We travel to Grand Rapids, Michigan to get the lowdown on Ruben Fleischer's action/comedy 30 Minutes or Less.
Visiting 30 Minutes or Less
Scorsese has Leo, Burton has Depp, and Fleischer, it would appear, has Eisenberg.
Scorsese has Leo, Burton has Depp, and Fleischer, it would appear, has Eisenberg.
Yes, Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer has once again paired up with Jesse Eisenberg for the genre (and potentially gut)-busting action/comedy 30 Minutes or Less.
But the stakes and expectations are much higher this go-around. Both Fleischer and Eisenberg's status has increased significantly since their first collaboration. Zombieland, Fleischer's first feature film, was a surprise hit and became the top-grossing zombie film in history while Jesse Eisenberg garnered an Academy Award nomination for his fast-talking portrayal of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. With more eyes on them than ever, anything short of a hit could cast doubt on future collaborations (Zombieland 2!).
I headed out to Grand Rapids, Michigan to check out the set (and its tax shelter), meet the cast and get a sense of what's to come. Anyone who saw Zombieland knows that Fleischer has an eye for violence and an ear for comedy, and from what I saw, his cinematic senses still seem to be sharp.
Jump to:
30 Minutes or Less on set report.
Jesse Eisenberg talks zombies and pizza.
Danny McBride and Nick Swardson tell us why they're not PG.
Aziz Ansari on heists, Heat, and getting randy.
Ruben Fleischer discusses his 70's influence.
Bad guy, good girl: Michael Peña and Dilshad Vadsaria
30 Minutes or Less has a lot going for it. For starters, it's produced by box-office heavyweight Ben Stiller. Secondly, it features current comedy king pins Danny McBride (Kenny F'n Powers!), Nick Swardson, and Aziz Ansari.
Our hero Jesse Eisenberg plays Nick, a slacker pizza delivery guy forced by two low-level thugs named Dwayne and Travis (McBride and Swardson) to rob a bank in (ahem) thirty minutes or less. Aziz Ansari stars as Eisenberg's fast-talking, bank robbing buddy Chet.
If you're thinking this all sounds like Dog Day Afternoon meets FunnyorDie.com, you aren't far off the mark.
Director Ruben Fleisher claims his cinematic influences for the film were, indeed, Dog Day Afternoon, but also Fargo mixed in with some 70's sleaze and real dark humor. The scene I witnessed when I visited the set represented that tenfold.
We were brought to a real Grand Rapids scrap yard for the film's violent climax. It was a muggy, late-night shoot and a genuine taste of the locale.
Grand Rapids, Michigan is the perfect place for a film of this tone. It's a blue-collar, working class hood and only a few hours away from Detroit - the poster state of the economic collapse. Regarding Grand Rapids, Ruben Fleischer told us, "You’ll see that the movie has like true texture and character that is so specific to city and this part of the country. We tried to shoot a lower class, working class kind of world because that’s kind of the character’s world. We found some great run down working class kind of stuff. It’s really specific to Michigan and Grand Rapids."
The scene we were present for takes place after the bank robbery, near the end of the thirty-minute time allotment given to Nick. There's a lot at stake at this point in the film: the bank loot, the life of the Nick's love interest - and Chet's sister - (played by Dilshad Vadsaria), and the crooks' dream of opening a tanning salon that offers sexual favors. I can't decide whether to describe what I saw as hilariously-violent or violently-hilarious, but either way it left me feeling both excited and hopeful.
Some things to point out:
1) Anyone who watched the second season of Eastbound and Down knows that Danny McBride and Michael Peña are hilarious when pitted against each other. Thankfully Ruben Fleischer knows this as well.
2) Nick Swardson needs to star in more movies. Hopefully this film plus Pretend Time on Comedy Central will put him on more people's radar.
3) Not enough comedies feature flamethrowers, and that's a shame...
As for 30 Minutes or Less being a hit, I'm sure audience's appetites are still wet for the action/comedy genre that brought us recent favorites likeTropic Thunder and Pineapple Express (both featuring Danny McBride). But more importantly, during shaky times in American history audiences tend to relate to down-on-their-luck characters, even when they are robbing a bank (such as Al Pacino's Sonny Wortzik, a Vietnam vet, who represented America's frustration with the establishment in Dog Day Afternoon). Today, with the economy still on the fritz, and uncertainty still lingering in the air, a sad and relatable comedy makes a lot of sense. 30 Minutes or Less couldn't have been delivered at a more appropriate time.
I guess the question you'll be asked the most about is working with Ruben Fleischer again. What's different this time? Seems like a lot of the same crew, but different dynamic?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I mean the tone I think of the movie is a little different, because this movie is set in more of a real world context whereas the other movie was so little, at least for my character, was a little more heightened comedy, where this is, at least with my character, pretty straightforward and a real world context.
How old is your character in this movie?
Jesse Eisenberg: How old? He's I think like 39. (laughter) He's around my age basically.
Did you ever work as a pizza guy?
Jesse Eisenberg: Uh, in preparation for the movie, I went out with a guy who works at the place where we're filming. It was very helpful and also very interesting.
Is that true? Did you shadow him for a day, a week?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, yeah, a day. It was very helpful and it made me realize that the character was conceived very accurately, and it was not a dissimilar experience that my character has.
So do you feel you're moving more into the role Woody Harrelson had in Zombieland and Aziz Ansari is stepping more into your role as the sidekick?
Jesse Eisenberg: I don't think it's really comparable to that movie, but yeah, he plays my best friend and our relationship is kind of on the outs and then I get this bomb strapped to me, I have to rob the bank and I have no one else to turn to so I go ask him for help.
So the bomb you have on you is set for 30 minutes I'd assume?
Jesse Eisenberg: No, it's like a ten-hour timer. The title refers to my job as a pizza delivery guy and if the pizza is not there in 30 minutes, it's free, and of course, it comes back later that I have 30 minutes to get across town.
Is it similar to Zombieland in the sense that you're balancing two tones, comedy and action?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, sure. The comedy in this is a little less winking to the audience thatZombieland had more the tone of constantly playing on the absurdity of the real characters in this crazy situation whereas this movie is genuinely scary in a real way. It doesn't ever feel like safe like Zombieland always felt scary in a safe way and in a cleverly humorous way. The stakes in this movie are legitimately high and the character, at least Aziz and my character, are real world characters.
So it's realistic...
Jesse Eisenberg: But much more realistic. I think it will be funny as well. I haven't seen what Danny McBride and Nick Swardson, they play like the two kidnappers, and their scenes have been very separate. I haven't seen what they're doing, but their characters I imagine are reading the script a bit more broadly drawn.
