Chesapeake-based pop culture writer Will Harris collaborates with Airplane! creators on book chronicling the iconic comedy film
By Chelsea Sherman
When Will Harris started writing about pop culture for his high school newspaper in the 1980s, he never would have imagined he would one day interview the likes of David Letterman and Judd Apatow. But years of dedication to his craft and perfecting the art of interviewing celebrities led him to a once-in-a-lifetime project this past year: collaborating with the creators of one of the most famous film comedies of all time to write a book about it.
Harris grew up in Chesapeake and graduated with his journalism degree from Averett University in 1992, but it wasn’t until 2006 that he got his first full-time journalism job as a staff writer for Bullz-Eye.com.
“It was a great gig because I essentially had carte blanche to interview and write about whatever I wanted, and that was usually pop culture,” Harris says. He joined the Television Critics Association and began attending their press tours, where he met celebrities, did set visits and formed relationships with publicists.
When his stint at Bullz-Eye.com ended, Harris began writing for AV Club, where he became known for his “Random Roles” character actor interviews. To date, Harris has done more than 200 Random Roles interviews, featuring actors like Don Cheadle, Rob Lowe and Christina Ricci.
What makes Harris’ Random Roles interviews so intriguing is his ability to get actors to open up and share unique, fun—and sometimes off-the-wall—tidbits about their lives, the roles they’ve played, and the interesting things that happen on and off set.
In 2015, Harris took his interviewing prowess to the next level, writing a piece for AV Club titled Surely you can’t be serious: An oral history of Airplane! The article was released in anticipation of Airplane! being shown at the Wild West Comedy Festival in Nashville for the movie’s 35th anniversary. It featured interviews with the movie’s creators and many of the cast members.
The piece was published in May of 2015. In December of 2016, David Zucker, one of the movie’s co-directors and writers, sent Harris an email with the subject line “Freelance Work.”
“He told me that he, his brother Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams had been talking about writing a book about Airplane!, and someone suggested involving ‘the guy who wrote the AV Club piece that didn’t suck.’ It took a while to get the ball rolling, and the pandemic slowed things down, too. But at the end of 2022, David told me they had a contract with the publisher and it was time to expand on the interviews.”
Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! was released on October 3, 2023.
The book features some interviews from Harris’s original AV Club piece, but it expands well beyond it to celebrities like David Letterman, who auditioned for the movie when he was still very early in his career.
Harris also interviewed celebrities who were inspired by Airplane’s deadpan, slapstick brand of comedy. And there is no shortage of big names on that list. Harris’s interview subjects include Judd Apatow, Jimmy Kimmel, and South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
“I saw Airplane! for the first time at the Great Bridge Twin on Battlefield Boulevard,” Harris says. “It was extremely influential for me, which made working on this book a dream gig.”
So, what interviews are up next for Harris? He was recently made Senior Editor for Q Magazine, so you can find his latest pop culture pieces there.
Photos courtesy of Will Harris
