Bill Maher, Larry Charles Interview, Religulous

We have a 'religulous' experience with Bill Maher at the Toronto Film Festival! MoviesOnline sat down with political humorist and author Bill Maher (“Real Time With Bill Maher,” “Politically Incorrect”) and director Larry Charles (“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazaakhstan,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) at the Toronto International Film Festival to talk about their new movie, “Religulous.”

Known for his astute analytical skills, irreverent wit and commitment to never pulling a punch, Maher brings his characteristic honesty to an unusual spiritual journey as he travels around the globe interviewing people about God and religion. “Religulous” is Charles’ first feature project since the critically acclaimed, wildly successful “Borat.”

Bill Maher and Larry Charles are two smart and funny guys and we really appreciated their time. Here’s what they had to tell us about their controversial new documentary:

Q: How did the idea for this come about?

Bill Maher: That’s a good question. What is the origin of the idea? My evolution really as someone who was a Catholic, had it drilled into my head when I was a small child, and then slowly had it drilled out by becoming an adult and realizing it was a load of nonsense. And starting to talk about it, it was one of the first issues I did in 1993 when Politically Incorrect started. One of the first issues we did was called Religion Does More Harm than Good. We had a modest proposal about putting a warning label on the bible. And after doing it so many years on television, I just thought this is the one topic that is deserving of a broader canvas and then it was a matter of trying to get someone interested in doing it as a movie. That was not easy. Then when I finally got that, it was not easy finding the right director because we were looking for a documentary director and documentaries are all dark and just horrible. They’re all about rape, holocaust, child abuse, and murder in a small town. So finally someone had the bright idea of bringing in a comedy director and there was the piece.

Q: Was it timed for this election year?

Bill Maher: No, I would say that’s fortuitous.

Larry Charles: But we also think that by the headlines you could tell that whenever this would come out, it would tap into something that was going on in the world. There was always a religious conflict of some kind that was going on in the world. We have Sara Palin and McCain now rattling their sabers in the name of God but there is always something going on like that. So the movie hopefully remains relevant no matter what time it comes out.

Q: How is the film different from a documentary?

Bill Maher: Well I wanted to make a comedy. That was number 1.

Larry Charles: But also laughter I would say is a good weapon to make your points. This is a hard subject and it’s a hard subject for people to hear their core beliefs threatened and questioned and by using comedy, it makes that a more palatable equation.

Q: Will it be playing to the converted because I can’t imagine that people who are religious will go to it?

Larry Charles: We actually totally disagree with that. We feel yes, obviously the converted will to some degree come to the movie, but we are very interested in reaching those people who are not converted and that’s part of the reason we made it this way. We wanted it to be a Saturday night movie. You’re thinking about going to the movies regardless of your religious affiliation. You go to the movies. You go see the Mel Gibson movie even though you may not believe in what he believes in. You want to see a great movie on a Saturday night. There’s Tropic Thunder. There’s Dark Knight. You want Religulous to be that kind of choice and transcend this idea of being so partisan.

Bill Maher: That said, there obviously are going to be some percentage of millions of people who don’t want to go anywhere near this movie. That’s okay. That’s any movie. What movie appeals to everybody? Not even everybody wants to see Batman.

Q: Do you anticipate anyone that you interviewed in the movie or any of the viewers totally denouncing their religion?

Bill Maher: No, I don’t think we’re going to get amusement park Jesus to come across to the dark side.

Larry Charles: Look at the Vatican priest, Father Foster. I’m not saying he’s going to renounce his religion but he was very open. He’s at a point in his life where he doesn’t have anything to hide. He’s totally comfortable with himself and he felt very comfortable saying “I’m a priest. I work in the Vatican, but this is all bullshit.”

Q: He didn’t exactly say it was all bullshit. He said he didn’t take it as literally as some of the other people do.

Bill Maher: But for a Vatican priest, that’s pretty close to saying it’s all bullshit.

Larry Charles: He said “That’s nonsense.” He said “These are just stories.” I mean he does say that.

Bill Maher: And now he’s probably going to be thrown out of the Vatican just because he made those statements. I think there’s a lot of really religious people who won’t go near this movie, but I also think America is a place where a lot of people say they’re religious but we’re phony religious people mostly. You know, the people in Saudi Arabia? Those are true believers. Everybody here likes to say we’re people of faith. No. You fly a plane into the building because you’re so sure you’re going to get the 72 virgins. That’s a person of faith. I mean, it’s evil but they really believe it. When they speak against homosexuality, they’re not kidding. They’re talking about let’s cut their heads off and they do it in chop-chop square in Mecca. This country, we say we believe but people cherry pick. They take what they want from the bible, they take what they believe. The Pope says “Don’t masturbate.” [laughs] He’s a charming character, isn’t he? But we’ll do whatever we want. They have birth control, abortion. People do what they want. They’re not that really religious. When you hear the term ‘moderate religion,’ what a moderate means is we ignore a lot of stuff. And you have to because the bible says “If your child comes home and says he’s going to convert to another religion, kill him. It says if you find out your neighbor is working on Sunday, kill him. Well, you just have to ignore that. So there’s that and then there’s tens of millions of people who don’t think much about religion at all. They’re not anti-religion, they’re not pro-religion. They might pray to God once in a while when they feel like they’re in trouble or threatened or they’re making a deal with him or they’re bargaining like “Please god, can I get the job?” I want those people to come to the movie because those people can be moved. I think they’re open. They’re like the independent voters.