From what we've seen today, they were really improvising a lot. How hard is it as an actor, do you have to feel like you have to keep up with them and throw in your own things or do you just play off what they do?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, but for my character in this scene it's not appropriate to be funny, and the camera was on my side of the scene yesterday, but when you're working with people that funny when the camera is on them, you just try to give them their space, so that they can have the freedom to improvise, but no, I love improvisation as well and they're really talented and very funny.
You're almost done shooting so has there been a favorite day of shooting so far that sticks out to you?
Jesse Eisenberg: I think probably the centerpiece scene of the movie is this bank robbery where Aziz have to go rob the bank, and we did that over the course of three days last week, and it was great. I think the scene will be really great. Every thing that can go wrong goes wrong and we're totally ill-equipped despite the few hours of preparation and ill-equipped to handle the situation, and I think it's really funny and that's also the centerpiece of the movie because the whole movie is gearing up... we have to rob this bank and give them the money so it's kind of the crux of the movie.
What has been the most challenging scene?
Jesse Eisenberg: Uh, I don't know. Every scene kind of has some challenge logistically. I'm wearing this bomb throughout the whole movie, but as I said, the movie kind of takes place in this very real world setting, so it's occasionally been challenging because there's so much action and there's also so many things that are comedic elements in the movie but it's my job to kind of maintain the emotional honesty. At the risk of being pretentious, that's my job, so that's occasionally challenging.
And there's a romantic interest in this film. How much of the film focuses on that romance?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I've been in love with my best friend's twin sister. This is probably the reason my friend, Aziz and I, go our separate ways, and one of the things that the bomb does to me is that I spent the last several years not doing anything important in my life and never taking control of my life so one of the things that the bomb does is allow me to... kind of lights a fire under me so to speak and one of the things I'm inspired to do is to go confess my love to this girl. The kidnappers are following me so they end up taking her.
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I've been in love with my best friend's twin sister. This is probably the reason my friend, Aziz and I, go our separate ways, and one of the things that the bomb does to me is that I spent the last several years not doing anything important in my life and never taking control of my life so one of the things that the bomb does is allow me to... kind of lights a fire under me so to speak and one of the things I'm inspired to do is to go confess my love to this girl. The kidnappers are following me so they end up taking her.
One of the things about shooting Zombieland was that you got a lot of set-ups in one day, and in this one, at least today, you're doing one scene over and over with different camera angles and takes. Ruben made a joke about Fincher doing a lot more takes than that, but how hard is it to keep things fresh when you're doing so many takes and doing the same scene over and over.
Jesse Eisenberg: It's not hard, but I don't know I always feel like... like it feels out of my hands in terms of my own personal energy sometimes. I don't think the amount of takes makes something less fresh. I think it's just about if you're feeling excited about the scene and can sustain it over the course of several days or it can fizzle out after one take if you're not prepared in the right way.
Jesse Eisenberg: It's not hard, but I don't know I always feel like... like it feels out of my hands in terms of my own personal energy sometimes. I don't think the amount of takes makes something less fresh. I think it's just about if you're feeling excited about the scene and can sustain it over the course of several days or it can fizzle out after one take if you're not prepared in the right way.
So what do you have to do to get back into the energy if that happens?
Jesse Eisenberg: It could be very difficult. I have certain things that I work on as an actor to kind of maintain some kind of inspiration with scenes, especially scenes that feel like a bit of a stretch for the character. There are certain things you have to... I mean, I dunno, there's various tricks, but they're all going to sound really absurd. (Laughter)
Obviously, everyone [still] is talking about The Social Network so can you talk a little bit about the directors of this film and the director of that film, especially with the way they work directly with the actors?
Jesse Eisenberg: Well, Ruben has a great kind of sense of how to create a comedic movie and not compromise the characters and he does that really really well, and in The Social Network, we weren't trying to be funny, so that's the primary difference. This poses a different kind of challenge, it was trying to be funny but you can't really compromise the stakes of these characters or otherwise the movie will just be absurd, and when you watch it, at last as an actor, you want to engage in the scenario. With that movie, with the Facebook movie, you can cut out the whole... because there's no comedic aspect of the movie, it's kind of a different process and a different endgame.
Where's your head at after doing this comedy? Do you fell like doing another comedy or do you want to do something more serious? Or something more independent? What are you doing next I suppose is the question.
Jesse Eisenberg: I'm not sure. I have a lot of publicity engagements, and then I'm trying to do a play in New York City.
Do you feel you should continue in comedy or you'd like to try to find something more serious next?
Jesse Eisenberg: The movies I'm signed on to do, which are struggling to raise financing, are all like independent dramas, but that's probably very difficult for them to get made.
Any heist movies you saw before coming to this?
Jesse Eisenberg: We reference Lethal Weapon a few times in this movie so I saw some of that. There are four of those. (laughter) Aziz has been watching Heat because there's a big gun battle, he's been watching that and then comes to our comparatively smaller set disappointed. (laughter) I think Ruben has been watching thousands of... he has thousands of movies on his computer as points of reference for the movie.
Jesse Eisenberg: We reference Lethal Weapon a few times in this movie so I saw some of that. There are four of those. (laughter) Aziz has been watching Heat because there's a big gun battle, he's been watching that and then comes to our comparatively smaller set disappointed. (laughter) I think Ruben has been watching thousands of... he has thousands of movies on his computer as points of reference for the movie.
Did you get to do a lot of the driving yourself in the film? What kind of training did you have to do for that?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I had some driving lessons, and the cars are kind of a big aspect of the movie. My car is a Mustang and then we steal a Datsun to rob the bank so that we're not followed and not incriminated, so yeah, and I do a little of the driving because they let me, which they probably shouldn't, because I almost took out the crew the other day because they're older cars that I haven't driven.
From the scene we've seen so far, it seems that your character and Aziz's character becomes stronger and better people. Does the bank robbing scene make you better people?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, we're not supposed to flee the bank robbery, but as I was saying, my character he dropped out of college a few years ago and he has not done anything to better his life, and he's a little miserable and feels worthless, so the bomb inspires him in a way to do all the things he should have done years ago.
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, we're not supposed to flee the bank robbery, but as I was saying, my character he dropped out of college a few years ago and he has not done anything to better his life, and he's a little miserable and feels worthless, so the bomb inspires him in a way to do all the things he should have done years ago.
How is it working with Aziz?
Jesse Eisenberg: Aziz is great. As you can imagine, he's just very funny, and...
