Kristen Schaal Interview

Best known as Mel, the biggest fan of New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody duo Flight Of The Conchords, actress and stand-up Kristen Schaal chats about the new series as well as her work outside of the show

On the new series of Flight Of The Conchords:
“I think the storylines are really fun. This season, since they didn't have to stick to their canon of songs, they got to create storylines about anything. So it’s a little more unpredictable with where the stories are going and I find this season really surreal, really colourful. And funny! I like this season a lot.”

On Mel’s contribution and her first song:
“She continues to be devoted to the guys and she’s going to explore new ways to showcase her devotion. She grows onyou as her beauty just grows and grows… The singing makes me nervous, it’s not really my forte. But you know, everybody loves to sing!”

Her first impressions of Brett and Jemaine:
“I thought they were really sweet and kind of shy. But mainly I was so stressed out at understanding their accents because I’d never re ally been around a New Zealand accented person before. It was hard. I was so nervous at asking them to keep repeating what they were saying, but I had to…”

The inspiration behind Mel:
“They did a really good job of constructing her as an amalgamation of all of their fans. So I had a lot of rich situations to pull from, so that was easy. People always ask, “If you could stalk anyone, who would it be?” But I’ve never found anyone in my life that I’ve found interesting enough to stalk. And why would anyone stalk anyone anyway? It didn’t come from any real life situations, I just used my imagination about what that person would be like.”

Her stand-up show:
“It’s pretty surreal - it’s very surreal. It’s a journey into my imagination! The classic prop I use is chocolate cake, that’s a good one. But recently I’ve been experimenting with a mattress.”

On her upcoming book written with boyfriend Rich Blomquist:
“It’s basically a collection of stories that fuse the trashy romance novel with the humorous short story within the structure of a sex manual. So it’s going to explore everything about sex. We’ve written a little bit of it and it should be out in the fall of 2010. We’re also doing a pilot for Channel 4 called Penelope Princess Of Pets and it will air even if they don’t pick it up. It’s about a girl who can talk to animals and they tell her that the world is going to end. You can’t trust animals. Or can you?"

Words by Ben Hopkins