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Interviews
Writer/Director Tyler Perry Does "Bad" All By Himself
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Monday, 11 January 2010 04:50
- Written by Brad Balfour
Sitting at a conference table almost too full with cast members of the 2009 film I Can Do Bad All By M
yself -- being released on DVD on January 12, 2010 -- the mulit-hyphenated Tyler Perry came to Manhattan to offer a lively Q&A session with a broad range of press people. While his latest film is remotely based on an early play of his of the same name, Perry's feature focuses more on his on-going positive message of redemption and growth than the antics of his flippant but caring Grandma Madea character. And again, once it opened it topped the box office.
Perry's films have grossed just under $400 million worldwide as of July 2009. And to add to his list of accomplishments, Perry co-produced — with Oprah Winfrey — director Lee Daniels' critically acclaimed hit Precious based on the novel by Sapphire — a movie that has won top audience awards at both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals, was the centerpiece film at the 2009 New York Film Festival -- likely to be an Oscar contender in several catgeories.
Coming from poverty and homelessness, Perry has gone on to make an incredible success of himself, first as a writer/director/producer of plays, then as the creator of films and television series. Through his female alter-ego, Madea, he became a huge comic phenomenon, and a whole industry in and of itself.
Besides producing plays, film and television out his huge Atlanta-based production studio, the 40-year-old multi-hyphenate has become a media mogul and motivational speaker with various charities under his auspices.
In I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Madea (Perry) catches 16-year-old Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson) with her two younger brothers looting her home. The big-mouthed, wise-cracking granny takes matters into her own hands and delivers the young delinquents to their only relative, aunt April (Taraji P. Henson), a hard-drinking nightclub singer who lives off her married boyfriend Raymond (Bryan J. White). April wants nothing to do with the kids, who live with their missing grandma. When a handsome Latino immigrant, Sandino (Adam Rodriguez), is sent by the pastor of their neighborhood church (Pastor Marvin Winans), he trades work for a place to live in her basement.
The closer April and Sandino grow, the more she realizes the importance of faith and family. Once she's told by church elder Wilma (legendaryy songstress Gladys Knight) that her mom has died, she knows she has to take care of the kids, and reluctantly sees her life in a different light.
Things come to a head — Ray and Sandino fight; Sandino proposes to April — and her best friend, bartender Tanya (hip-hop soul singer Mary J Blige), sings a song that is both the film's title and its signature statement: "I Can Do Bad All By Myself."
Q: What's the key to your success especially with this subject matter.
TP: I'm just a man that has used what I've learned in this life and I've tried to put it in film. I don't want to just do film to make a movie for people to see; to blow up something, to kill somebody, explosions. None of that is attractive to me because what I've tried to do with my work and with my life is inspire and motivate people because I've come through too much hell to be able to sit in this seat.
I have a tremendous debt to pay so I want to just pay it forward and pass it on to other people; that's why I keep doing positive movies. This is what I know for sure; you reap what you sow. That's why I think I've been so successful; god is just blessing me and honoring everything that I'm doing.
Q: Your films are based on your plays; you've been able to work out the experience before a live audience. How has that experience of working in theater educated you and what your plans are with theater going forward.
TP: There's nothing like a live performance; it's immediate. And being on the circuit that I was on for a very long time doing 300 shows a year, most of them sold out, for 10 years straight, I learned a great deal. What will work and what won't work and how far I can go and how far I can't. And I'm still writing from those experiences. Everybody at the table can attest to that immediate give and take from an audience, and you take that and you go with it.
Q: You have a knack for talking about contemporary issues as you do in this film with the child molestation element.
TP: In writing this and talking about molestation and sexual abuse, it is very very clear to me that a lot of our own issues, including myself as a person, are a result from what has happened to us as children. So when I was thinking about April and her, "I don't care about anybody but myself," where would that come from? And molestation is the root to so many things, so I wanted to explore it a little bit and I think that when people really see it, they get it. They understand that, "Wait a minute; is this why I'm this way?"
