Amy Schumer Based That “Pathetic” Men’s Mag Editor From Trainwreck on Me
Former Schumer pal Bill Schulz says the comedy superstar skewered him in her smash movie.
Amy Schumer is totally crushing it. She has an Emmy-winning TV show, just hosted Saturday Night Live, signed a multimillion dollar book deal, and is set to boost her A-list comedy cred even higher with an HBO stand-up special premiering on Saturday.
Schumer also happens to be a former on-air colleague of mine from when I was co-host of Fox News Channel’s Red Eye With Greg Gutfeld, and she was a rising stand-up and frequent guest on the late-night show. Red Eye featured a wildly eclectic roundtable of comics, pundits, journalists, politicians, ex-CIA operatives, Avenue Q puppets, and even the dearly departed frontman for GWAR, Oderus Urungus.
But here’s the thing: I only recently learned that Schumer based a character on me in her movie Trainwreck—a character who is a complete and utter jackass. Amy! If you’re reading this, still love ya, babe. We can work through this. Everyone else, pull up a chair and listen to my strange tale of cinematic woe…
The last time I had any contact with Schumer was last summer, when I emailed her asking for a quote for a freelance magazine column. Despite not going through the proper protocol of hitting up her respective managers, PR reps, talent agents and Pilates instructors, Schumer kindly, and promptly, provided me with a satisfying soundbite. I filed the story comfortable in the knowledge that we were still friends, and that fame had not gone to her adorable head.
That was three days before the premiere of Trainwreck.
Immediately after the release of the movie—which debuts on-demand Nov. 10— I started receiving a flurry of texts from friends, former co-workers and frazzled family members.
“You do realize you’re in Trainwreck, yeah?”
“Dude, you’re in Schumer’s movie! And…it ain’t good!”
“You’re in Trainwreck! And you’re an asshole! (In the movie.)”
Jon Glaser’s”Schultz” in Trainwreck, being douchey.
The asshole in question was played by the actor and writer Jon Glaser, who has appeared on Inside Amy Schumer,Parks and Recreation, Girls and Louie. His spazzy-haired (and spazzier-behaving) character is named “Schultz”, whomThe Hollywood Reporterdescribed as “Amy’s pathetic coworker at [S’nuff] magazine”.
My last name is Schulz. I was an editor at the now-defunct men’s mag Stuff (see what Amy did there?). I have spazzy hair. And for about four years, I was a friendly cohort of Schumer’s when she appeared onRed Eye. She was wonderful and hilarious every time, by the way, including this show from 2010 (check it out if only for the amazing opening sequence of a turtle attacking a cat.).
Bill Schulz on Red Eye, being zany.
While I never so much as remotely hit on her (though I probably would have tried, if she wasn’t on-and-off with fellow comic Anthony Jeselnik in those days). Schumer once suggested that we make out at the end of an episode, during the host’s goodbyes to the guests. To which I coolly replied, “Uhhhhh…OKAY!!!!”
My first attempt at a stage kiss was met with Amy wiping her mouth as we went to commercial and exclaiming, “Wow…you really went for it there, didn’t you?”
Schulz and Schumer smooch (awkwardly) on Red Eye.
I suppose I did. But throughout the four years that we worked—and drank—together, I always assumed we were nothing but the best of…more-than-acquaintances/kinda-pals.
My friend Noelle Hancock—who actually portrayed me quite nicely in her 2011 memoir, My Year With Eleanor—texted me the most cutting critique of my Trainwreck character, after taking in Schumer’s tour de farce.
“Your character: ‘I’m thinking about pitching an article about masturbating in the office without getting caught. Already working on the research right now!’ Totally something you would say. LOL!”
That’s totally something I would NOT say. If anything that’s something Amy would say. In fact, of the hundreds of hacky first-person articles I’ve written over the years, none have covered any real sexual ground. (Well, there may have been one outlier, but I used a pseudonym!)
When I eventually emailed Amy to further inquire about this out-of-nowhere roast-of-a-nobody (that’d be me), my emails were mysteriously returned after being blocked by the recipient.
Hmmm.
So I decided to shell out $12 (and that’s not even counting the egregious amount of cash spent on a bag of yummy Twizzlers) to check out this big screen de-balling for myself.
You know how the Meryl Streep character in The Devil Wears Prada is not so loosely based on Vogue editor, Anna Wintour? Well this was kind of like that. Except less with the “haute couture” and more with the “ejaculation premature.”
Downside: Glaser calls himself an “actor” and yet he didn’t so much as ask to follow me around for a week so as to get into my super-holey shoes. Upside: At least I got to hear Tilda Swinton, who plays S’nuff’s editor in chief, angrily yell out my name a whole bunch. (Note: Publicists for both Schumer and Glaser declined repeated requests for comment.)
Oh, well.
All in all, this odd little experience has been less a punch to the gut and more a gut-busting laugh…but I’d still love to know why she did it.
That said? Writing a whiny rant describing my own little fifteen minutes of infamy is SO something Jon Glaser’s character would do.
UPDATE: Soon after this story was published, Schumer responded via Twitter: “No its not. It’s based on a comic I don’t like.”
Bill Schulz writes about museums for the New York Times. Follow him on Twitter at @BillSchulz.
Read This Next
