Pauly Shore On His Search For Happiness, R-Rated ‘Guest House’ And More ‘Encino Man’

“You’re supposed to not go down this road, so that’s why we went down it.”

2020 continues to be a year of new roads for actor, comedian, and filmmaker, Pauly Shore, the headliner of multiple multimillion-dollar comedies. The R-rated raucous indie comedy Guest House is the latest stop on the journey he is on.

“The director, Sam Macaroni, was just like, ‘F*** it!’ It’s a good movie for this dark period in our lives, the pandemic, and the other stuff that is going on.’ So we just went all out.”

“If you’ve followed my career, every one of my movies has that same kind of formula, which is crazy, crazy, crazy, but then there’s a heart, there’s a story. There’s a reason for doing it,” Shore explained. Guest House is no different.

“I won’t give it away, but the twist, the reason for what happens in the movie, revolves around the house. He doesn’t want to let go even though it time to move on. It’s similar in my life. I moved to Las Vegas this year because it was time. I’ve been in LA my whole life, and it was just time to start something new. We hold on to stuff, and rarely does that make us happy. It’s a weird thing, especially when it’s family, it’s your town, and it is personal. So, in a way, my life has kind of paralleled this Randy Cockfield guy that I play. When you do let go, you’re free.”

He added, “I’m 52 years old. My biggest thing now is happiness. Both my parents died in the last couple of years, and that was hard on me. I was the baby of the family. I was very close to my mom. It has been and still is, hard for me to not have her in my life anymore. I want to be the happy Pauly that people that fell in love with when I was in my 20s. I want to be that guy again. That guy is still in me, you know? It’s time to move on. My parents don’t want to see me mourn. They want to see me be happy and hopefully make other people happy too.”

People did indeed fall in love when he was in his 20s. Starting as a stand-up comedian, he became an MTV VJ in the late 80s, leading to starring roles in a string of multimillion-dollar movies such as Encino Man in 1992. Made for $7 million, the comedy, which co-starred Sean Astin and Brendan Fraser, grossed $40.7 million at the domestic box office and catapulted him to movie star status.

A return to the role of Stanley “Stoney” Brown is, according to Shore, potentially on the cards.

“It’s really a Disney thing. It’s up to them. The Mouse owns the movie. They own the IP. There are enough people that hit them up on social media about it,” he enthused. “We’ve talked about it. I know Disney+ exists now, so they’re talking about bringing it there maybe, but who knows? Maybe they’ll do it, and they won’t include us three, and they’ll do it with a bunch of kids. Disney owns it, so I don’t know what they’re going to do with it.”

While Encino Man, or California Man as it was known outside of the US, was Shore’s Hollywood breakthrough, he came close a few years earlier with Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. His never-before-seen audition for the role of Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan, which went to Keanu Reeves, recently appeared online.

“That’s real,” he confirmed. “I think that was my first ever audition. It was for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and after that, my career kind of took off on its own. Until then, I had only done stand up comedy. My manager got me an audition. It was me, and Donovan Leitch paired. We partnered up, we made it all the way to the end but didn’t get it.”

“It’s funny because I never saw the audition until I saw it online, and I was like, ‘F***! I was better than Keanu. Keanu is acting like me in the movie.’ If you look at the audition tape, you see that I was actually the guy, and Keanu was acting.”

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, made for $6.5 million, grossed $40.5 million at the domestic box office and spawned a franchise. The third movie in the series, Bill & Ted Face the Music, was released on August 28, 2020.

Shore has found a productive and constructive way to harness his journey and his legacy. His relocation from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is part of it, as is his one-man show, Stick with the Dancing: Stories from my Childhood. I caught an early version of it at the famous Hollywood Improv in LA in October 2019.

“I enjoy it. I’m glad you got to see it at a very early stage. My whole career, almost 30 years, everyone has always asked about my childhood and what it was like,” he explained. “I got to the point where I thought, ‘F*** it. I’ll do it as a one-man show.’ I was inspired by the Mike Tyson show, Undisputed Truth. I thought he and Spike Lee did a great job legitimizing Mike and telling his story.”

As well as his ups and downs, the show covers his growing up at The Comedy Store, owned by his late mother, Mitzi, and everything that came with that world.

He added, “People seem to be fascinated with The Comedy Store and my life, so that’s why I did it. I’m not doing it for me. I’m doing it to answer all these questions people have. Whenever I do things, I’m thinking of the audience first and how they’ll respond.”

If things go to plan, Shore is due to continue taking his work on the road from the end of September. He’s never stopped working; however, he’s been cycled out of the industry mainstream like so many others. It seems like he’s cycling back in again.

“At the end of the day, we’re entertainers, we do comedy, or we act, and we’ve never stopped doing it. I’d say 99% of the people who ‘go away,’ they don’t stop doing what they do, it’s just that Hollywood stops giving it to them. I never stopped doing it. I guess you got recogged back in the Hollywood wheel, or they picked me up again.,” he affirmed. “The last 20 years, I haven’t been starring in big feature films, but I’ve constantly been doing my own projects whether it was Pauly Shore Is Dead, Pauly Shore Stands Alone, Adopted, or Vegas Is My Oyster, there’s just tons of stuff that I created myself.”

“I’ve got the one-man show, I’ve got Guest House, I have the podcast, I’m doing a karaoke thing, and I’m going to do more stuff. Because we’re quarantined, the stand-up comedy is dormant right now. I’m shifting my energy and heart into my YouTube channel, my Instagram and Twitter, to try and entertain that way.”

He concluded, “All these things are definitely different. I’m enjoying that, but if Hollywood calls and says, ‘Hey, let’s do something else,’ and if I like the script and it’s worth my time, I’ll do it.”

“I want to be happy, and I want to make other people happy. That’s all I’m after, man.”

Guest House lands on VOD, select theaters, and drive-in theaters on Friday, September 4, 2020.