Andrew Dice Clay is back. Actually, he’s been back for a long time. From his acclaimed turn in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine to his autobiography The Filthy Truth, Andrew Dice Clay has been back in the spotlight. Of course, he never really left. His book ends with his 2000 Madison Square Garden gig, and he’s been performing consistently his entire career.

We can say Dice is back on television though. His new Showtime series Dice stars Dice as himself, during the time when he moved his family to Las Vegas. The semi-autobiographical show is filled with Las Vegas cameos, but when we spoke in January at the Television Critics Association press tour, Clay was surprised to see his own trailer appear on the network that early. Dice premieres Sunday, April 10, 2016 on Showtime.

Andrew Dice Clay Interview:

Was the last year really big for you, after Blue Jasmine and your autobiography came out?

Andrew Dice Clay: “It’s getting crazy, that’s for sure. I’m excited about the show. It was shocking to me because I was watching Shameless and all of a sudden I’m like, ‘What is this? They didn’t tell me they were going to start airing this yet.'”

Does the show pick up where your book ended?

Andrew Dice Clay: “No, none of that is in the book. The book ends in the year 2000. This would be 2009 or ’10, in a hybrid way.”

Is anything too much for Showtime?

Andrew Dice Clay: “No. You know what? It’s the first time I’ve been allowed to just go, to be the performer I want to be in front of a camera as far as a sitcom situation. On script, off script, Scot Armstrong who runs the show had no problem when I would go off script, off book or whatever, and come up with something. The two of us really work well as one.”

What about on Entourage? Were you able to be free on that?

Andrew Dice Clay: “With Entourage it was funny because I would just show up at Doug Ellin’s house with rewrites. One time I showed up with my son, and I’d hand write this stuff in capital letters. He’s sitting outside and he looks at my son and he goes, ‘Could you imagine if all my actors just showed up with 13 or 14 new pages? Even typed out it’s eight pages.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, but I’m going to do it fast.’ He was great to work with too and because of Doug in a way, this has all happened. When he gave me Entourage, he basically said, ‘You’re going to do one season and wait ‘til you see what happens with your career.’ And he was right, so I give him that credit.”

What’s the line between the Dice we’ll see on the show and the real Dice?

Andrew Dice Clay: “You’re going to live with me 24 hours a day which isn’t that simple. The personality, or personalities that I have, and I’m not talking like Sybil, meaning I’m a complicated guy. So from moment to moment, you don’t know where I’m headed. That’s in reality or on the show.”

Is more of the show improvised or scripted?

Andrew Dice Clay: “It’s a scripted show which was crazy for me to learn. I never had a photographic memory until I did this show because we were shooting so many pages a day. We were shooting 12 pages a day. That’s a lot of dialogue to take in and I’m in just about every scene. I’d hardly sleep, show up at the set early, start learning that day’s lines because it was just too much to learn every night. I got good at it. I was proud of myself for it because I wanted to do the written lines. They were great. The writers on the show, it’s all movie guys. It’s not even TV people, from the producers to the writers. So it’s an honor to work with those kind of guys. The kind of comedies like Old School and Hangover, it’s a big deal to me so I really wanted to learn it, and then I put my twist on it.”

Do we get to see any of your standup performance on Dice?

Andrew Dice Clay: “No, it’s not about that. I don’t do any performing in the show.”

It’s about your time in Las Vegas though, right?

Andrew Dice Clay: “Well, coming back into Vegas. It’s not about the actual being on stage.”

Have you seen Wayne Newton since The Adventures of Ford Fairlane?

Andrew Dice Clay: “You know what? The last time I ran into Wayne, I was doing the Stardust Hotel. That had to be over 10 years ago, maybe even 12 years ago. He came out of his dressing room and put me in a headlock. That’s when he met my sons for the first time. Working with Wayne was great because Wayne is one of the greatest guys in the world. He’s just one of the nicest guys there are. He always was from the day I met him. We just picked up where we left off but he’s funny in this. Everybody’s funny in it. You’ve got Academy Award winners that are just comedically hysterical in this thing. I was shocking to me because you work with somebody like Adrien Brody, look at the movies this guy’s done. He was just hysterical. Michael Rappaport, amazing. Criss Angel, amazing. Just everybody in the show just really brought it because on the set, you could feel that this is a hit. Everything was just flowing. It’s the first time I’ve worked on a set where there isn’t animosity against one or two of the producers or the bullsh*t that always goes on. There was none of that. It was just fun.”

Was writing and producing the show as vulnerable as writing the book was? Because you went there in the book.

Andrew Dice Clay: “Yeah, but this is just the first season. There’s heart to the show. That’s what I wanted to make sure. When me and Scot would talk about it, my look at any great comedy, whether it’s a movie or a sitcom, has heart. Even when you watch a show like Mike & Molly, Billy Gardell’s such a great actor that he brought a lot of heart to his part. So did Melissa [McCarthy]. So you can be as nutty as you want on any show that’s a comedy as long as you have those few scenes that show the heart of the person.”

I do wonder, what does Dice think of texting and Tinder, the way men and women hook up these days?