Did you guys know each other before?
Jesse Eisenberg: No, I'd never met him, and no, he's hysterical.
You mentioned the references to Heat and Lethal Weapon and I'd imagine if anyone robbed a bank these days, they'd be influenced by bank robbery movies they've seen and I assume that's the case with your characters? As an actor, how do keep yourself from turning into Al Pacino when you do a bank robbery scene just because that's the nature of it?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, yeah... well, you don't want to fully avoid it, because part of the fun of it is that these characters were just like regular guys get into it and really immerse themselves in the bank robbery, because they have no choice, because if they don't get the money than the bomb explodes, so yeah, part of the fun of the bank robbery is how committed these guys become, they become crazed, and Aziz drinks three of these five-hour energy drinks and he becomes a livewire bouncing off the walls, so that's part of the fun of it, is to kind of reference those characters.
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, yeah... well, you don't want to fully avoid it, because part of the fun of it is that these characters were just like regular guys get into it and really immerse themselves in the bank robbery, because they have no choice, because if they don't get the money than the bomb explodes, so yeah, part of the fun of the bank robbery is how committed these guys become, they become crazed, and Aziz drinks three of these five-hour energy drinks and he becomes a livewire bouncing off the walls, so that's part of the fun of it, is to kind of reference those characters.
Is Point Break another one of them?
Jesse Eisenberg: Right, Point Break we reference in the movie, too. Exactly.
Jesse Eisenberg: Right, Point Break we reference in the movie, too. Exactly.
You've got the DP of Hot Fuzz which also references lots of those movies, so is he trying to avoid going too far in that direction?
Jesse Eisenberg: I don't know. I think Ruben probably would discuss this better, the style of the movie, but I think there's a lot of realistic looking shots, the car chase that we did is... I probably shouldn't say anything because he is very interested in maintaining a style that is kind of a classical style, kind of... I think he'd discuss it better.
Jesse Eisenberg: I don't know. I think Ruben probably would discuss this better, the style of the movie, but I think there's a lot of realistic looking shots, the car chase that we did is... I probably shouldn't say anything because he is very interested in maintaining a style that is kind of a classical style, kind of... I think he'd discuss it better.
Do you have any plans to write or direct?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I write plays, stageplays.
Is that the one you're doing in New York?
Jesse Eisenberg: I'm doing a play I wrote next fall in New York, but no, I was training do another one later this year.
Jesse Eisenberg: I'm doing a play I wrote next fall in New York, but no, I was training do another one later this year.
Are some of the dramas you said you're trying to raise funding for, are those projects of yours?
Jesse Eisenberg: No, I'm signed onto some independent movies because they will ask an actor to commit themselves to do it and then use that to get the financing, but every time I've done that, no one's made any money so.. (laughs) Nothing happened.
Where's Zombieland 2 at this point?
Jesse Eisenberg: Um, I think they may have finished a draft of the script but I haven't read it.
Jesse Eisenberg: Um, I think they may have finished a draft of the script but I haven't read it.
Can you guys tell us how you become involved in the movie? Did it start with a phone call or did you hear about it and want to be on it?
Danny McBride: Yeah, I got a phone call from Ruben [Fleischer] that he had this script and he had been reading a lot of scripts for his follow-up to Zombieland and he said he had been passing on everything and this script caught his eye and he was curious what I thought about it. I read it and really responded to it, I thought it was funny. It's like a, it's a pretty wicked dark comedy. It's crazy, I mean, a comedy based around a dude who has a suicide bomb vest seems... timely
Danny McBride: Yeah, I got a phone call from Ruben [Fleischer] that he had this script and he had been reading a lot of scripts for his follow-up to Zombieland and he said he had been passing on everything and this script caught his eye and he was curious what I thought about it. I read it and really responded to it, I thought it was funny. It's like a, it's a pretty wicked dark comedy. It's crazy, I mean, a comedy based around a dude who has a suicide bomb vest seems... timely
Nick Swardson: It's not Valentine's Day!
Danny McBride: No. Yeah so it just seemed cool. I was a big fan of Zombieland and I was excited to see what Ruben would do with something of this tone, and kind of see the elements that were in this, it just seemed like it could be a good time.
How did you get on it?
Nick Swardson: I did, Red Hour Films called me to do a table read on the script, they just acquired it, and so me and Jonah Hill did a table read for it like, maybe year ago, nine months ago. And then they called me up and said, "Hey, we're doing that movie, would you want to be the bad guy?" And so I was like, "Yeah, sure!" I've never been a bad guy ever, so, I was really excited to do it. And then I found out Danny was doing it. I never worked with him so I was just fired up. And I knew Ruben, so all those elements were just really exciting.
Did you originally do the reading for Jesse's part?
Nick Swardson: Yeah me and Jonah read the good guys, yeah.
But being a criminal, you're just like fu*k yeah.
Danny McBride: You don't get to wear the monkey masks as the good guys.
Nick Swardson: You don't get a flame thrower. You don't get any perks. You just get anxiety.
You guys play the bad guys, but are you guys bad guys that you root for in a way?
Danny McBride: I don't know, we're motherfu*kers in this thing.
Nick Swardson: But we're like, it's almost like dumb and dumber bad guys, we're not like pure evil, we're just guys who are bored and don't know what to do with their lives.
Danny McBride: So we're making some bad choices. You know we have goals and ambitions, so, you know. Maybe people will root for us for that? We wanna really change the world, we want to create the first tanning salon where guys can get handjobs and blowjobs.
Nick Swardson: There'll be a lot of states were we're the good guys. North Dakota...You know what I mean? Utah will be like, these guys are, these are our guys.
You talked a little bit about the stunts, the car chase, and all that stuff, are you guys actually involved in that stuff at all?
Danny McBride: We watch a lot of it. They spend lot of the movie is sitting in a van, watching all the shit go down that we're kind of manipulating.
Nick Swardson: That's another perk.
Danny McBride: We don't have to do any heavy lifting. Like, I think with the whole car chase, we literally came like, just to where there was a flipped over car and it was already done and there were paramedics cleaning it up. That was our involvement in the car chase.
Nick Swardson: Yeah.
Danny, I was going to ask, the tone in the movie seems similar to Pineapple Express, and sort of the comedy and action blended together, were you sort of concerned about that?