Because it's happened to so many people, and [because whatever goes on in this house stays in this house and nothing ever gets covered], that's why I wanted to address it. I think that as people see it they'll really get it.
Let me say this to everybody here; I'm speaking to people, for the most part, my base, my core audience, that everybody has ignored for years. And we are a people that exist and need to be spoken to in a way that we get, in a way that we understand. And I'm just really really fortunate and blessed to have that opportunity to do that.
Q: What are your thoughts on the current status of African-American women who are not getting married at the same rates of other ethnic groups or white women, particularly because you cast another ethnic minority in a role that is the love interest for an African-American woman. Were you subtly suggesting that African-American women need to exercise other options [laughs]?
TP: I want to make sure that this is clear:Hell, no! No, the thing is this: I didn't suggest anything, I didn't even know those stats. I was once accused of being anti-Semitic last time I was here doing a press conference because one of the attorneys in Diary of a Mad Black Women got an award called the Feinstein award and they said that was anti-Semitic because I named the award after a Jewish person.
I don't get it. It's kind of similar to this; I'm just writing. I'm not thinking about what race a person is because I don't live my life that way. I just write the story and I thought these two would be a good look and be good for each other with his story, his problems, his issues that he's worked through, and her with hers. He could have been Tyrone Jackson, it wouldn't have mattered, but in this case it just happened to be somebody who's Latin.
I had the same issue in the first two movies; a couple of critics went off because all of my heroes seem to be light-skinned. It's not something I was even thinking about, it just happened. And so I went and found some dark skinned heroes in the next one. So I will take this into consideration; next time I will make sure that the black woman finds a black man.
Q: While white and Hispanic women may be on their second husbands, many African-American women have never been married by the time they are in their 30s and 40s. One reason for that is that African-American men are more likely to marry outside of their race.
TP: It doesn't matter who they are or where they come from, but my point was that part of the reason that a lot of people are not married is because they have this list of what they want their men to be, have, make. And more important to the point of what Adam was making, it doesn't matter if the person has nothing; if they can bring you love and the love you need then that should be enough.
Q: You do allow for some ad-libbing; not everything is scripted. Were there parts of the movie where you were allowed the cast to expand their roles?
TP: Well, there is this one scene. Iit was a really serious scene where Taraji and Adam are sitting on the sofa, and we're shooting the scene and Taraji leans over and she starts to kiss him, but it wasn't in the script. So I'm looking through the script and I'm sitting at the monitor watching and I just sit back and see how long it's going to go. I don't understand how when you're kissing somebody you put your tongue in their mouth and you're supposed to be acting, when there's no camera inside your mouth to see the tongue.
So the kisses went on and on and on and I sat there waiting for them to finish and they just kept kissing. I have it on video; it's a long, long, long, long, long kiss and they wouldn't stop. So I finally said "Cut" and I said, "What the hell was that? Where did that come from?" Taraji was like, "What? It's in the script." "Show it to me." So they "ad-lippped."
[continued next page]
Q: Being around such soulful singers and such an amazing pastor, was there ever a time during taping when you were doing the church scenes, that you literally go to church?
TP: Yeah, the entire church scene is real. I had five cameras rolling because I knew the only way to capture what I wanted is to have church, so that's what we did. [Pastor Winans] actually preached a sermon and sang the song, that was it. It wasn't like we did a million different setups; we did maybe one or two, but that thing that you feel when you're watching it is real and you can't fake that. You can't cut and resetup and cut again and re-setup and try to get it; you hav
e to get it as it happens and I was very adamant about capturing that moment.
Just like in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, when she comes in that church, you feel it. It was the same way I wanted it in this situation and the only way for that to happen is it had to be caught all at the same time.
Q: I Can Do Bad is one of your earliest plays. Why did you wait until now to bring it to the screen? And what sort of changes did it go through in the adaptation?
TP: No rhyme, no reason. And it's so different from the play; the only thing that the movie has in common with the play is the title and Madea, that's it. It was Madea's first time on stage, I was scared to death. It was the Regal Theater, 79th and Stony Island. I had rehearsed all month the show without ever looking at a costume or putting it on, just like this. The night of the show I put the costume on and looked at myself and was like, "Oh god, what have I gotten myself into? It's sold out out there and these people are waiting."
