Rob Schneider Brings New Show To Studio City, Finds Favorite NoHo Tacos

SNL alumnus and former Male Gigolo is moving into the neighborhood with his new TV show Rob! We already see him around town a lot, and now he’s filming a sitcom on the historic studio lot.

On the show he plays a guy namedwho is married to a Latin woman (Claudia Bassols.) When he meets her family, gringo hilarity ensues. He doesn’t speak the language, he bungles their Catholic shrine and they just don’t like the American. In real life Schneider is married to Mexican television producer Patricia Azarcoya Schneider.

We caught up with our neighbor when Schneider met with the Television Critics Association to present the new show. He talked about living near the studio and some of he and his wife’s favorite spots around town. Rob! premieres Jan. 12 on CBS.

Q: Are you trying to learn Spanish?

RS: I am. I am, I am but I’ve got to tell you, I have a mental block about it. It’s tough because my wife talks so fast because she’s so good at it. But I am learning a lot. I’m taking Rosetta Stone. My wife’s teaching me now.

Q: You drive around L.A. taking Spanish lessons?

RS: I do, I do but unfortunately I live really close to work now so I don’t have that same thing. Rosetta Stone’s pretty good but it’s tough. I freeze up. My wife’s talking and she says, “Try! Try!” I’m learning.

Q: On TV, some shows get away with Spanish curse words. A character on Prison Break got away with saying cono. You know what that means, right?

RS: Yeah, yeah. My wife says it almost every day. Cono! Any time she’s driving.

Q: Have you dropped that into your show?

RS: There’s a couple of things. I will say that there is a swear word, I won’t tell you which country, you have to do your work, but in most of the Latin world it isn’t. But there’s one country where it is a swear word and I didn’t know until later.

Q: If standards and practices knew what cono meant, they wouldn’t allow it in prime time.

RS: Right, right, but there’s some stuff that isn’t a swear word at all but in Puerto Rico it is.

Q: Are any of the producers on the show Latino?

RS: You know, they want my wife as a creative consultant. They want her on the show but it hasn’t been a question of even the studio and network wanted it, but she’s not in the writer’s guild. So that’s been a problem. We’re getting her in the writer’s guild so she can have more input on the show but we do have some influence. Again, we’re just getting started. The more of that bleeds into it, the better for me. The network has been really positive in letting us do these themes. They haven’t been all over us which has been great. I think they know the potential for what’s out there and there’s a lot of trust. Of any project I’ve ever worked on, this has been the most trusting. They’re not all over us. Like when I do a movie at Sony, they can be all over you about stuff. I feel I’ve had more freedom here than I have in years.

Q: Can’t working with your wife be trouble?

RS: [Laughs] It could be but she’s really smart. It’s something I feel like I wouldn’t have done the show without her. It’s the best time in my life. I’ve never been happier, never felt better and I feel like I have a real creative partner. Another thing, she might not be available next year. She wrote a movie for Gale Ann Hurd. She’s writing another one for an Academy Award winning Spanish director. I can’t say the name yet but she just wrote one for Gale Ann Hurd, she’s going to produce that movie. So she might not even be available to work on my show.

Q: Do you feel like Lucy and Ricky in reverse?

RS: Yeah, exactly. That’s what you’re kind of hoping for. There’s nothing more fun than watching Lucille Ball suffer because of her own selfishness and stuff. My heroes were, before Saturday Night Live, I watched Monty Python. Basil Fawlty, are you kidding me? To get a chance to play that guy that selfish and that narcissistic and that much of an avoider of pain? That’s a joy to be able to play that and we’re just starting to get on that.

Q: Are there fun cultural differences in the household like Modern Family?

RS: Yeah, well the food is ridiculously spicy and it doesn’t just burn going in, let me tell you that. Everything’s fried. I’ve been this healthy nerd about trying to have the right vitamins and everything and then she’s cooking everything fried. At a certain point, I just eat whatever she cooks. There’s this zen guru who said to me one time, “It does more harm to your body to insult your host than to eat whatever is prepared.” So I just eat whatever. Wherever I go, I just give up but I’ve put on 10 pounds. Everything’s fried. Last night she wanted tacos at midnight. So we drove out to North Hollywood, the guy was just closing up the place. I said, “Please stay open.” He was nice enough, she spoke Spanish to him, he opened up the place. It was way out in North Hollywood.

Q: What was the taco place?

RS: If you take Coldwater all the way to Sherman Way and make a right, it’s right down there. It’s a tiny little shack, [possibly Tacos El Zorro.] It’s a little mom and pop store and the guy barely spoke English at all.

Q: Do they recognize you there?

RS: No, but they knew my wife’s TV show, La Guerra de los chistes, which is War of the Jokes.

