Tattle: Bill Maher and his 'Religulous'

IN HIS BEST-SELLING book "God Is Not Great," author

Christopher Hitchens

attacked organized religion with a scalpel. In

Bill Maher

's new film, "Religulous" (

Gary Thompson

's review on Page 44), sure to offend any devout Christians, Jews or Muslims (Zoroastrians come away unscathed),

Maher uses a chainsaw, a cream pie and a whoopie cushion.

Maher and director Larry Charles ("Borat") spoke about the film with Tattle and a dozen other reporters at the Intercontinental Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival last month - the day after a screening picketed by protesters.

Q: "How are you doing?"

Charles: "We're alive still?"

Q: "Watching the protesters last night has that ever been a worry?"

Charles: "I think if we get murdered, it's a good DVD extra, so I'm cool with that."

Q: "Since you're not a creationist, what was the evolution of 'Religulous'?"

Maher: "What is the origin of the idea? My evolution as someone who was a Catholic and had it drilled into my head as a child and then slowly had it drilled out by becoming an adult and realizing it was a load of nonsense. 'Religion does more harm than good' was one of the first issues I did in 1993 when 'Politically Incorrect' started, and I had a modest proposal about putting a warning label on the Bible. After so many years of doing it on television I thought this is the one topic deserving of a broader campus.

"Then I had to try to get someone interested in doing it as a movie. That was not easy but I finally got that. And it wasn't easy finding the right director because we were looking for a documentary director, and documentaries are all dark and horrible. They're all about rape and holocausts and child abuse and murder in a small town, so finally someone had the bright idea of using a comedy director."

Q: "Why a comedy director?"

Maher: "Well, I wanted to make a comedy. That's number one."

Charles: "But also, laughter, I would say, is a good weapon to make your points. This is a hard subject and it's a hard for people to hear their core beliefs questioned. By using comedy it makes that a more palatable equation."

Q: "Are you just preaching to the atheist choir ?"

Charles: "We are very interested in reaching the people who are not converted, and that's one of the reasons we made it this way. . . . It's Saturday night and you're going to the movies and you may go see the Mel Gibson movie ("The Passion of the Christ") even though you may not believe in what he believes in. If you want to see a great movie on a Saturday night, there's 'Tropic Thunder,' there's 'Dark Knight,' and we want to be part of that choice and transcend this idea of it being so partisan.

Maher: "That said, there obviously are going to be some percentage of millions of people who don't want to go anywhere near this movie and that's OK - that's any movie! Not everybody went to see "Batman."

" . . . I think there are a lot religious people who won't go near this movie. But I also think that America is a place where a lot of people say they're religious, but we're a phony-religious people mostly. The people in Saudi Arabia, those are true believers. Everybody here likes to say they're people of faith, but if you fly a plane into a building because

you're so sure you're going to get to 72 virgins, that's a person of faith. It's evil but they really believe it.

"When they speak out against homosexuality, they're not kidding. It's 'let's cut their heads off,' and they do it in Chop Chop Square in Mecca. In this country they say they believe but they cherry-pick. They take what they want from the Bible; they take what they believe. The pope says 'Don't masturbate,' and it's 'He's a charming character isn't he' but we'll do whatever we want."

Q: "Will the film persuade any of its subjects to denounce their religion?"

Maher: "No, I don't think

we're going to get amusement- park Jesus to denounce his religion."

Tattbits

* TMZ.com reports that "Dancing with the Stars" champ Helio Castroneves (he also drives race cars) was indicted yesterday in Miami for allegedly not paying taxes on more than $5 million. Helio, his sister and his lawyer, are accused of using a shell company in Panama to hide his true income from the IRS. The charges carry a maximum of five years in federal prison. Let's see Helio dance out of that.

* Besides his free Parkway con-

cert tomorrow, billboard.com reports that Bruce Springsteen has added a Pro-Obama concert at Ohio State on Sunday and a show at Eastern Michigan on Monday. On Nov. 5, the Boss and wife/bandmate Patti Scialfa will perform in New York at the nonpartisan Stand Up for Heroes benefit for the Bob Woodruff Family Foundation, which aids wounded soldiers transitioning to civilian life.

* DreamWorks Animation SKG

plans a sequel to "Kung Fu Panda" to be released in 2011. Our guess says that in the new one the plump panda will give up kung fu for a career pounding the snot out of other animals in mixed martial arts.

* The Hollywood Reporter says

Rosie O'Donnell is returning to live TV on Thanksgiving Eve to host "Rosie's Variety Show." If it works, it could become a series.

* Just in time for Christmas and

the recession, "The Dark Knight" DVD comes out Dec. 9.

* Is Warner Bros. smarter than

the average studio? The Hollywood Reporter says Warners is developing a live action/CGI feature version of "Yogi Bear."

See, studios make Boo Boos. *

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.

E-mail gensleh@phillynews.com