Q: When you’re going after the snake oil saleman and the senator, I think that’s very worthwhile and that’s why I think this is a good movie. Although the scene where you’re going after the guy who dresses up as Jesus in the theme park and you run rings around him, when I see that I think Bill Maher is smarter than the guy who works at the theme park. I kind of know that going in. Do you have any response to that?
 
Larry Charles: If you think about that sequence though, one of the most important elements to it and one of the things that makes that sequence so great in my opinion is the analogy about the Holy Ghost, about the holy trinity, that it could be ice, it could be water, it could be steam. And we cut to Bill in the van acknowledging that that is an awesome analogy even though it’s ultimately bullshit. We give that guy absolutely every chance to explain himself. When he’s eloquent and makes a really good point, we acknowledge it. So we’re not …

Q: It seems like shooting fish in a barrel.

Larry Charles: It’s not though. Why is it? Why do you feel that way? He acquits himself very well. He answers the questions. He has no doubt in his mind about what he believes.

Bill Maher: People want to have it both ways. They want to be able to say that you can be religious and there’s this mythical religious person who doesn’t come off looking stupid. There isn’t. If you’re religious, you come off looking stupid. You’re defending indefensible, primitive, mythic thinking. If you’re an adult and you still believe this stuff, I’m sorry, you can’t have it both ways. You’re a rube. There’s just no two ways about it. We all have this imaginary person in our mind who’s somehow this smart person but he’s a religious person but it’s never any of us. For a movie that’s supposed to be supposedly the minority movie, I’ve yet to hear one person come up to me and say “I’m very religious.” Is anybody here very religious? Did this movie offend anyone?

Q: Doctors believe in the power of prayer to heal.

Larry Charles: That is absolutely untrue. I’ve done a lot of reading. I take issue with that. I don’t think there’s any… there’s only anecdotal evidence of that. There’s absolutely no scientific evidence, double bind studies, nothing has been done to ever prove that to actually be true. That is a half truth.

Bill Maher: But it’s not prayer. I think I can actually square this circle.

Larry Charles: Please.

Bill Maher: It’s not prayer that’s doing it. I believe in holistic medicine which means the mind and the body are connected. Physical health is a lot about what’s going on in your head. My holistic doctor told me once, he said, “I’ve known people who have given themselves cancer to get out of a relationship.” Your state of mind has a lot to do with your physical well being. We all know people who are married 50 years, one of them croaks, the other one croaks. It’s not because Jesus is up there and he’s actually healing your cancer, but your state of mind has to do with your body. If you believe you can get better, you can affect yourself that way.

Q: How did getting censored over your 9/11 comments change the way you do what you do?

Bill Maher: I would say it only inoculated me because whatever they throw at me after that could never be as intense. You know I had the White House on my ass.

Q: Would you say your approach is agnostic?

Larry Charles: Well we say very clearly in the movie that we don’t know and doubt is our product. So we’re pretty clear about that.

Q: Are you saying we’re looking around because we’re not sure but anybody who is religious is not intelligent?

Bill Maher: No, no. What I’m saying is religion is about certainty. Yes, if you’re certain that you know what happens, if you think you’re absolutely, 100% sure, after all that is what all religion is about. Not only are they sure, but they’re sure the other guy is wrong to the point where they want to kill him very often. That’s how offensive, that’s how wrong they think the other side is.

Larry Charles: God bless you.

Bill Maher: [laughs] Yeah. So what I’m saying is I have faith in doubt. Doubt is my product. Doubt suits human nature, not certainty. So, yeah, I do think if you are adamant in your belief that you are certain that you know what happens after you die, you are lacking intellectually. Yes. There’s a certain amount of growth that you have to do. Now we also try to make it clear in the movie that it took me most of my life to get to that point so I’m not judging anybody who hasn’t gone there. It’s everybody’s evolution. I hope everybody reaches that place and I have great admiration for people who reach it at 20 since it took me until 43 to reach it. But yes, I can have ultimate intellectual respect for someone who believes in a talking snake. I guess.