So I'm standing there and they're saying, "Go, go, go," and Brown pushed me on stage. And that's where she was born. But no rhyme or reason for it; I just thought the time was now.
Q: What are your upcoming projects?
TP: I'm working on a new album with Mary J. Blige [laughs]. Not. I just finished Why Did I Get Married Too; it comes out in April [2010]. The first thing that [came] out, in November, [was] Precious.... And then it's Why Did I Get Married Too and I can't wait for you guys to see it because Janet [Jackson] went through all the stuff with Michael at the time and she needed the work so she brought everything she had into the film and she's got some scenes in here that I can't wait for you guys to see.
Q: And you're adapting For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf — a challenging and highly respected play. What makes you want to do that as your first adaptation?
TP: I'm writing it now, don't worry there will be no Madea in it. I know there are For Colored Girls fans who are wondering, "Why the hell is he doing For Colored Girls?" but I really really embraced the material and listened to the stories and the cast I think is going to blow people away. It is the most incredible cast of women of color, and Latin, that has ever been assembled in film. Ever.
Q: Are you sticking with the play?
TP: It's all of Ntozake Shange's work, her poems, but as you know, as everybody who knows For Colored Girls knows, there's no story there; it's all different vignettes. But what I did was each woman has her own story and all of their lives cross. It's kind of like Crash; none of the women know each other. They pass through each other's lives and they're all living their own lives but nobody knows that they're all on a collision course to meet each other.
At the middle of the movie what happens is one of the women has just started a For Colored Girls center, where women go through this 12-step program of healing from relationships and everything. A lot of the poems happen in this center when all of these women come together. So it's going to be fantastic.
I'm also working on a new play; the first date is October 4th and it's called "Laugh to Keep from Crying" but I haven't written a word yet. But it will be ready.
Q: Have you cast For Colored Girls yet?
TP: I have made five phone calls. We haven't made an announcement yet; the five women that I've spoken to have said yes, but it's 16 women, 16 major roles, and I can't wait to tell you. But the dream cast is pretty darn exciting and most of the dream cast has said yes.
For more by Brad Balfour: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-balfour
Jennifer Garner Tells the Truth About "Lying"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Friday, 08 January 2010 16:45
- Written by Brad Balfour
Coming to video on January 19 with no extras whatsoever — sorry ... we're lying — British comic and Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais' directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, posits an alternate earth where humanity lacks the capacity for prevaricating. But while people speak only the truth, they have no sense of humor and no idea of fiction. As a result, they reveal more than they know — including how inflated their views of themselves can be.
As Mark Bellison (Gervais) struggles to survive at a mediocre television company, the pug-nosed, pudgy writer endures a rivalry with the better looking, more successful and far more arrogant Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe). Mark suffers through miserable dates his mother encourages him to go on. When he meets tall, gorgeous Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) on one of those dates, he falls for her and she tells him that despite the fact they get along, and that he's a nice guy, she can't continue to see him — let alone marry him — because she's way too out of his league; she'll never have his children. Since he's just not up to her in looks or physique, their relationship has to remain platonic.
Whether you think the creator of the English, original version of TV's The Office is or isn't in her league, he's so frustrated by her refusal and other factors that when his mother is on her death bed he has a brainstorm and tells her one big lie — the first — that death is not the end of things. She will go to a nice place where everything is wonderful. Unfortunately, his comment is overheard by the nurses and doctors and his words are spread everywhere — that he knows things no one else in the world knows.
Soon Bellison becomes an international phenomenon, making proclamations on the afterlife and just about everything else. He lies up a storm to help friends; lies to get money from the bank; cheats at the casino; and eventually, to win the affection of Anna. People start camping out on his lawn to learn more, so he develops a strangely familiar story about the "Man in the Sky," who does all these mystical things, and is kind and wonderful. When he pastes a set of rules on two pizza boxes and reads out his Commandments, we get the message.
