Edmonton Journal
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Page: C1 / FRONT
Section: Culture
Byline: Olivia Cheng
Dateline: EDMONTON
Source: Freelance

EDMONTON - Honesty may be the best policy, but sometimes it backfires, bitch-slaps you, and creates an extravagant new world of pain. Just ask Orny Adams.

Five years ago, the 34-year-old funnyman was plucked from obscurity when he was hand-picked by comic legend Jerry Seinfeld to be featured in his documentary Comedian. The film captured

Seinfeld's struggle to develop new material after he pulled the plug on his hit TV show and retired his old standup act.

While other aspiring comics heaped praise on Seinfeld in interviews with the film's producers, Adams blasted the icon out of admitted "professional jealousy." Rather than feeling insulted, Seinfeld saw a younger version of himself in the cocky and neurotic Adams and decided to juxtapose the upstart comedian's career with his own. In the film, Adams makes no attempt to sugarcoat his intense, often obnoxious pursuit of fame.

And while Adams calls it the "coolest experience" of his life, the rising comic was unprepared for the backlash that followed the film's 2002 release.

"Here's the thing," Adams explained in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles. "You've got a boxer like Muhammad Ali who says 'I'm the greatest!' and people love it. But when a comedian says it, it's like 'Whoa! Wait a minute! You should be a guy who hates yourself!' "

Indeed, there was no lack of loathing from critics who dismissed him as a bitter, egotistical narcissist. While Adams survived the media gauntlet with help from Seinfeld himself -- "Seinfeld says I'm the most honest guy he knows" -- the unrelenting animosity had an effect.

"When you take a beating you tend to grow up and mature," Adams says. The Hollywood school of hard knocks taught him to "say less, and let the work speak for itself."

Meanwhile, he's benefited tremendously from the exposure, earning development deals and landing numerous television spots including appearances on Jay Leno and David Letterman. Adams was also recently recruited by one of his mentors, comedian Gary Shandling, as an Emmy writer.

He's now touring through North America and makes appearances tonight through Sunday at West Edmonton Mall's Comic Strip.

"Whatever backlash there was, I feel like the comedians, the industry, everybody's warming up to me a lot," he says with no hint of boasting. "They're saying, 'Wow, he didn't give up.' And then they got this chance to meet me and they said, 'He's not this monster.' "

And if the future brings more backlash and bitch-slaps? Orny's ready.

"If everybody likes you, you're doing something wrong," he says. "It'd be a really boring world if everyone loved Orny Adams."

By Olivia Cheng
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