Cross and a Chipette share horror stories about working with Richard Gere

David Cross rightly gets a lot of nerd street cred for his comedy, his work on Arrested Development, and his show (The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret) on IFC, which is kind of like a lesser-appreciated version of Louis CK’s show. But he’s never been shy about saying he does those Chipmunk movies to pay the billzz$ (speaking specifically of his now-famous blog post about trying to trade his artistic integrity for a small cottage upstate, but realizing the “rural rube” who owned it wouldn’t accept his indie cred as currency). Which makes it a little more interesting that he now seems fully soured on the experience, telling ThePlaylist that making “Chipwrecked” (the Squ3quel) was the most unpleasant experience of his career.

“I’m contractually done,” he said during press rounds for his television show “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.” “I was contractually obligated to do three, which is kinda standard.”

“This last film was literally, without question, the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had in my professional life,” he says of ‘Chip-Wrecked,’ where he reprises his role of record executive Ian. Without naming names, he says, “It’s safe to say I won’t be working with some of those people ever again. Not the actors. And the director [Mike Mitchell] was great. We got along. There were a couple of people, though…it was just a really awful, unpleasant experience.” Which isn’t to say the entire ‘Chipmunks’ experience has been rotten for him. “I got recognized in China,” he says, listing off the places ‘Chipmunks’ has taken him. “I got recognized in a teeny tiny town in Mozambique. In Zimbabwe. Botswana. It’s crazy.”

Excluding the creatives, you have to assume he’s talking about a team at the production company (Bagdasarian Prod, Regency Enterprises, and TCF Vancouver, according to IMDB) or at Fox. Or maybe he means Andy Serkis. I hear that guy can be a real f*ckin’ prima donna. But man, you’ve never seen CGI chipmunks so life-like!

[full interview at ThePlaylist, Todd Margaret starts January 6th.]