Though The Invention of Lying falls flat in places by the time it ends, this fascinating idea show how Gervais is leading the charge to create comedy that requires more than an endurance for bodily function jokes and absurd R-rated sight gags. In turn, his ability for the right comic moves, has led him to host The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards (to be broadcast in HD on Sunday, January 17, 2010 from 5-8 PM PST and 8-11 PM EST live coast to coast on NBC).
The 38-year-old Garner — wife of Ben Affleck, former star of the spy series Alias, and who was much-drubbed when she played the titular anti-heroine in Elektra — does a great job as the ingenuous Anna. The almost 5' 9" actress enlightens us about Gervais, the film and the art of lying in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
BB: Did it feel to you as if this movie was an episode of The Twilight Zone?
JG: I think that's what they were going for. So, yeah, it did feel like that, except that it was the funniest episode of The Twilight Zone that was ever invented.
BB: When you got this script, did you think of it as a science fiction idea or more of a parody?
JG: I liked the questions that it brought up. I liked the conversations that I felt would start. I thought that it was funny. Really, when I first read it, I just laughed out loud, and that's the most important thing. I loved the way my character was introduced. I loved the challenge of looking at a scene and thinking, 'I have to play this with no subtext, no irony, no sarcasm and just be as straightforward as I could possibly be.' I think that's a really interesting acting challenge.
It wasn't until I read it again and then thought about it a little more that I thought that. As soon as you read it or see it, you can't help but think about the world and think about all these advertisements that I see, one way or another, are lies. We're sold lies all the time and it's so much a part of our society. But we edit out [a lot] of what we can say. I like that the film is provocative in that way.
BB: Do you think this film has a British point of view or a British tone to it?
JG: I feel like it has Ricky's sensibility, but no, I feel it's pretty universal. Matt Robinson co-wrote and co-directed the script and the movie with Ricky. I think that they didn't really seem to have, "Oh, that's too British" or "You're trying to pull it to the American." There were a couple of references or words that of course you have to switch, but no, it does not seem British to me.
BB: It's got a great cast.
JG: There are some of the greatest comic talent alive and a lot of them are in this film, from Tina Fey to Louis C.K. to Christopher Guest...
BB: And Jonah Hill.
JG: You could go on and on and on. I signed on before all of those people. So I had the benefit of being on the film and hearing more and more about how great the cast was every day and how it was growing and growing. I felt like, "Wow, I signed onto this tiny independent movie, and now it's turned into this whole thing." It's just a lucky coincidence for me.
BB: And when they saw your name on it, did they jump onto it because you were signed already?
JG: [laughs] Yeah. I don't flatter myself to think that I was the draw there. I think that Ricky Gervais definitely has quite a following and is very, very respected.
BB: When Ricky asked you to be in the film, did you ask why he wasn't putting you into the British episodes of The Office?
JG: I do ask Ricky all the time why I haven't been invited to be on Extras or The Office or anything else. I bug him about it all the time and I'm still waiting. They're both done. They're speedy over there.
BB: You've done a lot of rom-com. What do you think of Gervais and his universe of humor? It's not the obvious humor, it's more realistic. Is there a trend towards this sort of comedy?
JG: I think there are a couple of different trends in humor. One is the Judd Apatow kind of humor of embarrassment [through] gross-out. Then there's the humor of embarrassment with reality, using real relationships and situations.
That's what Ricky does. I think part of what he does so well is that his humor is never mean spirited. It's very honest. He's very interested in what's honest, and he finds the truth to be the funniest. I loved working with him because he's so clear about what would make something funny, and he's always right. He's so funny and so incredibly good at what he does.
[continued next page]
BB: Do you think Bellison deserved to get what he got in the ending?
JG: I think he had earned it by then, certainly, because he's the kinder one. The interesting thing about Anna in the film is that she's the first woman to make a choice romantically.
