Adam Carolla Recalls His Low Blow to Ann Coulter

The Tribeca Film Festival after-party for Adam Carolla’s aging-pugilist movie The Hammer was held at Swingers director Doug Liman’s Hudson Street apartment last night. (Sadly, Liman himself was nowhere to be found, though we did spy a caricature of him and Matt Damon on one of his shelves.) As the former voice of “Loveline” and face of The Man Show, Carolla took over Howard Stern’s abandoned radio slot in a dozen or so markets in January 2006, just months before his wife had twins and he started shooting The Hammer. We talked to him about the film — which he co-wrote, extrapolating from his experiences as a boxer and trainer — and he even showed us his scars.

Did you have to train to get ready for the boxing?
I’m 42, and I’m doing these boxing scenes that are lasting all day. If I throw my shoulder out, we’re gonna have to stop production for two weeks, and we couldn’t afford that. So I really just trained to keep my white blood cells going and not break down and get sick.

Was your wife worried about you getting back into the ring?
Nah. I’ve always boxed, I always taught boxing. If you look at this palm, you’ll see it looks pretty normal. And if you look at this palm, you’ll see it’s dented in. This knuckle’s normal, this knuckle it’s not. I can’t even get this ring off because of this knuckle. Probably a good thing. But I’ve been boxing so long my wife thinks I’m gonna hurt the other guy. She doesn’t know that I’m probably gonna get my ass kicked.

Between those three things — having twins, doing the movie, doing a radio show — was there one that provided relief for you? Was boxing a way to get your aggression out and radio a way to get your thoughts out?
Yeah, you whack away on a heavy bag and you’ll squeeze yourself like a zit. There won’t be much left inside you. And radio can be that way, too. It’s a kind of purging — one sort of verbal, cathartic, and the other physical. Between the two, I’m pretty calm.

How’s the show going?
It’s going well. When I was talking to Howard Stern, he was like, “You starred in a movie six months into a new morning radio job? Are you high?” And I’m like, “You’re probably right, I’m probably stupid.” I probably should’ve waited a couple of years, but I wasn’t getting any younger, and I was already 42 playing 40.

Who’s been one of your most memorable guests on the show?
Well, Ann Coulter hung up on me.

I thought you hung up on her?
Oh that’s right, I hung up on her. But she was being bitchy. People seem to be excited about me hanging up on Ann Coulter. People must hate her so much that they seem to enjoy that. —Mina Hochberg