Part Deuce

Man Whore. Sugar Daddy. Henchman. These are some of the dirty words you can giggle about with your female friends, but have to hush-up around Grandma. The male sex has turned the tables of seduction and proven that working the streets isn’t just for the ladies.

“My favorite euphemism is ‘Prositdude,’” says Rob Schneider, the star in the early August comedic release Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.

Men of the world, do not be offended; it’s all in good fun. In his latest film, Schneider has returned as the comedic and blundering gigolo some of us grew to love in 1999’s Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, where he stuttered and stumbled onto our funny bones with his naive skills of sexing up some special ladies. Deuce is back and has returned to be sexually awkward once more in a grand European adventure.

“It’s set a couple of years later in Amsterdam and someone is killing gigolos,” explains 41-year-old Schneider about the film that was penned by The Simpsons writers. Deuce’s job is to find the alleged assassin, and to do it, he has to lend his body to some European clients.

“It’s fun because it’s European gigolos who are snobby because they’re not circumcised,” Schneider says during a phone interview last May, while filming for the movie was still in progress.

If you ask Schneider, a sequel would go over big because so many people said they liked the first one.

Many of the precious moments from the first film, Male Gigolo, are the encounters Schneider has with the interesting female escorts. Deuce was sweet and shy, so his gigolo approach was — instead of giving sexual favors to his clients — doing things to raise their self-esteem.

“I liked the girl who had Tourette’s [syndrome],” says Schneider about a Male Gigolo character who suffered from a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary body movements and sometimes obscene vocal outbursts. “The narcoleptic with the tying her hair and the soup was great.”

The sequel, European Gigolo, begins with Deuce perfecting his henchman skills at a gigolo school in Britain, but he finds himself very low on the totem pole of gigolo society. And, of course, the film continues the trend of having Deuce date woman with whom no one else would cuddle. One in particular is Katrina, a woman with a “male appendage on her face” that happens to do what a male appendage does when she gets sexually aroused.

Over the years, the San Francisco native has appeared in several other films and has had the opportunity to work with many other comedians from all walks of life.

“I liked shooting with David Spade,” Schneider says.

“I’m working on another sports film with Adam Sandler and working with the Napoleon Dynamite guy,” says Schneider referring to Jon Heder, the actor who played Napoleon in the 2004 instant classic. “He’s the funniest guy I’ve ever worked with — he really talks like that!”

So the comedy thing is a fun job for Schneider.

“I love comedy,” he says. “It’s the hardest to do. I just wanna do something that pleases me.”

Shooting the first Deuce adventure was a different experience for Schneider, although he enjoyed it immensely.

“It was a guilty pleasure for people,” he says with a laugh, admitting he liked to sneak into the back of theaters to watch people’s reactions to the film.

“Test the movie and see how you can tighten it up,” he says about taking in consideration audience’s reactions. If people don’t think a scene is funny, he tries to fix it. But if they don’t even laugh, he melts in the heat.

“It’s like a sauna in there,” he says.

Maybe, Schneider says, it’s because audiences are getting more conservative and it’s time for a different kind of humor.

“Napoleon Dynamite doesn’t swear once,” says Schneider. “Audience attention span is getting shorter. Things change — you gotta wing it and see what happens.”

Of course, nobody likes a critic. In Schneider’s case, not even the toughest one can bring down his love for the natural high of comedy.

“If you go through life trying to please people, you’ll never be happy,” Schneider says. “If I’m laughing and the Simpsons guys are laughing, then I’m happy. [Film critic Roger Ebert] is nine ham sandwiches away from choking.”

So he takes critics’ words with a grain of salt.

Besides, “If it weren’t for comedians, no one would know what Tourette’s syndrome was,” says Schneider.

Schneider offers guidance to anyone looking to make good comedy, and warns that censorship limits our freedoms.

“It’s gotta make you laugh — exaggerate real life. Watch people … watch a guy, watch a guy freak out. If someone falls down, I’m sorry, but that’s funny,” he says. “We have to be careful not to censor our society. It’s our art and our freedom of expression. Be careful how you censor yourself. Be open to it.”

Thanks for the advice Schneider, but give us something we can actually use. How about a trick of the gigolo trade?

“I would charge $15,” he says. “And get it up front.”

Contact reporter Lauren Effron at l.effron@dbk.umd.edu