In a world where women are driven by evolution and by the quest for the best genetics for their offspring, she's the first woman in this world who knows that something is different here. She's the first woman to say, 'No. I love this man. That's a good enough reason to be with him and have kids with him.'
BB: Both you and Ben [Affleck] have been leaning towards humor after you both started out in more serious roles. Do you find that you started to trade quips at home, reading each other the funny lines from your projects?JG: Yeah, we'll tell each other the funny scenes or whatever. But as far as trading quips, I don't know if we actually are living the life of His Girl Friday or something like that. It's probably much more boring and banal than that.
BB: Right, but I just assume that he beats you out with the laughs. He's a smart and funny guy.
JG: Are you saying that you think he's funnier than I am? Are you challenging me, saying that you think that my husband would come up with the funnier quips than I would? Because I will tell you that is certainly not the case.
BB: Oops! Are you picking projects now that mix it up for you; are you trying to show different aspects of yourself? Where do you think you're going in your career?
JG: The whole point of being an actor is that you don't do the same thing every day. So I'm just interested always in finding something that feels like, "Oh, wait. I've never done this before. This is different. This will be a real challenge." Luckily, all different kinds of things have come my way and so I've been able to pick and choose.
BB: If you had your ideal choice, what would be the thing that you'd like to do next, the most contrasting thing to follow this up?
JG: I just want to do something that's good. Nothing has to come next. I would love to do a musical, but if that happens five years from now, I'm fine with that. I don't feel like, "I have to accomplish this right now." It's much more that I just love whatever it is that I do. I don't just say yes to everything.
What I'd love to see happen next is a film that my production company has been working on for a long time called Butter. It's this little movie that takes place in the world of butter carving at the Iowa State Fair. So if that could happen next I would be thrilled.
BB: Do you ever think that Ben should direct one of your projects or even cast you in one of his, or do you guys try to stay as far from that as possible because of the scheduling issues?
JG: Of course, I wish that he could direct everything. There's no one better. Scheduling is definitely a big factor for us. If we were both on the same set at the same time all day — our kids are too young for that, so it's something that doesn't come up right now. But who knows, maybe we'll revisit it in a few years.
BB: Do you find now with kids that your outlook on what you want to do in film has changed, either wanting to do family-friendly projects or going in the opposite direction?
JG: I don't really feel like I'm driven away from doing family stuff or towards it. I look at the scripts that come my way. I look at the script that we're developing in my production company. It's much more about finding something that I like to do than it is about some overall thing like, "I better stay away from family movies" or "I'd really like to do a family movie." I mean, if a family movie came along and it was great, then I wouldn't care if I had no family or a family of ten kids, I'd still want to do it.
BB: But you're not inviting superhero costume films?
JG: Sure. If one came along, and it was great, I would suit right up.
BB: Which hero would you have in mind? Do you have a favorite?
JG: I don't know who she would be. It would have to surprise me. I don't have a particular favorite.
BB: Wonder Woman?
JG: Sure.
BB: Are you good at lying?
JG: I'm a horrible liar. I can exaggerate. I can definitely make a good story better, but as far as just telling a lie, not very good.
BB: So you would've been good for a world where no one lied?
JG: No, because I do think there's real value in a white lie to save someone's feelings.
BB: Are there some people that you'd like to tell the truth to, since it's perhaps a world in which you can't lie?
JG: Yeah, there are one or two that I'd like to get ahold of.
BB: What would you tell them?
JG: Wouldn't you love to know [laughs]?
For more by Brad Balfour: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-balfour
Star Penelope Cruz Is on Cloud "Nine"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 06 January 2010 19:23
- Written by Frank Lovece
The Madrid-born Penelope Cruz, a standout star in the Rob Marshall musical Nine, came to American attention with the steamy seriocomedy Jamón, Jamón (1992), in which she co-starred with future boyfriend Javier Bardem. After he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for 2007's No Country for Old Men, Cruz returned the volley with her Best Supporting Actress win for 2008's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
In the interim, Cruz made such middling U.S. movies as 1998's The Hi-Lo Country, 2001's Blow, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Vanilla Sky – which sparked a three-year relationship with Tom Cruise – and 2005's Sahara.