Danny McBride: No, you know I think it's similar to Pineapple Express in the fact that it's like humorous and it kind of has a violent tone, but there's nothing really similar as far as that. These characters are totally different. This movie is much more of like a sort of ticking clock. I thinkPineapple Express is pulling from 80s action films and stuff and you know, a lot of the points of reference that Ruben has are thing like Dog Day Afternoon, it's kind of this 70s bank-robber-heist films what this is kind of pulling from. So I think in that regard it's a totally different beast. I'm always up for people mixing genres and doing things a little more fucked up than they should with a comedy or an action film, so they have that in common for sure.
What are the inspiration films that you kind of like? I heard Point Break being bounced around.
Danny McBride: Well Point Break was being bounced around, I mean Lethal Weapon. I know that [writers Michael] Diliberti and [Matthew] Sullivan are huge Shane Black fans so they like, they're obviously influenced and inspired by him. I can see that too, there's a lot at the core of this that's all about, it's about buddies on the good guys side and the bad guys side.
Nick Swardson: Yeah, there's elements of that. I mean, there's a little bit of Precious in this movie [laughs]...There's elements of everything. They really incorporated a lot of stuff.
Were you given any direction on how much improvisation you could do? Was it a scene by scene thing or were you given the script and be like, "Uh, do what you will."
Nick Swardson: Well, one thing is they brought me and Danny so we could improvise a lot. I mean we definitely got the script as much I can, but we've been given pretty free reign to add stuff and whatever.
Danny McBride: Yeah, that's the cool thing I like about working with Nick too is he's not like one of the improvisers who just kind of, you know, you're just doing like stand up comedy in the scene. I kind of feel like the stuff that we're doing is just always, we never take it too far off the page, the scene is always what it's about and we'll just try to come up with different ways to spit the jokes out.
Nick Swardson: Yeah you don't want to be self-indulgent. You want to make sure that you stay in character and it's a part of the whole machine, you know, it's not just us doing fart jokes in the middle of a drive-by shooting.
Danny McBride: That's not to see that there aren't...
Nick Swardson: There are. But, it's in the context [laughs].
You crack up at a lot of your own improv.
Nick Swardson: It's bad. It's bad because when I look at Danny and when I look at Jesse, and Jesse will crack, and it's just like, I'm way more susceptible to it, but yeah.
Danny McBride: And it's a bank shoot too, I mean, shit gets a little loopy.
Nick Swardson: Yeah it's hard, I do have to check myself a little bit.
How long do you tout that flamethrower around, is it just this scene or is it like an ongoing thing?
Nick Swardson: It's this scene but it's really, really heavy. I mean a lot of my laughing was just because it was so heavy that I just was like, it was really, really heavy. And I'm not gonna lie, I just was like, there were moments when I was like, "I can't do this. I can't hold this thing man."
So when you were lowering it, it was kind of just more...
Nick Swardson: Yeah, yeah. I actually was kind of like, "Hey can I just put this on the ground? I'll just hold it like this so it's balanced on the ground."
Did your characters actually make the flamethrower? It was looking a little make-shift.
Danny McBride: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We make the bombs, the flamethrowers. We're just little renegade bored guys who've seen too many movies.
Had you guys worked with each other before on anything? Have you met before?
Nick Swardson: Never actually.
Danny McBride: We met at the table read and shared a beer downstairs, and then we knew it was on.
Yeah I was gonna say did you do any bonding activities, did you do any, go out after a few nights?
Danny McBride: We've turned Grand Rapids a new one, right? [laughs]
Nick Swardson: Yeah. We found all their alcohol. You know, we've choked out several homeless people, just to kind of feel better.
Danny McBride: Never forget that feeling, you know, and the people you share that with.
Nick Swardson: Yeah it's been good, I mean Danny and I have a lot of mutual friends and stuff like that but we've never worked together. So I was psyched to kind of work with people that I respected but had never worked with. That was definitely a big draw.
This was kind of a bit of an Observe and Report mini reunion, although Aziz didn't get to do a scene with you. He said he was really looking forward to working with you, are you going to throw in a scene for him somewhere?
Danny McBride: Yeah we all, yeah Aziz [Ansari] and [Michael] Peña, we all, we never got, none of us shared any screen time in that movie so this is nice to be able to finally see each other on set. Yeah and Peña just worked with, he's on the next season of Eastbound [and Down], so it's good to see him out here too. Yeah it was fun, a little reunion.
Ruben's clearly a fan of that movie, and obviously he has a lot of fans, did you find that he asked you about that movie at all?
Danny McBride: No not too much, I knew that he liked the film, but no more than usual.
And how far are you into the next season of Eastbound and Down?
Danny McBride: We finish shooting this summer and I think we are done editing, like, I think four of the episodes and we're finishing the last three right now. Almost done.
I know you're doing another movie with Jody Hill, it's like a kind of Noir detective movie, what's the forward motion on that?
Danny McBride: Uh, you know Diliberti and Sullivan, the same guys who wrote this wrote L.A.P.I., it's kind of a throwback to movies like The Long Goodbye and Chinatown, yeah it's like a noir/comedy, but Jody and I are both very tired. We've had long years. So I don't know what the booking is, we'll get to it, but it probably won't be until next year.
Where do these roles and where does this production sit with where you're at in your career right now? What other projects are you working on and why this project now?
Danny McBride: For me it just seemed like a cool project and I liked everyone involved so you just kind of make time, I guess, for the things that you want to do. So that was kind of what the deal was with me.
Nick, how about you?
Nick Swardson: Mine was perfect timing. I just finished a film, a romantic comedy in June and this was like, kind of perfect timing to kind of jump into something completely different. And I've got a show coming out in October, I did a sketch show, and so, it was like, right. It was like the perfect window to before I have to do press for that.
What's the name of the sketch show?
Nick Swardson: It's called Nick Swardson's Pretend Time, it will be on Comedy Central. Just more filth in the airwaves.
Is that gonna be made into a comedy album?
Nick Swardson: I don't think it will be an album but, I don't know, maybe. We'll see.
You were thinking about a slide show, maybe, right?
Nick Swardson: Thinking about a slide show, definitely a Cirque du Soleil version of it, but with urine instead of water.
How about, in this scene we've been watching today, you have a culmination of all these different storylines coming together, I get the impression that you guys have a lot of your own storyline? Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I know when you try killing your father. What happens between that and...
Danny McBride: Yeah, you know, my father is played by Fred Ward in the film and yeah he's a motherfucker to my character and so I really despise him. There's definitely, you get the back story of what our motivation is to put a bomb on young Jesse Eisenberg here, that's fully explored, you know. I mean it is, you get the good guys' angle, and you totally get the bad guys setup, and you follow them along the journey too, for sure.
