Louis C.K. Explains Why He's Taking A Break From 'Louie'

Louis C.K. was on a panel for the FX comedy Baskets, which he produces with Zach Galifianakis. After the panel C.K. spoke with journalists further. He mentioned an animated series he is developing with Albert Brooks for FX, and gave a little bit of insight into what the show would be.

"We're making a cartoon that's basically me and Albert in our voices," C.K. said. "We found we have a funny rhythm together. I don't want to say anything about what the cartoon is about yet because it takes such a long time to get those things going."

After the jump, C.K. also discusses his hiatus from Louie and his other new FX series, Better Things with Louie co-star / producer / writer Pamela Adlon.

There is no title yet for the animated series. During the TCA panel, many reporters tried to get C.K. to confirm a sixth season of his FX series Louie. Earlier in the day FX exec John Landgraf reaffirmed that C.K. was taking an indefinite break from the show. The prodding continued after the panel.

"I have put it aside for right now because of all this other stuff," C.K. said. "I want to give real thought and care to the shows I'm working on. When I don't think about something, I really don't think about it. If you try to think about 10% of 100 things, you're 10% as good as you could be. If you take all those 10%s and put them away and give 100% of your brain it works better. Louie's out of my head right now."

C.K. isn't holding out for anything specific. He's just giving himself a break until he gets the urge to write another season. "Just if I get a boner for doing it, that's all," C.K. said. "It may be that once we're past production on Pamela's show. Probably this summer there's a clearing, I may think about it them."

Taking a break also ensures C.K. won't wear out his welcome. Even with year-long hiatuses between seasons, there was a lot of Louie out there. "Louie was going by really fast I felt like, even though we took some breaks," C.K. said. "It did occur to me it'd be nice to let people go back and watch it for a while and let it soak in a little. I've put out seven standup specials in seven years and five seasons of television. That's a lot of me, and I'm on stage every night. So it did feel like good farming to let the soil have a couple winters to freeze and thaw. It's going to be better for me creatively and also I don't want people to get sick of me. Once you're being promoted and people are trying to get people to watch your show, then a lot of people are seeing you that don't even like you. If it can all quiet down for a while, that's probably a positive thing."

It's also a lot of work. Louie is written, directed by and stars C.K. and he wouldn't even consider hiring other directors to lighten his load. "I don't think so," C.K. said. "I think that's the nature of that show but it's great to work with other directors on other stuff."

Landgraf had floated the idea that C.K. could produce a season every decade of his life. C.K. responded, "Like a 7 Up? I don't know. I want it to begin with that I really want to do it. When you start with the premise 'I have another season to write,' that's not a creative source. So to me now that there's no show essentially, if I have an idea that's burning that feels right for that, it'll start from the idea. I don't know when that'll happen. It may not. It was such a great job, I'm likely to try it again at some point."

In addition to Baskets, C.K. is also producing the show Better Things with Adlon, who will star. "That's her show," C.K. said. "I'm writing it with her, some of the episodes. We wrote the pilot together. We made the pilot together but it's from her insides. It's a very personal show for Pamela. I'm very excited about it and we're just about done writing the season and we start shooting in about a month or so. We're making 10 episodes."

Adlon will star as a single mother of three daughters who is also an actor, something Adlon knows about. "It's really just her very funny voice and the kind of stories that she likes to tell, but also about a kind of woman that isn't really on television right now," C.K. said.

C.K. is also working standup material, but will wait a year before releasing another special. "I'm on stage almost every night now and I'll probably go on tour in the spring," he said. "I'm going to take two years to make a special. I'm on every night working on it but I'm going to wait a while before I put something out. Also I miss touring so I want to do it for a little longer this time."

Baskets premieres Thursday, January 21 on FX.