But she became a signature screen persona for acclaimed director Pedro Almodóvar, starring in his Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999), Volver (2006) and his latest, the recently released Broken Embraces -- which was the closing night film for the 2009 New York Film Festival. She now co-stars with an international pantheon in Nine, an adaptation of the Broadway musical inspired by Federico Fellini's classic film 8 1/2. Cruz speaks about her two latest movies, her cameo in Sex and the City 2 and much more in this one-on-one interview.
FL: You've said that Almodovar knows how to push your buttons to get the performance he wants. How did he do that in Broken Embraces?
PC: He knows me very well, but he is that way with all actors – he knows how to take you to the place that he needs, in a way that is a beautiful dance. He can be very tough and very demanding, but in the end for me it has always been an experience where I go home and feel happy about what everybody did on the set.
FL: But for an example.
PC: It's hard to explain; it's hard to put it into words. But sometimes he would play [the filmmaker character] Mateo in the rehearsals. We had a moment looking at each other in the mirror when the relationships were mixed together – the relationship between Lena and Mateo, and the one that I have with Pedro and what he means to me in my life, my career. It was a beautiful mix of reality and fiction. I have to say that was my favorite moment in the whole process of making this movie
FL: In Broken Embraces we see snippets of the film-within-the-film, Girls with Suitcases. Was there any talk of releasing it as, say, a half-hour TV film or a DVD extra?
PC: No, but because we shot stuff for Girls with Suitcases that didn't make it into the movie, [those scenes] will be in the DVD extras.
FL: In your major dance number in Nine, you do a lot of rope work without gloves, and endured a lot of calluses and bleeding. Did you realize that would happen when you decided against gloves, or did you realize it as it was happening and continued anyway?
PC: No, I knew it would happen because I trained for three months to do the number, and I knew I would be living with blisters during those months and I was used to it. During those months you rehearse, like, four hours a day of dancing, and when you get to shoot the number, you do 12 hours a day of dancing for three days in a row, and that's when you get all the bruises and blisters and everything open. But I didn't even feel that much physical pain because I felt like flying!
FL: According to reports, all the actresses in Nine had to do singing and dancing auditions. You haven't had to audition for movie roles for a while. What was that like? Were you out of practice?
PC: No, because I took a lot of lessons before the audition. I auditioned one time for the dancing and one time for the singing., I think it was very important to be able to go through that for the movie because Rob had to see that we could really do it, so most of us had to get in the room and audition. I mean, there was no other way to get the movie.
FL: Did you say to yourself, "Wow, I thought I didn't have to audition anymore?"
PC: No, because I know that sometimes I will have to, when it's something like that. Look, I've never sung before and nobody has every seen me dancing, really dancing – I've done something here and there, but this is a difficult solo number and I had to prove that I could do it. So of course I had no problem with getting in the room and auditioning. I was nervous about it, but I was happy they gave me the opportunity
FL: Different reports say that in your cameo in the upcoming Sex and the City 2 you play either yourself or a character named Lydia.
PC: No, I don't play myself. It's a little character [role]. I only was on the set for three hours. I did this collaboration because I'm a big fan of the show and the movie.
FL: You're listed as working on two upcoming features, Lasse Hallstrom's Rain in Spain and Sergio Castellitto's Venuto al Mondo.
PC: I'm not making Rain in Spain. I don't know why somebody wrote that somewhere. Venuto al Mondo, if that movie gets made, I think I will do it.
FL: And you're producing Haunted Heart?
PC: That's for the future. It's the first movie I have with Fernando Trueba [who directed Cruz in her second film, 1992's Belle Epoque, and in 1998's The Girl of Your Dreams] he wrote [as well as directed], and we want to do it sometime in the future but not yet.
FL: What is this eight-minute Almodóvar short, "The Cannibalistic Councillor" that you're in?
PC: That is one thing that we shot for Broken Embraces that didn't make it in the movie, so he released it as a short film. In Spain it played on TV.