Nick Swardson: Yeah, I like movies where everything's kind of spread apart, the storylines, and they kind of come to a head at the end, so that's kind of cool. Like I'm psyched to see the movie just to see what Jesse and Aziz are doing. Really, Danny and I, there's a whole half of the movie that we have yet to see anything of. So it's kind of cool.
So what has it been like working with Ruben?
Nick Swardson: Oh, it's been a dream.
Danny McBride: Ruben's been great. I mean, you know, he's a good dude, he keeps things really mellow, he's passionate about what he does. Anytime I get to kind of like peek at the monitor or anything while he's shooting I mean, yeah, he's just got a good visual sense too so I'm just stoked to see how this all comes together.
Nick Swardson: Yeah, and he's such a normal guy too. He doesn't, like, flip out at moments that are stressful. He really did a lot of work, and the crew's great, and they collaborated really well. Also it's been a really casual set for all this craziness, like, Ruben's like, "All right, so we're gonna light you on fire...and then we'll do that..." [laughs]
Have you had any part of you set on fire yet?
Nick Swardson: Yeah, I had to do a fire rehearsal, which I had to do hung over on a Sunday morning. So, I don't recommend being hung over and lit on fire. Those two things do not go well together. It was my legs and back. I'm trying to push for them to do a re-write where Danny gets his genitals lit on fire. Rubens' kind of 50-50 on that.
Have you had a chance to blast the flamethrower yourself at all?
Nick Swardson: I have not yet, no, that's coming up soon. And this will probably be my last interview before I die, so, you can tell my mom I love her.
Actually, is this movie gonna be R-rated?
Danny McBride: Oh yes [laughs].
It feels like a pretty hard-R right?
Nick Swardson: Yeah. It's very hard-R.
Do you ever have to do PG versions of your movies for like airlines?
Danny McBride: I don't show up to the days where we have to dub the TV lines, there's just too many of them. I just ace out of it.
Nick Swardson: I don't know how they would dub this, it would be a short film. Like ten minutes.
Danny McBride: Yeah I think, I remember when we had to do TV for like the first episode ofEastbound and Down, and we went in there and it was literally, ninety, it was a thirty minute show, there was ninety things that were not TV safe. I guess the guys had just done The Transporterand there was only sixty things, that was an hour and a half movie. We had ninety in thirty minutes.
Do you play Jesse's best friend?
Aziz Ansari: I play Jesse's best friend, and as you know he gets a bomb strapped to him and is told that he has to rob a bank so when that happens he asks his best friend to help him do it and I play the best friend so I'm along for the ride.
Aziz Ansari: I play Jesse's best friend, and as you know he gets a bomb strapped to him and is told that he has to rob a bank so when that happens he asks his best friend to help him do it and I play the best friend so I'm along for the ride.
Do you have a bomb attached to you as well?
Aziz Ansari: No it's just Jesse. I'm just his friend that's tagging along.
Aziz Ansari: No it's just Jesse. I'm just his friend that's tagging along.
How was shooting the bank robbery?
Aziz Ansari: It was so fun! I don't plan on robbing a bank anytime so this is probably the closest I'll get to doing that, and I see why people rob banks, its very fun. You just bust in and start yelling shit at people and threatening to shoot them and stuff, it's so fun.
Aziz Ansari: It was so fun! I don't plan on robbing a bank anytime so this is probably the closest I'll get to doing that, and I see why people rob banks, its very fun. You just bust in and start yelling shit at people and threatening to shoot them and stuff, it's so fun.
Is it just like the movies, when you come in screaming?
Aziz Ansari: Yeah, you know the whole time before we were shooting that I just watched Heatover and over again, to really get in that mindset, so it's just like an idiot like me trying to channel through to Heat. So, it was so fun, and that was always my favorite part of the movie, I don't think there's ever been a bank robbing comedy so that just seemed like a really interesting concept to me. Yeah, it was so fun, and Ruben was really cool about this, letting me like do whatever I want as far as improvising stuff during the bank robbery and that's just a fun situation.
Aziz Ansari: Yeah, you know the whole time before we were shooting that I just watched Heatover and over again, to really get in that mindset, so it's just like an idiot like me trying to channel through to Heat. So, it was so fun, and that was always my favorite part of the movie, I don't think there's ever been a bank robbing comedy so that just seemed like a really interesting concept to me. Yeah, it was so fun, and Ruben was really cool about this, letting me like do whatever I want as far as improvising stuff during the bank robbery and that's just a fun situation.
Did you get to do a lot of improve with Ruben?
Aziz Ansari: Yeah, um, you know Ruben's always like, "If you have any ideas, try them." I think when you start to talk about improvising it gets to actors just saying dumb stuff randomly likeWhose Line Is It Anyway? or something but I try to think of it as rewriting in the moment, like really looking to see if there is any alternate jokes or something like that, and Ruben has been really cool about pushing me to do as much of that as I can.
Who was already on the movie by the time you had joined it and who were the most excited about working with?
Aziz Ansari: When I joined I think it was just me and Danny (McBride) when I first signed up and he had Danny, in this unfortunately we don't have any scenes together really but we are doing another movie, we are writing another thing for us to do together, so we'll actually do some stuff together in that but we were fans of each other so I was excited to find out he was in. You know, he was a guy I respect a lot, and I respect his work and his taste and everything, when I heard he was involved I definitely started bugging out.
Aziz Ansari: When I joined I think it was just me and Danny (McBride) when I first signed up and he had Danny, in this unfortunately we don't have any scenes together really but we are doing another movie, we are writing another thing for us to do together, so we'll actually do some stuff together in that but we were fans of each other so I was excited to find out he was in. You know, he was a guy I respect a lot, and I respect his work and his taste and everything, when I heard he was involved I definitely started bugging out.
What is the thing you are working on writing with Danny?
Aziz Ansari: It's a thing with his company Rough House, and my friend Harris Little, who is a writer on the show Parks and Recreations that I'm on, he's writing it and I think we are keeping the logline under wraps for now but I think it will be a lot of fun.
How action oriented is this?
Aziz Ansari: How action oriented is this? Jesse did stunt driving and stuff like that I'm just kind of riding in the car with him. Other than that, what's the other stunt stuff? The bank robbery, there's no stunts in that, but I guess the main thing is the stunt driving, which is so fun, I never did anything where I had to be in a car chase and its pretty cool. They have these rigs that like pull the car and stuff, you know acting is very easy it's a lot of "Ah! Look out!" It's so fun and yeah the rest of the stuff they have this guy, it's the first time I had a stuntman, that wasn't a Caucasian stuntman that needed to be painted brown, I had this stuntman named Neta that was half Hawain and half Philippino, he had a very similar skin tone, and he handles any really hard stunts, most of the stuff has been pretty simple.
