Christopher’s funny fraternity

You might not think so, but interviewing the cast of “For Your Consideration” was one of the most difficult jobs of the Toronto International Film Festival.

Actors like Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge and Catherine O’Hara are so funny, it was nearly impossible to stop laughing and start asking more questions.

The film, which opened Friday, features many of the same cast members from director Christopher Guest’s previous improvised comedies, “Waiting for Guffman,” “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind.” This time, Mr. Guest and his talented colleagues turn their sharpened claws on themselves: “For Your Consideration” is a side-splitting send up of Hollywood.

But the cast isn’t worried that the film will hurt their own careers. “The one thing they can’t stand is being ignored,” Mr. Shearer (who voices many characters on “The Simpsons”) says of the actors and anchors parodied in the movie.

Every spoof is spot-on, but Catherine O’Hara’s aging actress, Marilyn Hack, is one of the best. The frequent close-ups and mentions of Marilyn’s maturing visage required Miss O’Hara to really put herself out there for the role. “When you’re younger, you don’t even think about it,” she says. “But then, unfortunately, you have to.”

Mr. Guest, who plays a director in the film, immediately pipes in. “It’s such an indictment,” he declares. “For women, Hollywood is not such fun. Now women are 21 and they say, ’There’s a 17-year-old.’ ”

Marilyn eventually opts for plastic surgery, and the result is funny and frightening. But Mr. Guest hopes audiences get a serious message from the satire, too. “It’s just absolute tragedy for her life now that she’s permanently scarred from this experience,” he says. “There are laughs in the movie. But I also wanted people to just say ’Wow’ at the end.”

Mr. Guest has an almost unprecedented amount of creative control over his films. His secret? A lower than low budget.

“A typical low-budget Hollywood movie will be $35 million. This movie’s $12 million,” he notes. “There is no category for that.”

His ensemble cast takes a pay cut to appear in his films. But Mr. Guest makes them work harder than usual — the dialogue in his films is all improvised.

Larry Miller remembers his first job for Mr. Guest, on “Waiting for Guffman.” “My first thought was, ’Great, no memorizing the script,’ ” he says. “Then I walked out of the office and thought, ’Oh, geez, that means coming up with your own lines.’ ”

Plenty of preparation comes before the improvisation. Jane Lynch (“Talladega Nights”) says she knows more about her character than the audience will ever see. Fred Willard (“Anchorman”) likes to practice with other cast members before filming. “I like to walk that tightrope a few times,” he says. One of his colleagues jokes, “Fred always comes in packing ammo.”

Mr. Guest says he’s often approached by actors who want to appear in one of his films. “For Your Consideration” marks the first time he’s given some well-known stars cameos. They include the British “The Office’s” Ricky Gervais and “Grey’s Anatomy’s” Sandra Oh.

“It’s not based on their fame,” Mr. Guest says. “There are hundreds of famous movie stars who couldn’t do that kind of work.”

Those who can, relish it. “If you’re up to this kind of work, and you don’t think of this as the best gig imaginable, something is seriously wrong with you,” declares Mr. Shearer.

“It’s not just that you know them. You trust them,” he says of his fellow collaborators. “You can relax. Christopher isn’t expecting you to hit a laugh mark every 10 seconds. You look around the set and realize everyone is capable of carrying the scene.”

Michael McKean (who appeared alongside Mr. Guest and Mr. Shearer in the cult-classic “This Is Spinal Tap”) agrees. “It’s also very fun and very liberating,” he says. “It exercises the right muscles in your brain. So that when you have to do something conventional afterwards, it’s kind of a breeze.”

Mr. Levy, co-writer with Mr. Guest of “For Your Consideration,” has done plenty of those conventional movies — the “American Pie” flicks, for example — to “put my kids through school,” he jokes.

“If you luck out and do a film that actually does well, as you well know, Catherine,” he says, speaking to his former “SCTV” colleague Miss O’Hara, “it helps, and they pay you more, and that’s great. In the world of acting, you don’t necessarily know where your next job is coming from.”

“I think every day about ideas for blockbuster movies,” he jokes. “If you get even a half-decent script that you can look at and say, ’Not bad,’ you’re way ahead of the game.”

Which is why working on a film with his longtime collaborators is so much fun.

“You look forward to these films because there’s a whole bunch of creative freedom on a lot of levels that you can’t find in any other project,” he says. “It’s hard for them not to turn out well when you have a cast like this.”