FL: I'm not going to pry, but why do you suppose the public cares so much about whether a celebrity has a baby or not?
PC: It's all because of the Internet, because there are more and more shows and stuff to fill with material. A lot of the press is losing so much credibility that people don't know anymore what to believe and what not to believe. I have a couple of great friends who are journalists, who are very serious journalists, and at the end that affects them and their work.
FL: Yet when People magazine, say, pays a million dollars for a baby picture, those covers apparently sell well because the public, for reasons I just don't know, wants that.
PC: I don't want to talk about it.
Ed Helms' Happy "Hangover"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Sunday, 03 January 2010 22:44
- Written by Frank Lovece
It may not have played a lot of film festivals, other than the Old Town Taito International Comedy Film Festival in Japan, but the rude, raucous and surprisingly very funny bro comedy The Hangover did make it onto at least one august film body's top-10 list of 2009: No less than the American Film Institute placed it on a rostrum that includes the likes of Up in the Air, Precious and The Messenger. This, for the cinema's second-highest-grossing R-rated comedy? Hang that on your critical clothesline!
Variety announced back in July that director Todd Phillips has the go-ahead to shoot a sequel, with production commenting October 6, 2010, for a Memorial Day 2011 release. With The Hangover now out on DVD, what better time than to revisit Ed Helms, who stars with Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis in this comic misadventure about the aftermath of four friends' inadvertent drug-blackout in Las Vegas.
Helms, who plays the obnoxious Andy Bernard on NBC's The Office, is in person actually a pretty nice guy. Born and raised in Atlanta, Ga., he first rose to fame as one of the satiric "correspondents" on comedian Jon Stewart's faux-news program The Daily Show.
In The Hangover, he plays a bland dentist bullied by his girlfriend (Rachael Harris) and who, with his buds, must deal with a lost night, a found tiger, a baby, marriage with a stripper (Heather Graham), and Mike Tyson lip-syncing Phil Collins.
FL: Your character through most of the movie has a missing tooth, which happened during their missing night. How'd they do the effect? CGI?
EH: No, it's not CGI. I'd gotten an implant when I was a teenager, and cut to 20 years later, this part and this movie called for a missing tooth. And I asked my dentist and he was able to take it out!
FL: Ah, c'mon. For real?
EH: I'm dead serious! And if you really look closely, it's pretty clear it's real. When (the idea) originally came up, we did camera tests with some alternative processes. We tried to black it out and then they made a prosthetic that sort of covered my teeth but had a gap in it, which it made me look like a donkey, so I vetoed that. We were sort of talking about losing the joke altogether and I said hold on a second, and that's when I called my dentist. And it worked! It would have been really expensive to digitally remove it.
FL: Speaking of that, were you ever physically on the set with the tiger, or digitally inserted later?
EH: It was an actual tiger and I was on the set with the tiger – actually three tigers. You can't work with a tiger for longer than a certain amount of time, so they had three of them there. We were on set with them together way more than we should have been!
FL: How close does one get to a tiger?
EH: Bradley fed the tiger a baby bottle full of chicken blood. I am not kiddin'! I was sitting next to Bradley when he did that. That's actually not in the movie, oddly enough. But it was ridiculous – it's a baby bottle full of blood, for God's sake! And the tiger is slurping on the bottle nipple, and it's chicken blood! Strange [laughs]. That was routine, to be, like, two or three feet away. Routine and crazy, let me put it that way.
FL: Routine and crazy – the actor's motto.
EH: That sort of typified the movie – the utterly insane became mundane [laughs]. At all times the tiger was on a leash and it was quote unquote restrained by a trainer. However the tiger weighed three times more than the trainer and the leash might -- might -- have been able to hold a border collie.
One of the first nights that we worked with the tigers ... all the trainers were way more nervous than usual. And of course it turns out tigers hunt at night. So at night they get basically, like, horny for murdering humans. It was really sketchy because they were in their trailer pacing and grunting and snorting and there was just something really foreboding about the whole night. We only lost about six crewmembers… [jokes]
FL: I assume the Humane Society was on set.