Did you get to shoot any guns?
Aziz Ansari: No, when we rob the bank we have plastic guns, we didn't use any real guns.
Do you have any scenes with Danny or Nick?
Aziz Ansari: I don't have any scenes with Danny or Nick, no, not really, I mean just this thing at the end, you know. No, I mean, yeah like I said anytime I improvise I try to make sure it makes sense within the thing, I don't like do some scene and just start doing this riff on popcorn, you know. It has to integrate with the script and you have to kind of know what you're doing. I've kind of done enough stuff now as far as Parks and Recreations and some of the other movies that I've done, like okay this is some of the stuff that will actually work and make it in the movie. To do that stuff well you have to do it in a particular way, to just dick around you'll just waste everyone's time.
Is there someone that you work with particularly well that brings that out of you? That brings out the best lines?
Aziz Ansari: You know, I think everyone, I feel really lucky to work with the people that I've worked with, you know, whether it be the cast of Parks of the people in this movie and everything. I've been really lucky to work with people that have brought it out in me. Just people that are fun to work with I guess. Oh, and Bruce Willis. He brings it out of me but I've never got to work with him. It's really a bummer.
When you are watching his movies do you just think of lines?
Aziz Ansari: I could just tell, like he'll say something and I'll be like, "Ah, I've got something for that!"
Were you a fan of Ruben before?
Aziz Ansari: You know it's so funny, Ruben showed me an e-mail he sent me in like 2006 saying, "Hey, I just shot this McDonald's commercial and I have some extra time with the equipment. I'd love to do some short film with you, I'm such a huge fan" this is years ago before I did Human Giant or anything, and I was like "Sorry man I'm busy." I didn't say it like that, I didn't blow him off, but it was so funny because he was like, "Yeah, I've been wanting to work with you for so many years" and I was like "Wow it's so crazy" so we have finally been able to work together on this. I knew his stuff from like Zombieland and I thought he did an awesome job with that. So from watching that, just imagining that skill-set applied to the stuff we've been shooting I feel like its going to turn out really good.
What was the deciding factor that made you take on the project?
Aziz Ansari: You know I read a lot of scripts for something to do in my off time from Parks and Recreations and this was my favorite and it really felt like a role I could really make my own and bring something to it. Just the idea of a comedy based around a bank robbery seemed like something that would work.
What's your character like in this?
Aziz Ansari: What's my character like? It's just like this guy whose best friend is given this impossible situation and they have a rough time in the beginning because his best friend has confessed that he has a huge crush on his twin sister and then they are forced into this situation when they are robbing a bank together, and all of these movies where they take ordinary people and put them in extraordinary situations, you know.
Where you on it before Nick Swardson was?
Aziz Ansari: Yes. I think so. Yeah, I believe so. I knew Swardson, and when I found out he was on it I was psyched. I think him and Danny are a really cool combination and they haven't been together in anything. What's cool about that pair and me and Jesse's pair is that they are both really different energies its like me and Jesse are very different and him and McBride are very different so I think it works very well together.
Will the bank robbing scene be played real and straight or will it be funny?
Aziz Ansari: I think that we try to play everything real and to be aware of that. You have to play it real because this is actually happening. I think that when you play it real it actually makes it funnier. I mean all my favorite comedies are like...like a lot of Parks and Recreations stuff we try to play everything real and I think that always works well.
What are your feelings on Parks and Recreations being held midseason?
Aziz Ansari: You know obviously that's not ideal but I feel really good about the stuff we shot for season 3, we shot six episodes of season 3, and I think it's like the best stuff we've done and we go back to that at the end of September. You know, I try not to dwell on stuff like it being moved because the hard part of doing a network sitcom is actually having a good show that I'm excited about and I feel so lucky to work with everyone that's in that cast, with the writers, and Mike Schur and Greg Daniels the executive producers. All of that stuff is the stuff that rarely comes together so I'm just glad all that stuff is together
Is this character obsessed Jamie Foxx too?
Aziz Ansari: No that was a particular Tom thing.
Is he obsessed with another actor?
Aziz Ansari: Well you know, I've always had a part of me...When I was growing up my favorite movies that I watched all the time, I mean I watched comedies and stuff, but the movies I watched all the time were Die Hard and Terminator 2 like these classic 80's 90's action movies, so I kind of channeled that a little bit. In this movie there is a thing where these guys like Lethal Weapon a lot so I kind of thought of this guy as being really...like brought out that part of my personality. Like, okay this guy must be really into action movies. Stuff like Point Break andTerminator 2 and Die Hard, like those are his favorite movies.
Is there any race comedy? You mentioned your new Filipino friend?
Aziz Ansari: Well that's my stuntman. He doesn't have any jokes in the movie [laughs]. But, no not really. Pretty much a lot of the roles I've done were written for a white guy - his name is Chet - so yeah there wasn't any real race stuff. I don't think there really is, since it was written for a white guy. It would be really weird if it was written for a white guy but they had Indian jokes just in case. You know, like "Hey we just did a rewrite - he's got this Indian accent and he's really silly so he's in the movie now!" It's like the kind of stuff I've done. It's more focused on the character and not on ethnic jokes.
Do you try to avoid those roles on purpose and just focus on broad stuff?
Aziz Ansari: Yeah. I mean I never really auditioned for stuff where the humor is based solely on the person being of a certain ethnicity. It's just never appealed to me. Like in Parks and Recreations, the funny thing about him is not that he's an Indian guy or anything it's his personality and the way he acts.
Your relationship with Jesse in this film, does he kind of play the straight man to your comedian? Where is the comedy at?
Aziz Ansari: I think his character is dealing with the seriousness of that situation but his character is not like a total straight man. I think we both play off each other. We've become really good friends over the course of shooting. Pretty much all our scenes are together so we've been together most of the time. We've become good friends. Our onscreen rapport has kind of helped the scenes too. Yeah, I mean I don't think he's a total straight man. But I think sometimes he's dealing with a serious situation and I just have to say some stupid jackass comment to break it up a little bit.
Are you still working on the Randy movie? What's happening with that?
Aziz Ansari: We're working on these three movies for Apatow right now, and one of them is the Randy thing, but the one we've been working on the most is this idea about me and another guy play two astronauts who are disgraced and have to go back to the moon to clear their names. We've been working on that script. I'm really excited about it.
As a director how has Rubin been balancing comedy and action?
Aziz Ansari: I think he's been great. I think he knows what he wants and what he's doing.