Q: How do you like the historic studio?

RS: It’s fantastic. First of all, you walk around and you go oh, Jerry Seinfeld shot here. Will & Grace was here. In that sense, and being at CBS where All in the Family [aired], it hasn’t even really sunk in. This is an incredible opportunity. To be able to do like an All in the Mexican Family would be maybe potentially groundbreaking. It’s not lost on me the opportunity CBS has afforded me.

Q: Where have you liked to hang out before or after work in Studio City?

RS: In Studio City, there’s a Mexican Restaurant called Las Fuentes which is out in Reseda. My wife and I go there for dinner. It’s a little mom and pop stop and they have two little stores, but it’s the closest thing to Mexican food since Mexico City.

Q: Will you go on SNL to promote the show?

RS: If they ask, I’d think about it but it’s been so many years, I don’t know if people even remember that I was on it. I haven’t been on the show in 18 years now.

Q: Will Adam come on the show?

RS: When we do a movie together, he’ll come on the show. We’ll do something to promote it.

Q: What is the bond you and Adam Sandler have?

RS: Well, we were both the youngest in our family and by the time we were grown up, they spoiled us and let us do everything that we wanted. So you want to be a comedian? “Sure, do whatever you want.” He was the east coast Rob Schneider and I’m the west coast Adam Sandler so by the time we met, we had so many commonalities. I heard about him because you find out who the funny guys are when you’re a young comedian. He heard about me because I got on David Letterman before he did. His first performance when he came out here was not even the good Improv in L.A. It was the crappy Improv out in the valley and I was there that night. I saw his first show and the only two people really laughing hard that night were me and him. He was laughing at his own jokes. We went out and had a beer that night and I said, “Hey, you’re gonna be huge and I’m never wrong.” The only reason I said that, first of all I believed it, but somebody just said that to me the night before and I said that’s a nice thing to say to somebody. But it was also we had a beer and we talked and it was a crazy thing. We auditioned for 100 things and never got anything. Then we both got on Saturday Night Live which was just one of those where they needed to bring in new people. We were already friends, I’d slept on his couch when I didn’t have a place to stay. It was that bond at SNL. There’s just an unwritten thing.

Q: How do you like playing the lead instead of the funny supporting guy?

RS: That’s a good question. The weird thing about it is I’ve never been that guy. I did a movie in Europe 17-18 years ago. I did a couple movies with Stallone and Michael Caine used to have this restaurant called Langans downtown. He said [does great Michael Caine impression], “You don’t wanna be the guy, the star. Who you wanna be is the guy standing next to the star. You don’t want the paparazzi and all the crap but you still want to be able to get the restaurant table two minutes quicker than the next guy. You still want to be able to go out with the waitress if you like her. So that’s who you wanna be.” I always listened to that. I always avoided that white hot spotlight. I never had that Jim Carey or Adam Sandler. It’s been 20 something years and I’m still here. It’s going to be interesting. It will be different and I don’t even know what it’s like yet.

Q: Will there be a character that her family wanted her to marry instead of you?

RS: That’s what I want to do. I want to have a character that is a friend of hers, that’s friends with the family but used to be her old boyfriend. That’s one thing that I want to do because this is an uncomfortable kind of thing where some people are completely okay with it and it’s an ugly thing. So the more insecure and crazy that I can get, I think the more fun. That’s what I want to do. I think it’ll be a fun place to go. It’s nice to have that fun of it and see where we can go with it.

Q: Will there be religious conflict between you and her family?

RS: Well, there should be some but at the same time, Patricia’s told me, “You better be careful. The religious thing, the Mexican people can do it. You have to be careful because you’re not Catholic.” I don't know what I am. My mom was Catholic, my dad was Jewish so when I go to confession I bring my attorney. “Father, this is Mr. Cohen, he’ll be answering all the questions.” So I grew up with that and my parents had both. They kind of gave up their religions for each other and my mom, since my dad has passed away, has found her religion again. But I think you have to be careful although there was one incarnation we didn’t use which was the Christ coming off the cross and me going in and nailing it back on and my wife going, “Are you crazy? You can’t do that, you nailing Christ to the cross?” I do think for the pilot, you have to be [careful] so there’s a line there. I think censorship is important because your own censorship is the most dangerous. You can’t get in the way of your own creativity but you have to have some kind of line where you can’t go. I think to just be able to say anything or do anything, to me presents more problems than the bonuses you get from it.

Q: Will there ever be another Deuce Bigelow?

RS: I will say this, at 45 it’s a lot grosser than 35. A horny guy walking around trying to go out with girls at 45 is a little grosser than 35. I think 35 is kind of it. Those were fun though.