Larry Charles: Do we really want people running our government who believe the Earth is 5,000 years old at this point in the 21st century. Do we want people in charge who believe these absurd things and are making decisions that affect the world and the future of civilization based on those kind of ideas. If you had somebody here saying “I believe Godzilla is real,” you would say he was crazy. If we had somebody say “I believe when they saw the woman in half it really happens,” you would say that person is either stupid or crazy. And these beliefs are not different than those and [they] cross all religions also.

Q: Bill, how would you define what you do? Do you see yourself as a commentator, as a social critic?

Bill Maher: Comedian.

Q: As an evangelical? 

Bill Maher: Evange in the broad sense of the word. I am an evangelical and my tastes are Catholic, but again with a small ‘c’. You know, I’m a comedian who’s trying to get people to think.

Q: What surprised you the most making this film? What did you learn that was unexpected that you didn’t think you’d take away from the experience?

Larry Charles: Well I think for instance that Vatican priest. When we went to interview him, we had no idea he was going to be so iconoclastic about theology. That was surprising. I think going in the Dome of the Rock and getting into some of the places we never thought we’d have access to was surprising. And then being in there and experiencing that was very surprising. I think when people gave us the opposite of what we expected, we’d be surprised by that and that happened quite a bit actually. We were surprised at how open people were about their ideas, how willing they were to talk about them and defend their ideas, and how strongly they felt about them. There were many quote [unquote] revelations during the course of the movie.

Q: Devout people can quote passages and they have an amazing capacity for remembering this stuff. Before you went in to interview these people, did you do a lot of research so that you were ready for the battle?

Bill Maher: We’ve been doing it for decades. I took a bible course in college. I read the bible in a course with a professor teaching it and always did religious issues on my talk shows. So yeah, it’s been part of my life. I think what’s interesting is that actually the religious people, they don’t know the bible. I mean sometimes they can quote. You’re right. They have certain verses in their head. Some of them can. But it’s amazing how ignorant religious people are of the holy books themselves. They don’t know what’s in there and if they did, I think they’d be appalled. And they can’t even name the Ten Commandments. And when you think, it’s 10 commandments.

Larry Charles: Right. It’s only ten. When you see people that are spouting bible verse and scripture, if you ever notice, quite often they are really talking fast. It’s like a rote thing. You hear them spew it, but they have no idea what they’re really talking about. It’s hard to understand sometimes these lines from the bible written in that old form and of course, translated a million times and changed during all those translations. So you have people like that that spout verse and scripture, but really it’s just a rote thing. It’s not connected to anything. And then you have people like Jeremiah Cummings in the movie who is a minister ministering to a large congregation who can’t quote one of the most famous quotes in the entire bible. So there’s both sides to this. It is surprising how little people know about their own religion.

Q: But isn’t the bible the basis for their religion?

Bill Maher: Of course. And it’s another thing religious Americans are especially wont to do is to try and somehow separate themselves, again the moderates, from the bible. I’ve had people come up to me and say “Bill, I hear you. I get your point about religion. I’m religious, but I don’t believe in that bible stuff.” Well where do you think it comes from? To be religious and try to divorce yourself from the holy book which the religion comes from is ridiculous. It’s like saying you’re an American but you don’t believe in the constitution of the United States. The basis of the religion is the bible. That’s where you’re getting all the information. That’s why people are able to write so many books and talk about things with such authority and the specifics. They are able to tell you exactly what happens.

Q: Do you think the Democrats are hammering on the religion issue this year?

Bill Maher: Absolutely. They have to.

Q: Bill, what would you like an audience to take from this film?

Bill Maher: Well I’d like to take from them $10.50. [laughs] I’d like them to laugh, you know. First and foremost, I’d like them to say “Boy, they made a funny, funny movie.” But also I would like them to at least feel like the questions that have never been able to be asked, this ultimate taboo, are on the table. Somebody asked me yesterday, they said “Boy, you ask some very basic questions in this movie.” And I said “Yeah, because you have to start with the real basic ones because they’ve never been asked.” You know, why is faith good? Yeah, it does strike me as a basic question because I’ve been asking it for years. But I think for a lot of people, they never asked that question because in America, faith is always good. Politicians don’t address the idea that faith could be not good. They just get up there and say “I’m a person of faith. My faith guides me.” It’s all about faith and everybody nods along because they just assume conventional wisdom, faith is good. And I’m saying “Why? It means suspending critical thinking. Why is that good especially in your job?”

Q: Was it hard to get your mother to participate in the film?

Bill Maher: It was hard to get my mother.

Larry Charles: Yes.

Bill Maher: She did it for me. She didn’t want to. Not a lot of 88-year-old ladies want to be on camera, but she knew how important this was to me and she was a trooper.

“Religulous” opens in theaters on October 3rd.