Does it have the same feel that Zombieland had, where he balanced the comedy and action at the same time?
Aziz Ansari: Yeah. I think this is a little bit more of a comedy than Zombieland was - in my head, I don't know. I think he's been really good. He's been so open to any ideas, and for me as an actor he's been so open to any ideas. I feel like I've had a really lucky career where I've worked with people who have really been open to things like that, like Apatow, the guys at Parks and Recreation, where they are not just like "This is it, do it!" They are like "Whatever ideas you have. Whatever it is." That's been really cool, it's been really collaborative. Like every scene we go in and try to elevate the scene and make it better than it was.
How does this character compare to everything else you've done. Will it be easy for your fans to like this character?
Aziz Ansari: I think with everything I do there is a certain essence to the character in a way. This just character my bear is styled a little bit different, usually this is shaved but in this movie it's a little more grown out. There's a little bit more beard there. No, I would say it's a different character. This guy is like a junior high school teacher and his relationships are different. I think if you enjoy my work you'll like this.
Are you planning any web videos with this character like you did with Randy on Funny or Die?
Aziz Ansari: Not right now. The Randy thing was so easy because I wasn't in the movie that much. With this, I'm shooting pretty much all the time. I don't have time to dick around on thirty minute short films [laughs].
On Zombieland it was said that Rubin works really fast, did you find it's the same with this movie? Did you find it to be a good pace?
Aziz Ansari: Yeah I mean, I wasn't there on set [with Zombieland]. But yeah it does seem like we move pretty fast. We shoot some crazy stuff. With car chases they are just slow by nature. It's a lot different than shooting a scene on Parks and Recreation. Parks and Recreation is documentary style so it's just coverage and stuff, a lot different than this. Yeah, it's so fun.
How do you like shooting in Michigan?
Aziz Ansari: It's fun. Everyone is really nice here. Its hard being away from home but everyone has been really nice and it's a fun town to shoot in. I love Grand Rapids.
Aziz Ansari: It's fun. Everyone is really nice here. Its hard being away from home but everyone has been really nice and it's a fun town to shoot in. I love Grand Rapids.
You know the downtown by heart by now.
Aziz Ansari: Yeah I guess so. But who is going to say, "Man, Grand Rapids has been so shitty."
Where would you say are some of your favorite places to shoot?
Aziz Ansari: Well I've mainly only shot in LA. For the other stuff I've done everything has been in LA. For Observe and Report I was in Albuquerque for a little bit, but I was only there a couple of weeks. This has been the first time I've done a movie where it was like okay I'm going to be here for a long time. The other films I've done have mostly been shot in LA. So, it's based on Grand Rapids and LA basically.
Do you have a lot of scenes with Michael Pena like in Observe and Report?
Aziz Ansari: We actually didn't have any scenes together in Observe and Report. Me and Danny didn't either.
Aziz Ansari: We actually didn't have any scenes together in Observe and Report. Me and Danny didn't either.
What's your favorite heist movie besides Heat?
Aziz Ansari: I just watched The Killing, Stanley Kubrick.
Not as funny?
Aziz Ansari: No [laughs] it's more serious in that one.
You definitely got so much done in one day. Is that kind of the luxury of doing a lot of takes?
Ruben Fleischer: No I think this is just the time we allotted to it and luckily we had the time to do it. It's actually a shorter schedule than Zombieland. We had 41 days for Zombieland. This was 37 days. It was 4 days shorter and a smaller 2nd unit. This movie feels tighter and smaller.
Ruben Fleischer: No I think this is just the time we allotted to it and luckily we had the time to do it. It's actually a shorter schedule than Zombieland. We had 41 days for Zombieland. This was 37 days. It was 4 days shorter and a smaller 2nd unit. This movie feels tighter and smaller.
What was your vision? Did you know what you were getting into when you put Danny McBride and Nick Swardson together?
Ruben Fleischer: Yeah, Danny is someone I've been a huge fan of for a long time and Nick was in the first short film I ever made 8 years ago so I've known Nick forever. They've never worked together and I don't think they knew each other. I think it's was a fresh pairing to put Danny with someone who's not of that Apatow world and Nick has always been so funny in Sandler movies. It's nice for him to do something a little different than what he's used to doing. The chemistry is great and it works really well so far.
Why did you do this movie after Zombieland? You probably had a lot of choices of what to do. What is it about this movie that made you want to do this?
Ruben Fleischer: The story is just so original and it's really funny on paper. The script was one of the funniest I read. It was a chance to do a smaller movie that I could craft and make my own and try and make an original film. I really feel like this movie doesn't exist already. It's really weird and messed up and dark but hilarious. The cast is incredible. It was a chance to do something on my terms and do something I was passionate about.
What have been some of the challenges of balancing the tone and the comedy and the action together?
Ruben Fleischer: Zombieland was a little more popcorn. It's pure entertainment. You have zombies, comedy. It's a classic avenger story. This one has darker undertones and the best reference point would be Fargo. The groundness of it; the reality but [it's] humorous. Hopefully this will be more actively funny than Fargo was because of the comedians. There's definitely a grounded reality to it. It's a crime story similar to how Fargo was as far as the messed up plot of it. Just a misguided plot and this is a misguided plot and it's bad for everybody.
Zombieland was notable for its Bill Murray cameo, will there be any surprises in this film?
Ruben Fleischer: The great thing about that Bill Murray cameo is that no one really saw it coming, so if there are any cameos in this one I think we should try and maintain that as well.
Because that cameo was so great and so well known, do you feel pressure to put one in?
Ruben Fleischer: Well, whatever suits the story. I think Zombieland was a heightened reality, this is a much more grounded reality so I wouldn't anything to distract from the story being told. Draw your own conclusions from that.
We're you ever tempted to turn this into a PG-13 film instead of a hard R?
Ruben Fleischer: I don't know that the subject matter inherently would have allowed it. It's dark at times so I don't know if that would have even been a possibility. I think Lebowski has the record for the most Fs, I think we might give them a run for their money. It's embarrassing how much profanity there is. I'm almost a little bit nervous, there are so many F-words, hopefully the audience can sustain it.
This scene was obviously shot a bunch of times, is your editor basically working on it the whole time?
Ruben Fleischer: He's got his work cut out for him.
There's so much stuff you could do with this at this point.
Ruben Fleischer: This scene isn't even as improv-y as some of the scenes we've done, there's scenes where Danny and Nick just go off totally into their own territory. This one, because it's the end of the movie, these things have to happen for the fire to happen, it just has a pace to it, so we can't indulge too much, but there are scenes we could cut ten different ways if we wanted to. Those guys are so funny they can come up with hilarious shit all day long.