EH: Sure, yeah. Even for the chicken [the guys find in their room]. They're on the ball. There's a lot of supervision. But they looking out for the animals, not for the actors!
FL: What was scarier, the tiger or Mike Tyson?
EH: The tiger. Mike Tyson was just great.
FL: A pussycat, you might say.
EH: I'm not sure I'd go that far! [laughs]
FL: How do you channel your inner asshole to play Andy Bernard on The Office?
EH: That's exactly what I do – I just channel my inner asshole, I guess. That character is really just an amalgamation of every asshole I've ever known and everything that I find annoying in other people or that I'm insecure about in my own life or find annoying about myself. I just sort of heighten all that with Andy. The fun thing about him, too, is he's not self-aware at all and yet he's incredibly earnest. It's really fun.
FL: In the middle of The Hangover, your character sits at a piano and sings this song recapping the movie so far. How'd that come about?
EH: That was really cool, actually. That piano was just on the set, and I used to sit at it and just play around and make up stupid songs to try to make the crew laugh between takes or whatever. And Todd [Phillips, the director] was really tickled by that and said, "Hey, we should put that in the movie – there's a prefect place for it right after you guys roofie the tiger where the narratives kinda needs to take a breath. Why don't you write a song and we'll stick it in there?" So I went off and wrote the song in about an hour and we shot it right then.
FL: You were raised in Atlanta. Where you born there?
EH: I was born in Piedmont Hospital [a major hospital in northeast Atlanta] and grew up in the same house my whole childhood. My parents just moved out of the same house where I was raised.
FL: In suburban Atlanta or in the city?
EH: Very much Atlanta proper.
FL: What did your family do?
EH: My dad was an attorney and my mom worked at a school in Atlanta. She was a development coordinator – a fundraiser kind of person [at] a school for kids with learning disabilities in Atlanta.
FL: And you got your start as a comedian in New York after college?
EH: Yeah. I studied film at Oberlin [College, in Ohio] and then moved to New York City and started doing standup right away. Actually I started [while] in college – I lived in New York City (during) my summers.
FL: After college you worked at a film post-production facility, as your day-job?
EH: Actually, I stated out doing technical support for Avid [film-]editing systems, because I was way into editing and stuff from my studying film in college. So I was trained as an Avid support tech. Through the company I worked for I would service these post-production companies. And one of them hired me because I was always there and always fixing their machine. So they hired me as an assistant editor … at a sort of boutique little company called Crew Cuts that catered to high-end advertising. It was super fun – we worked on a lot of really cool commercials. A lot of the Super Bowl commercials came to our shop.
And I was way ahead of the curve since I knew all of the hardware and software. Then I just had to learn the drill of being an assistant editor and eventually I became what's called a cutting assistant, where I was actually editing some commercials.
FL: That's when you started doing voiceover work, which is how you then made a living.
EH: Yeah, I would put my voice down on all the commercials I worked on, as a placeholder while I worked on it, and I started to book a couple of accounts that way. And I actually got an income from that at a certain point, and realized this could enable me to quit working full-time so I could be in the comedy clubs all night.
FL: What was that like, starting out as a standup comic?
EH: When you start out, your first five, six years in New York City, you're doing just the shittiest shows. A lot of open mics, a lot of amateur nights. A lot of shows you do when you start out aren't even at comedy clubs – they're at bars where comedians made a deal with the owner to have an open-mic night, and so comedians produce these shows all over the city and you try and get into the loop and into the network, and everybody's kinda putting each other up in each other's show.
I ran a show at the Boston Comedy Club on Third Street in Greenwich Village, and there was also this crazy place called Surf Reality that was more of a performance-art place. They had this famous open-mic night run by this guy called Faceboy and you would go up and do eight minutes of standup and after you would be some weird guy chanting and piercing his nipples onstage or something.
And it was totally insane yet totally supportive. Like it was all there just for the artist, for the performers. We had a lot of comedians down there along with crazy performance artists. It was an inspiring, weird, distinctly New York joint.