Andrew Dice Clay: “You know what? I got my girl so I haven’t been in that world in seven years. Number one, I wouldn’t even know how to do that stuff. Texting I can do, but yeah, it’s just amazing. I’ll do bits on things like Tinder, all the stuff that goes on with the computer because it all goes to porn no matter how you look at it. That’s just the world we live in. That’s what it is. To be able to look at somebody and go, ‘Yeah, come on over. I’m three miles away.’ It’s so crazy. Even my sons aren’t into it and they’re 21 and 25. They’re like, ‘It’s just not the way it should be.’ They even know that. What happened to meeting someone, talking, getting their number? What I listen to at home, I’ve actually seen it come down. They meet a girl, you see the girl really likes him and then a week later they’re fighting in text. They haven’t even gotten together for the cup of coffee yet. It’s always like everybody cancels. Years ago you just call up, ‘Hey, what are you doing? You wanna get together? All right, tomorrow.’ It wasn’t like text two hours earlier: Oh, I’m with my girlfriends. It’s so hard to meet someone today even with all these Tinders and all these different outlets to meet people. It’s awful. It’s just awful. And these are guys that are looking for what we would call a nice girl, a quality person, not just a hookup. And they’re actually rock n’ roll guys but they like somebody of quality, not quantity.”

Your standup persona is considered a bad boy.

Andrew Dice Clay: “Definitely.”

Now there are guys who seriously consider themselves Men’s Rights Activists. What do you think of those guys?

Andrew Dice Clay: “I don’t even know what that would mean.”

They’re men who feel like they’re the persecuted minority and they’re going to fight for their rights.

Andrew Dice Clay: “Let me tell you something, it’s all role reversal today. It’s all role reversal. The women have become the aggressors for sure, in and out of the sack. It’s fun to watch. I get a kick out of it because before I was with my wife Valerie, I was going through it, just one after the other. My kids watched the revolving door in my house. They couldn’t even believe what they were seeing, and it was fun. There was actually a girl I was seeing, I don’t even remember her name. My oldest son who’s now 25, he was probably 18 or 17 at the time, he goes to the gym and he messed up his back. So I asked a girl, ‘Would you give him a little back rub?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, sure, send him in.’ So I go to my son and I say, ‘Max, you’re going to get your back rubbed in a minute. How’s that sound?’ And he goes, ‘Oh, dad, that would be great.’ And I go, ‘And she’s really strong.’ So I go back into my room and the girl is in see-through and a thong. I go, ‘What are you doing?’ She goes, ‘Well, I’m going to massage your son.’ I go, ‘Wait here a minute.’ I go to my son and go, ‘Forget the massage. As your father I cannot let you walk in that room.’ I came back in and I go, ‘What is wrong with you? He’s 17 years old. You’re naked. That’s not what we’re looking for.’ They’re out of control today.”

So if men have trouble with the balance, you enjoy watching them squirm?

Andrew Dice Clay: “It’s not about watching them squirm. It’s just completely flipped. I do that material on stage. I talk about how years ago, if a girl got on top, she would throw a lazy leg over. I go, ‘Today, women f*** back. Years ago they’d throw a lazy leg and sit there like they’re waiting for a bus. Today they stand over you and they snarl like Stallone in a Rocky movie. They’re angry and they just go nuts today.’ For me, once I became single that was fun, but my guys, my boys are actually looking for something solid, like a real person. Like I say, someone of quality, not just to have sex with. A lot of the new generation today of women, it’s just all about hooking up. They couldn’t care less. It means nothing.”

I was glad you wrote about Brain Smasher in your book and you really poured your heart out about Teri Hatcher. Did you ever reconnect with her?

Andrew Dice Clay: “No. The only reason I brought that up, there’ve been other situations in movies and TV where I’ve, as you say, hooked up with a girl but I felt she was a very special person on top of her talent. I really did, even though I would consider that a B movie, she was an A-list actress. She put her heart in it. Yeah, it was a certain time in my relationship. It wasn’t about having an affair. It’s about that’s where I felt I was left mentally. We opened up our hearts to each other a little and it didn’t go on that long, but to this day I think she’s a very special person.”

With everyone bringing everything from the past back, has anyone suggested a new Ford Fairlane?

Andrew Dice Clay: “Every day I’m asked about Ford Fairlane Part 2. I think I could still physically do it. I’m not 29 years old anymore. If the right script was given to me, I think it’s a slam dunk because forget about the controversy that surrounded Dice. That was a hit movie that got pulled out of theaters in a week because of my controversy. That’s what the book was really supposed to be about, how intense that was. There was all kinds of death threats I would go through, all kinds of sh*t. When my son Max was born, we had ex-FBI guys in the hospital nursery. There were two guys on my wife’s room, two guys on my son, 24 hour security. Some of them were ex-SEALs.”

It seems like now is the time. If they’re even bringing back Full House, they can certainly bring back Ford Fairlane.

Andrew Dice Clay: “Yeah, yeah, I heard about that. Everything Bob Saget fought to be against, but I can’t blame him. He was great in that role. I love Saget. I always have.”

There’d be 25 years of music for Ford Fairlane to deal with now.

Andrew Dice Clay: “That is fun. Especially that my boys are in a band called Still Rebel. They’re recording their first album now. Some of their music’s in the show. They play themselves in the show. It’s scripted but they’re who they are in reality. From this meeting, I go to a recording session tonight.”

I always enjoyed the bit where you did jokes from the women’s perspective. Was that easy to get your head into?

Andrew Dice Clay: “Yeah, it was. It was my second special called ‘For Ladies Only’ where I would talk about guys not putting the cap on the toothpaste and leaving the lid up on the toilet, all the things that make us *ssholes. It was the rap. The press got into the whole thing, ‘He’s a bad boy. He’s controversial.’ A lot of the things I talk about are true but for whatever reason, maybe it was the fact I was doing 20,000 people a night five days a week. It scared a lot of the media, like why are thousands of people, before the internet, before followers, before tweeting, before all that sh*t, that I would just sell out an arena in a half hour. It scared the media when in my mind, it was like the next step is movie stardom. I just love entertaining. That’s all it was about to me.”