite the get-up in the film as Mike LaFontaine the manager. Did it help you to have your hair bleached almost white and wearing those flamboyant costumes?
F.W. It helped, yes it did. One reason why I did this was because I wanted to be a little different than my character in Best in Show. Improv - I don't think that you can teach it. I was once called on to teach a group of college students in New York and I realized that I didn't know how to teach it. I found that the ones who caught on could do it and the ones who didn't wouldn't do it. I found the best way to do it is to get two of them up, put them in a scene and then you learn.

B.L. So there's no real trick to it?
F.W. Improvising, I wish I could know a trick — you're talking and suddenly a funny thought comes and you think, "Phew. Here's something funny, I'll say it," and you just go with it and go with it; other times you find yourself a blank. Then maybe you can take a detour in character and be thoughtful. It is scary; I guess it's like being a baseball player. You get up against a 90-mile an hour pitcher and you hit one out of the park and you say, "Gee, that's great." But another time you strike out and you can't give up. I don't think anyone can teach you to do that.
B.B. It's a lot about listening too.
F.W. I prepare as much as I can. Today, improv is very popular when you go to these clubs. I've had to host some shows and have been thrown into it, and I'm amazed at how good some of these 20 and 30 year-olds are. I've heard professional songs that aren't as good as someone who will make up one on the spot. Look at Wayne Brady, I don't think anyone could teach him how to do that.
B.B. I think that a lot of it is tapping into something that you don't know where it comes from. I watch the others especially, and you can tell that they are leaving themselves open for many possibilities and they have planned a few ideas, but basically what they are really doing is opening themselves up and waiting for lightning to strike. When it comes you just go with it, and if it's not coming, you say, "Okay, it's not coming." The other person will now do something that's funny.
F.W. Yeah, exactly.

B.L. Why do you guys think that folk music is such a great ground for parody?
B.B. You just hear it! All I had to do! When I tell people what A Mighty Wind is about I say, "It's kind of about the world of folk singer," they just start to smile. It's so endearing that we would invest this time, money and energy on something that nobody is paying attention to. But they seem to be now.

B.L. What is the best thing about working with this group of people and having someone like Christopher Guest as your director?
F.W. Christopher has a very dry sense of humour and you don't feel pressured to be just a clown or just go off. You try to stay within the script and you try to keep a level head and make everything real. That comes from everyone, Eugene Levy and the other people you work with all have the same feeling.
B.B. Plus, this is a real ensemble. There is no star in the movie. Christopher, who is the director and writes it with Eugene, could certainly be in every scene if he wanted to and cut everything around him, but he has no interest in taking over. His ego is firmly in place in a very sensible and realistic area.