A coffee with ... Janeane Garofalo

Garofalo lends voice to movie about a rat, but she's no mouse

By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Taking a picture of Janeane Garofalo is like trying to stick a scared, squirming child with a doctor's needle. The comedian hates pictures, loathes the lens, and, as the camera follows its wriggling quarry, she involuntarily ducks and looks askance, often at the floor.

"Seeing pictures of myself really brings me down," Garofalo says. "Down."

Her discomfort is no joke. She looks truly bothered and anxious, humming nonsense notes — da-do-dum-dum — as mental distraction. Click-click goes the camera.

"Don't be too close," Garofalo says curtly.

Then, she slaps both hands over her face, leaving only her wide, bespectacled brown eyes in view.

"I only like to take pictures like this," she says, her voice muffled in her hands.

Garofalo, a familiar onscreen presence and noted outspoken liberal, brought a sugar-free Red Bull to our meeting in the Cafe at the Four Seasons, which rather scotches plans to share coffee.

"I usually start with Red Bull and tend to have my lattés and so forth in the afternoon," she explains. "I like a nice, bracing, ice-cold, sugar-free Red Bull."

Water is poured, and a woman arrives with menus. We decline them. She frowns.

"Boy, she didn't like that at all," Garofalo says.

Garofalo's hands and arms are in full, florid tremble during our conversation, visibly and worrisomely. Is she this nervous? I'd rattled her enough taking her photo that I decided not to mention the shaking.

The teeny-tiny comic, schmeared in tattoos, hair dyed black, retro glasses rimmed with ruby rhinestones, is in Austin promoting the new Pixar animated comedy "Ratatouille" with fellow comedian and co-star Patton Oswalt. Garofalo provides the thickly French-accented voice of a chef named Colette, and Oswalt gives voice to the main character, Remy, a fuzzy street rat with aspirations to be a gourmet chef. The film opens Friday.

In the Paris-set picture, Colette sports a huge bobblehead atop an itty-bitty body with drastically foreshortened legs.

"I would assume she's about a size double-zero, because even in cartoons the girls have to be thin," says Garofalo, who admits she's never been to France. "I love her hair and her eyes. Great big, round, beautiful blue eyes and beautiful, shiny, rich mahogany-auburn hair in a great and perfect bob. And she's got a nice big nose."

Garofalo and Oswalt are, of course, popular stand-up performers as well, and they've piggybacked the "Ratatouille" tour with comedy shows. They played a double bill the night before at Emo's.

"I love Austin. It's like San Francisco," Garofalo says. "Very similar environment, very similar complexion and personality. The audiences have been unfailingly fantastic.

"Last night was a prime example. It was like doing comedy in a sauna. It was packed, and they were drenched in sweat — one woman passed out — and they were unbelievably enthusiastic."

Another cultural event was unfolding that night. With seemingly the whole world watching, the final episode of "The Sopranos" aired on HBO.

"Don't get me started on last night's episode," Garofalo says. "I was furious. I felt entirely, entirely let down.

"It was completely unfair. I lost $1,000 on a bet on how it was going to end. I thought (Tony) was still in a coma," she grumbles, referring to a prior plot point in the series.

Oswalt, she sighs with a whiff of disgust, liked the episode's ending.

The co-star of TV programs "The Ben Stiller Show" and "The Larry Sanders Show" and films "Reality Bites" and "The Truth About Cats & Dogs" freely talks about the rash of ink wallpapering her flesh. At last count, she had 15 tattoos, all but three that were applied while she was drunk, back in the day, she says. Garofalo, 42, quit drinking in 2001.

A sacred heart emblazoned with "Liberal" on her shoulder stands out like a shout, like she's literally wearing her heart on her sleeve.

"I put 'liberal' on there because I'm tired of it being used as a dirty word," Garofalo says. "It's something to be very proud of."

On the flip side, she says, " 'Conservative' is just another way of saying 'racist' or 'misogynist' or 'fearful' or 'arrogant.' "

That's only the tip of a brief but burning rant that should be familiar to Garofalo's fans. For more than two years, she hosted a talk show on the left-leaning Air America Radio, and she remains brashly outspoken about the Bush administration, the Iraq war and an American media she calls "sanitized, insulting, infantalizing. It's there to disinform you and put you to sleep."

Like many sharp, intellectually curious people, Garofalo frequently finds bad news in her quests for news and knowledge.

She doesn't appear to be an inordinately happy person; instead, she resides in a steady mood that matches her chipped black nail polish.

She seems like someone who knows what she likes and finds peace and solace in those things. Dogs, for instance. "The Daily Show" for another. Perhaps, sugar-free Red Bull.

As Garofalo walks off for more press time, she passes Oswalt in the corridor.

"You know, the more I think about it, the more I like last night's ending," Oswalt tells her.

Garofalo groans.