Gettin’ trailer trashed
Julian of Trailer Park Boys describes how to get the perfect all-day buzz
Peter Vesuwalla

It’s 2 p.m. Halifax time and Julian’s not sure how many rum and Cokes he’s had.

“I don’t keep track of them,” he says as he drives back to his home at the Sunnyvale Trailer Park, cell phone in one hand, highball glass in the other. “The whole key to drinking the whole day every day is basically keeping a good pace. You don’t want to go too crazy.

“Like Lahey and Randy, they’ve got a problem with pace. They can’t pace themselves when they’re drinking so they end up getting wasted. But I maintain a good drunk level where I’m not too intoxicated and I’m not sober.

“It’s a mild buzz, but I do get ’er going every now and then on special occasions. Like if it’s Ricky or Bubbles’ birthday, I’ll get hammered and stay at it for a couple of days.”

So how frequently does Julian have to drink to maintain that mild buzz?

“About a drink every 15 minutes,” he says.

That may sound like a lot to the uninitiated, but fans of the Showcase program Trailer Park Boys know that Julian (actor John Paul Tremblay, who is doing this interview in-character) has built up a tolerance for alcohol by consuming massive amounts over a lengthy period of time.

After being a TV star for five years and now about to break into the movie biz, 38-year-old Julian can afford to maintain his lifestyle.

“If I ever go out to bars and stuff I never pay for drinks anymore. It’s kinda cool,” he says. “I’m getting lots of free liquor. If we go out we never have to wait in lineups anymore. There’s some drawbacks — you get some people who want to sit and talk to you about your life all night. Sometimes you’re not in the mood for that.”

On the whole, however, things are pretty good for Julian and his best friends, Ricky (Robb Wells) and Bubbles (Mike Smith). They live modestly, drink constantly, smoke a lot of weed and dream of the next big scam that will allow them to finally retire — provided it doesn’t land them in jail.

The Trailer Park Buys movie, directed by Mike Clattenburg, follows the trio in and out of prison after a botched ATM heist. It also documents their attempt to pull off Julian’s most ingenious scam to date: The Big Dirty, the theft of a ripe change machine at the local movie theatre.

Pulling off such jobs with a film crew around was a new experience for the boys.

“It was different,” Julian says. “The regular show had a smaller crew and they got us to do crazier things. But the movie was slow. They’d get us to do stuff over and over again. There’d be a much bigger crew coming in, waking you up early in the morning.

“There was a lot more liquor and smokes and stuff, which was a bonus. We actually got more wasted doing the movie than we would doing the TV show.”

A few other things in the Boys’ lives have also changed for the better. Julian’s love life, for example, improved after he met Wanda (Nichole Hiltz), the perfect woman for an ex-con such as him.

“She’s awesome,” Julian says, his voice becoming more excited as he verges on full-tilt couch-jumping mode. “She’s a good girl. She can understand what it’s like to be in jail. And, you know, she’s a stripper, so come on.”

So where is she right now?

“She’s at work right now,” he says. “She got out of jail a little while ago, so things are doing good. I don’t mind the guys looking at her. She brings in some great cash. It’s good to have a nice career woman.”

That doesn’t mean Julian can stop working altogether, however. His retirement plan, initially dubbed ‘Freedom 35,’ has been renamed ‘Freedom 37,’ and he’s already a year behind. But he assures me the next season of the show includes one of the best scams he’s ever come up with.

“I can’t say much, but it has to do with trains… and Sebastian Bach from Skid Row,” Julian says. “And we pulled it off, so things are great. In the past it was just nickel-and-dime stuff, siphoning gas and stealing stuff.

“Actually, for the season we just shot we went back to our old roots: stealing something. I can’t tell you really what it was. It didn’t work out so well, so I’m thinking big now. I really want to retire bad.”

While he doesn’t know how long the show will last, Julian says he, Ricky and Bubbles have no plans to ever leave Sunnyvale.

“We don’t want to leave,” he says. “If they want to continue following us around with a cameras and do another movie one of these days, we’d be happy to do it. It’s kind of fun being on TV.

“That’s something you’d never expect guys like us to be a part of.

“I think people root for us because we’re definitely underdogs. A lot of people can relate to us. A lot of people have grown up with people like Ricky, (me) and Bubbles. They can totally relate to what we’re going through.”

Julian arrives back at the park just as the interview is wrapping up, leaving just enough time to mix himself another drink before the next one starts.

“I think the key to life is not to sweat the small stuff,” he says philosophically.

“A lot of people get all screwed up over small problems. If we end up in jail it’s no big deal. While we’re in jail we think positively about what we’re gonna do when we’re on the outside. Life is good in the trailer park. You’ve got your friends, you’ve got your family, and that’s all you need.

“The thing with us is we don’t change for anybody. Even if we’re big Hollywood stars or whatever we’re still gonna be ourselves, and if they don’t like us… they can fuck off.”