Confession time: this interviewer has never seen Freddy Got Fingered.  That didn’t stop us from making a long distance call to Edinburgh to chat with Tom Green, finishing up the international leg of his tour ahead of his shows at Addison Improv this weekend. Luckily, the comedian, who is a master of understatement, is also familiar with at least one of our most eligible residents.

FrontRow: You toured the US then went across the pond. Is there a difference in the audiences?

Tom Green: The similarities are more of a surprise to me. Whether it’s Australia or Canada or the US or Britain, there’s always…it’s always amazing how far certain ideas of things have kind of traveled over the years, and how people are aware of references to so many things that I’ve done. People do really laugh at the same things around the world now.

FR: What or who makes you laugh?

TG: I always like people and movies and films and television that approach comedy from a different perspective, a different angle than I guess is normal. I like things that are a little off beat. Many of the great comedians of the world that I’ve enjoyed watching over the years, and before a fan of the more I do stand up, the more I enjoy looking back at Richard Pryor and George Carlin. And I always enjoyed talk shows, and Johnny Carson…it’s so great now with the YouTube, you can get lost in the world of looking at great comedy routines and shows from the golden age of television.

FR: What about when no one laughs? Have you ever heard crickets? What do you do?

TG: Tell another joke. And you learn pretty quickly how to make that a seamless experience…that really only happens when you’re trying out new ideas and new jokes….And if I ever told a joke that didn’t work I’d probably A) probably never tell that joke again, and try something just keep it moving. You can’t really get too upset about it. You know, people want to see things…people want you to experiment. That’s what stand up is. But that’s not really something that happens that often, to be honest. I have a pretty good idea of what’s funny, how to structure it and tell a joke before I’ve even said it for the first time.

FR: Tell me about growing up— you grew up on a Canadian Army base. Do you remember the first time you got a reaction from someone for something you said or did?

TG: There’s probably something in one those first days of school, you’d always be the new kid in class when you move around. In the military you move every year and I’d always be the new kid every year and I’d have to make new friends. I sort of found pretty early that I liked pushing the buttons of the teacher and causing mild disturbances in order to essentially get a laugh out of my classmates. I used to like crashing into garbage cans for no reason. Just walking down the hallway and crashing into garbage cans, stumbling over things on purpose. I was doing that when I was seven years old. I loved being a goofball.

FR: Were you always outrageous?

TG: I think when I was kid I was more silly and hyperactive. As I got older, I started wanting to actually document some of this stuff and put it on television, on public access TV in Canada where I started my show. That’s when we got a little more edgy and dark with some of it. And it just always appealed to me to get a reaction from the audience. The most important thing was to get the reaction.

FR: Are you surprised that Freddy Got Fingered has such a devoted following now?

TG: It’s amazing. I just realized that this movie has grown into this monster cult hit. People all around the world know every line from the movie and come running up to me on the street, quoting lines from the movie. It’s really been quite…a really fun thing to have made such an outrageous movie and see that it’s living on like that and people are discovering it every day. It’s in its whole other life. It’s been a good time, and part of touring is that I get to connect with people who responded to that crazy movie and enjoyed it.