LA TIMES CALENDAR

Under the picture:

BATTER UP: Fallon gives romantic comedy a whirl, starring as an obsessed baseball devotee forced to chose between love and the Red Soxs in the farrelly brothers' comedy "Fever Pitch."

Calendar Los Angeles Time April 10, 2005

Breif Encounter - FANNING OUT IN A NEW DIRECTION JIMMY FALLON SPREADS HIS POST-'SNL,' wings on film.

Born in The Bronx but raised in Saugrties in Upsatate New York, 30- year-old Jimmy Fallon wrapped up seven season and began concentrating on his movie career.In Petter and Bobby Farrelly's "Fever Pitch," which oopened froiday, he plays an extreme Boston Red Sox fan and math teacher who falls in love with Drew barrymore's high-powered business consultant. Calendar caught up with the rapid-talking Fallon a week ago via cellerphone while he was being ferried around in L.A. doing publicity.

You've been doing comedy for most if not all of your adult life. Were you funny as a kid?

I guess so. My parents are both funny, and my grandparents who lives next door when I was growing up were also very funny. So were my father's parents. Peoplewere always singing songs and telling jokes. And I remember watching "Saturday Night Live" when I was like 6 or 7. We're the same age our birthdays are in September. Loren [michales, producer of "SNL"] I thought it was weird that the show and I are exactly the same.

Who were your inspirations?

My parents. I also used to tape Steve Martin and Richard Pryor monologues off the TV on this reel-to-reel tape recorder I got at a garage sale or somewhere. I was kind of obsessed as a kid with "SNL" the way my character was with the Sox.

Growing up as a New York native, where did your baseball loyalty lie? I was more of a Yankees fan, but as usual, nothing like the guy i played in the movie. Lorne took us to games sometimes-he had the greatest seats ever.

You filmed scenes at Fenway Park during the World series, Fenway Park is the holy grail of baseball.You have to see it. You can smell the grass, you can hear the players. It's a really awsome moment to see a game at Fenway Park, whether you like the Sox or not.

In the movie, your character is very quick witted, Were your lines mostly from the script?

The writers [Lowell Ganz and babaloo mandel] left the room for ad- libbing, but the script when we got it was really good. When I got the part, we all got together with Drew out on Martha's Vineyyard and went over the script with Babaloo and Lowell. We gave them some suggestions and they used them when they thought they would work.

When Ben, your character, met Lindsay, drew's caharater, herfriends and her parents, were those lines in the Series? The lines when I met her parents were written, but for the scene meeting the friends the lines given to me by Bobby or Peter on the day the scene was shot.We tried serveral diffrent ones, and the best one ended up in the movie.

Do you do much writting yourself? I once tried tokeep a dream journal, thinking it would help me be funnier, but never seemed to remeber to do it. I would look at my datebook and realized it had been weeks since I'd writtenanything, so gave it up. I did write a joke book with my sister, Gloria, called "I Hate This Place:The Pessimist's Guide to Life." It's one of those books with one joke per page.

Your bio indicates you worked with the Groundlings in L.A. and toured clubs all over the country.

The groundlings, it's the grreatest thing ever. I recommed it to anyone who wants to do comedy. I did clubs in Boston and Toronto; Mike McDonald on "Mad TV" is one of my teachers. The Improve in L.A. is a great place. The pay is terrible, something like $8.25 a set, but they feed you. My mom was glad because she knew i was eating.

Including " Pitch Fever," you've done four movies. Now about that last one...

Well [chuckling], when I did "Taxi,"I was leaving "SNL" at the time, and I thought if I leave and don't have a movie, I won't have anything to motivate me. Tim Story, the director, did a great job with "Barbershop." I still think the idea with Queen Latifah and me chasing those women as they rob banks is pretty funny. Even if the movie didn't do well. I traveled back and forth during shooting while I was still doing "Fever Pitch," I didn't have another job, so I was focused on the movie.

What are you reading right now?

"Father Joe" by Tony Hendra. I picked up "How I Became Stupid" [Martin Page] about a guy who was really smart, but miserable.

Where will you be when the movie opens?

At my parents', but I'm meeting them in Boston for the premire. We'll do the red carpet thing at Fenway Park then I heard over to the AMC then to the place called the Avalon for the party.All of it's for charity. The Farrellys, those guys are so amazing. They are involved with so many charities. We've done one thing after another. I've never seen anything like it. -R. Kinsey Lowe

Thanks so much to Joyce for typing this all out!