Last year, Adult Swim aired a golf special starring comedic actors Jon Daly and Adam Scott playing roles as their golf-world namesakes: John Daly and Adam Scott. Daly has been particularly interested in catching the attention of his golf alter-ego, going so far as to create JonDalyIsJohnDaly.com and creating an entire photo series of himself in his counterpart’s shoes.
More recently, Daly appeared in Austin Found alongside Linda Cardellini as the concerned father of their child Patricia, whom Cardellini’s character arranges to be kidnapped in order to cash in on the media buzz. The movie offers a humorous but dark look into the experience of the parents who submit their children to the great American nightmare that is child pageantry, with Cardellini in particular offering a greater depth of psyche than one might expect for such a character.
I recently spoke with Daly about his role in Austin Found, his undying dream of playing golf with John Daly, and a tantalizing hint at his next celebrity impression.
What most appealed to you about the script for Austin Found when you took it up?
I thought it was a fun romp. It just felt like a fun character and basically working with Linda Cardellini, Craig Robinson, and Kristen Schaal and that whole cast was why I wanted to do it. It just seemed like everyone was hilarious, so I was psyched to do it.
And the actress who played your daughter was also pretty impressive.
Yeah, and she plays one of Louie’s daughters on Louie, Ursula Parker. She is a brilliant actress and kind of preternaturally talented, and really sweet, too.
And what a role to play, as a kid. I felt like the movie had some great lessons in it, especially for kids, about being honest with yourself and others.
Yeah, but the main lesson is don’t get kidnapped. And don’t participate in pageant culture. I think that’s another big point.
I thought your character in the movie was particularly interesting. Linda Cardellini’s character is so clearly wrapped up in pageant culture, but yours is a bit more complicated than that. He’s obviously permissive of it, but doesn’t necessarily support it, which is interesting. How much backstory did you give yourself?
Whatever your backstory is, when your daughter gets kidnapped it kind of takes over. I definitely focused on the kind of parents that are involved in pageant culture. How can you support it? I don’t understand. But people are out there doing it, putting their kids in shows, making them up, and making them look like dolls. And that’s part of America.
On another subject, did anything interesting result from your Adult Swim golf special with Adam Scott? Did the other John Daly ever get in touch with you?
He didn’t. I just want to work with John Daly. I’m not aware of whether or not he saw the special, but I would like to extend an invite to him to fly anywhere in the world, to any golf course he wants, his favorite golf course in the world. We’ll get a full sports camera crew, me and him, improvising on the golf course, John Daly to Jon Daly, working it all out.
A childhood dream, I’m sure.
Exactly! Yeah. I mean, playing golf with a legend? That’s anybody’s dream.
And it would also just be really funny to see the different paces that you would both be playing at.
Yeah. I’d have to use special effects to make myself into a good golfer. With John Daly involved, you’ve got one of the best golfers in the entire world and a legend. So that takes care of the golf portion. He’ll hold it down with the golf, but I’ll take care of the funniness. Hopefully.
Unless you guys just completely swapped roles and you became amazing at golf and he became a great comedic actor.
That is less likely, yeah. But it could happen! You never know. We could Freaky Friday each other at any point. If we throw a stone into a lake, we’ve got to watch it ‘cause the next morning, we just may be Freaky Friday-ed into each other. Then I could get on the PGA Tour and make some cash and that’ll be nice for me.
Of course. Do you have any new celebrity impersonations you’re working on?
I always got something cooking. I don’t want to reveal too much. But there’s things cooking and…
It’s George Foreman, isn’t it?
Maybe… Maybe not. Let’s just say there may be an Italian meal. An enjoyable Italian, musical meal being baked as we speak for a mass audience.
Tantalizing. How’s I’m Dying Up Here coming along? Anything else you’re putting together?
We’re up through episode 8 and 9 comes on this weekend. So that’s cool. And then, yeah, I’m always working on stuff, and I’ve got a short film I made with Gil Ozeri that recently premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival. That’s going to be coming out on Super Deluxe very soon. It’s called Men. It’s about two guys in cheap suits who go to a steak place. It was directed by Bill Benz, who also directed the golf special.
Phil Stamato lives and writes in New York, where he may also be seen standing up and telling jokes. If you’ve read this far you are legally required to follow him on Twitter.