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Chevy Chase calls 'Community' role a 'big mistake'

There are celebrities who barely speak or stay incredibly on message when they're interviewed. And then there is Chevy Chase. The longtime actor and current co-star of "Community" gave an interview to Huffington Post UK at the show's season two DVD launch party and he reveals, among many other things, that his participation in the show is some kind of "mistake." But at least it pays the bills."It
Chevy Chase.
Chevy Chase.Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images file / Today

There are celebrities who barely speak or stay incredibly on message when they're interviewed. And then there is Chevy Chase. The longtime actor and current co-star of "Community" gave an interview to Huffington Post UK at the show's season two DVD launch party and he reveals, among many other things, that his participation in the show is some kind of "mistake." But at least it pays the bills.

"It was a big mistake! I saw this pilot script, thought that it was funny, and I went into the room where they were casting and said, 'I would love to play this guy,'" Chase told HuffPo. "Then they mulled it over. Then they hired me and I just sort of hung around because I have three daughters and a wife, and I figured out I might as well make some bread, every week, so I can take care of them in the way they want.

"My wife has just been in the Antarctic, and Cuzco in Peru, and Lima, and Machu Picchu ... she likes to travel. That was about a month of traveling, and that will take about a year of work."

Chase, whose credited work more often skews toward film rather than television, says that making movies is definitely his preference.

"I prefer movies because the money is better and certainly because you really know where you stand when you are making movies, and I have made a lot of them: 50 something, I don't know. The hours in this kind of show are not commensurate with the actual product. The hours are hideous, and it's still a sitcom on television, which is probably the lowest form of television. That's my feeling about it." The reason Chase sticks around: he says he really likes his fellow cast mates. "I think the reason I have stuck around is because I love these kids, the cast -- they are very good."

Money is definitely an overwhelming thread in the very lengthy interview, and potential earnings appear to drive Chase's thinking on the career decisions that he regrets. "I turned down "Forrest Gump," I turned down "American Gigolo," there are many films -- like 'Ghostbusters' -- that  I turned down," he said. "So all those I regret only because they made huge amounts of money and I would be very wealthy."

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