Baron Vaughn on ‘Grace and Frankie,’ ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ and Riding a Giant Mechanical Penis

Near the end of the first season of Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, the four grown children of two gay men try and answer one of the 21st century’s essential and imponderable questions:

What’s the appropriate taste level for a gay bachelor party for two recently-out lawyers in their 70s? Is it a suit-and-tie cocktail at their conservatively apportioned home or a front-yard rodeo with a mechanical bull in the shape of a giant penis?

As it turns out — mechanical bull in the shape of a giant penis.

In one of the funniest scenes from the show’s first season, Baron Vaughn, playing a very, VERY drunk Bud attempts to mount — get on top of? ride? I’m struggling for words here — the giant schmeckle and hide it with a handful of helium balloons before the neighbors see it.

We sat down with Vaughn to talk about Season 2 of the show, his career as an actor and stand-up comedian, and his work on the upcoming reboot of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

DECIDER: I guess we should start with the giant penis?

Baron Vaughn: [Laughs.] If I had a dime for every time I’ve been asked that question.

I won’t ask if that’s the largest penis you’ve ever been on. That would be inappropriate.

I mean, the answer is yes. That was actually an interesting bit. When I read it in the script, I was like What? A giant mechanical bull penis? That’s amazing. I’m gonna have to make that work. And you know what? I threw my back out making comedy.

What was it like when you saw that the first time? Did everyone gather around it like it was the lamp from A Christmas Story?

Fra-gi-le! I stayed away from it. I had to take a tutorial. There was a stunt man. There was the guy operating it. Everyone was trying to make sure nobody got hurt. As you know, penises can hurt people, so we had to be careful.

Is the wide shot of you spinning around on it you or the stunt man?

You know what? No comment. [Laughs.]

I didn’t see the show when it came out last year and watched the 13-episode first season over the last few weeks know I was going to talk to you about it, and it’s interesting that the fact you don’t look like the rest of your family doesn’t even come up until Episode 8.

Television production is an insane thing. The writers and the producers had an idea what will happen over the entire season, but it grows and changes as you make it. You write it on the page, but you don’t know what it’s going to look like until you see it on the set. Once you start seeing the footage and who has chemistry and what their strengths are, they incorporated those things more and more.

The actors are the last people to see anything. By the time I see a script, it’s been through five, six, ten drafts. I had no idea where they were going to go with my character until about a week before we shot each episode, so I had no idea how much my character’s background was going to come up until I see each script.

Did you have a conversation with producers shooting the early episodes where you said, “Hey guys, why am I the only black guy?”

Oh, yeah. Definitely. The character’s first name is Nwabudike, which is an African name, so my question was how much that would or would not be addressed. Everyone had different answers because they were still writing him. I think he was originally supposed to have been adopted from Uganda, and then when I was cast I remember talking to people about how I don’t look Ugandan. If anything, he would be from Ethiopia or Eretria, which is what I look like.

It isn’t really addressed in Season 2 either. It’s complex. He’s black but he was raised by these Jewish people, and that’s all he’s ever known. I’d love to see that explored more.

Bud seems like the most even-keeled character on the show. You certainly see that in the elevator episode in the first season.

He tries to come off as the most even-keeled. He tries to come off like nothing bothers him and makes himself available to shoulder the burden of whatever is going on with them. That’s something that does come up in Season 2. He’s so busy attending to everybody else that he forgets what’s going on with him.

This is a show with, essentially, a family of four parents and four adult children and this unusual relationship swap with the parents. It sounds contrived on paper, but it doesn’t seem absurd as you watch what’s happening episode by episode. Why do you think that is?

I appreciate hearing that. You know, everyone has a parent and a lot of people can relate to things falling apart and having to pick up the pieces. The four adult children set up their lives around the idea of their parents being together and they have this set of values based on what their parents have taught them, and now their parents are going back on those things. A lot of people can relate to those relationships.

You have an academic theater background?

I went to Boston University for theater. When I went to college I started doing stand-up comedy, and I’ve been doing stand-up comedy now for 16 years. Before this show, I was on Fairly Legal on USA, and there was a three- or four-year gap where I was doing stand-up and guest-star roles for TV. When I was in New York I did a few plays, but theater isn’t as much of the fabric of L.A. as it is New York.

I had a bit part in a Broadway play [Drowning Crow with Anthony Mackie and Alfre Woodard] right after I got out of college, and from that I ended up getting an agent, working in commercials and doing stand-up. I did stand-up at a lot of colleges — like 200 colleges — over the next few years. Even once I started getting more TV work, I’ve continued doing a lot of stand-up. I’m going back to Boston for a show this weekend.

Did you have a moment after Fairly Legal where you had to decide whether to go back to New York to do theater auditions or to stay in L.A. for film and TV?

I was definitely stuck for a little bit. There were a few years when I was trying to keep things together with stand-up and guest-star roles. I was a staff writer at Funny or Die when I auditioned for Grace and Frankie. I was piecing things together and trying to figure out if I wanted to go back to New York or stay in L.A. — or even whether to stay in the industry at all. It’s hard. I ended up staying in L.A. and luckily Grace and Frankie came along.

You’re working on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot. How far along is that?

We’re doing, I believe, 14 episodes. We’re writing right now and about halfway through that. In August, we’re going to start recording the voice work and shooting the interstitial scenes.

The show is built around people talking over old movies. What period of movies are you using?

It’s all over the place. There’s movies from the ’60s through the ’90s.

Movies people would recognize or more intentionally obscure?

People would recognize a few of the movies, but they’re mostly obscure. And absurd. They were quote “bad movies,” and I put quotes around that because they’re something really good about how bad they are. The silliness of how bad they are is what redeems them.

I went to see Caveman’s Valentine in the theater years ago with a couple of friends. It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

What’s it called?

Caveman’s Valentine. Samuel L. Jackson plays a homeless man who lives in Central Park. We were the only three people in the theater, so we heckled it out loud. Every time I read something about the Mystery Science Theater 3000 reboot, I think about that.

That’s the essence of the show and what people love about it. It has that feeling of you and your good friends watching a bad movie together. The films are sci-fi and fantasy, and they’re from an era when people were trying to make small-budget films like that who had no skill for it. We have this glut of just terrible movies.

Do you write to leave yourself a lot of room to improvise? How will that work?

We’ll definitely have room to improvise. A lot of the riffs will be scripted, but the days we tape we’ll have plenty of room for live riffs. It has to have that feeling of talking with your friends.

[Watch Grace and Frankie on Netflix]

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider. He is also a contributing writer for Biographile and The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.