Dane Cook is a “healed” man – and it’s all thanks to Louis C.K.
Back in 2011 the wildly-successful stand-up guest-starred as himself on an episode of the latter’s Emmy-winning FX comedy series “Louie,” all in the name of addressing – through a charged faux-backstage confrontation between the two comedians – the long-standing controversy that Cook had pilfered jokes from CK’s act to further his own career. While C.K. himself never leveled the charges directly, his fans did, even putting together a YouTube video they held up to be evidence of the joke-theft.
So when C.K. approached him about incorporating the real-life imbroglio into a plotline of the show, Cook jumped at the opportunity.
“I came to New York just to talk to him, we were actually gonna just sit down and I guess have like a bit of a healing conversation,” said Cook, speaking to me at the recent press junket for Disney’s forthcoming animated spin-off “Planes.” “But he had something up his sleeve. It was a script, and he said ‘I wanna talk to him about it on the show.’ And I thought it was really important. I thought it was really important also because for me personally, I felt…I understood the perspective, but a lot of my fans didn’t understand. I think that they sometimes felt like they were stuck in the middle, because they loved Louis’ standup and appreciated mine. So it was a chapter closing in my life, but also in a way that Louis had brilliantly come up with to make a great piece of television.”
So would he be willing to appear on the show again?
“I would hope so,” said Cook. “I’ve got a great relationship now with Louis, and I consider him a friend. So if he has another idea or story – I’m sure it would have nothing to do with that particular storyline – but I would be absolutely game.”
To check out the full context of our chat, click on the video above.