Has it ever gotten disruptive when they're making each other laugh?
Ruben Fleischer: Well, I don't think you can help that, it just comes with the territory when you have really funny people being really funny, but we try and get through it. But Nick, Nick has a tendency to break more, Danny, it's really hard to get Danny to laugh in a scene, he's really great. But Nick has a tendency to laugh.
You mentioned that there's a lot of profanity, is there a lot of violence in this movie?
Ruben Fleischer: Yeah, I mean, this is like the most extreme, where we're literally burning a guy, but there's not a lot of bullets and gunfire and stuff like that, there's a couple fights, there's the car chase, the actual bank heist, but it's not like The Expendables or anything. It's pretty tepid.
So how much of a factor was it doing this movie when reading the script you saw, "Oh wow, I get to use a flamethrower and do a car chase"?
Ruben Fleischer: The action comedy factor was really cool to me, but the flame stuff scares me. It's much more manageable than I expected it to be, but I was really nervous about all the fire stuff, that was the thing I was dreading during the shooting process. It turned out not to be as scary as perhaps I thought it would be, but lighting a dude on fire is no joke.
You were just concerned about the safety aspect?
Ruben Fleischer: Yeah I was just a little nervous about it.
Do you have to spray water on everything else before?
Ruben Fleischer: There's not much that can get by, it's all dirt.
But it changes the mood of the set right? On a night where you're going to light someone on fire?
Ruben Fleischer: When you're doing it for real, it's serious. There's this precaution stages thing that they go through 40 minutes ago, it's very rigid. The fire safety guys come in and do what they do, and you kind of just follow their lead and I'm not involved in it at that point. They're just doing what they know how to do.
I don't suppose you have any inclination to go over there and take a shot?
Ruben Fleischer: No, it's super hot, like, really really hot. But it'll be fun to get to see Nick do it. This will be his first time doing it.
Does it make you nervous to see someone like Nick Swardson wielding a flamethrower?
Ruben Fleischer: He seems a little ambivalent actually, it's really not joke, it's scary. But this one's not as big as the one yesterday. But yeah, it's really neat.
How do you like shooting here in Michigan?
Ruben Fleischer: It's awesome, I've been here since May.
Is your movie actually set in Grand Rapids?
Ruben Fleischer: We don't really define it specifically, but it's Michigan and there's some things like the cop cars says Grand Rapids and Nick threw in an improv at one point about Grand Rapids, not sure if that will make it in, but we're just kind of saying it's in western Michigan or something like that. But the cop cars do say Grand Rapids.
When you got Nick, Danny and Aziz aboard, did you tailor a lot more towards them?
Ruben Fleischer: The script honestly was written with Danny in mind, anyone who reads the first draft of the script will know that it was meant for Danny. It's just so specific to his voice. Aziz actually has helped write some scenes for himself. We've worked on them together to try and get a nice voice that suits him, but Nick kind of customs everything to himself. We didn't do much actually on the page, it's more in the performance I guess.
Aziz plays these snarky characters, is that toned down a little bit in this?
Ruben Fleischer: He's Jesse's best friend, if Jesse's more earnest, he's more "Aziz." I think audiences will be very impressed by the breadth of his talent cause I don't think he's ever had more than a few scenes in a movie before and he's really the co-star here. I think people will be surprised how good he is.
This film happens to have three cast members from Observe and Report. Does that just happen to be the way it happened?
Ruben Fleischer: They're just the best people for the roles. Danny was my first and only choice for that character, but Aziz and Michael (Peña), we had a lot of people audition, and honestly they were just the best. To be honest, I would prefer they weren't all in Observe and Report, because there's no overlap, but Peña's character was so different in that then what he's doing here, that I don't think anyone will worry about it, and Aziz was a pretty minor character in that movie, although he was one of the most memorable, but hopefully true hardcore Observe and Report fans might notice, but ultimately I don't think anyone will really say that's the same cast. Specifically because Peña is so different.
Do you expect it to be like a full year or nine months of post production on this?
Ruben Fleischer: No, we're scheduled through March, so it's a 20 weeks schedule or something like that. We don't have a ton of VFX, and we also don't have a ton of money so we can't go too long. This is a pretty modest budget, so we can just do what we do, and we're scheduled to be done in February or March to be out August 12th.
So you're not trying to get more money for your second movie?
Ruben Fleischer: I wish we had more money. We have about the same, I'm not sure exactly what the budget is but it's more or less the same (as Zombieland). Doesn't feel like more though.
I know that Ben Stiller is a producer on this, has he spent any time on set?
Ruben Fleischer: He's shooting something, but he was definitely there for the table reads, he and I met a bunch during pre-production, he's there for all the callbacks. He's been actively involved as a producer and he's also just a great mentor for me cause he's such a great director and he's super talented, and he's been really helpful for me. His involvement has been great.
Are you hoping the audience gets something else out of the film besides just entertainment?
Ruben Fleischer: The theme of the movie to me is like, Jesse plays this pizza delivery guy who just sits on his couch and has let life pass him by, he's just kind of never really done anything and when he's faced with the circumstances of the bomb and the movie, he's really forced to prioritize what's most important to him in that day. He has one day essentially to live, so it forces him to A) get off his ass and do something but then also tell the girl he's always loved that he loves her and be real with his best friend about some shit he hasn't talked about before. It's really about if you only had one more day to live, what are you going to do with that day and what's most important to you. More than anything else, that's what hopefully the audience will take home from this is life is precious, you have to make the most of it and if you're just delivering pizzas, you might want to reevaluate your priorities. Unless that's what you want to do.
So where did you get shot with a pen?
Michael Peña: Oh, this is where I got shot with the pen. I was pretty fu*king amazed. It's one of those scenes where I was like, 'I don't know how the fu*k we're going to shoot this,' and actually, the writers always look this shit up. So, it's actually like a pen that does shoot a .22.
If you take anything from the set you're going to take that, right?
Michael Peña: Yeah, but that's the most embarrassing way to get your ass kicked. 'I got shot with a pen, dude.' You're like, 'Oh, fu*k.'
Do you endure any injuries yourself or is mostly just trauma?
Dilshad Vadsaria: Trauma, and Danny [McBride] pulling me back and forth, but I got to kick him and elbow him a little bit. And I think I get to struggle with the both of them next week, kind of do a little bit more to them.
And you and Aziz [Ansari] are twins in this?
Dilshad Vadsaria: Yes, we play twins, right.
And this is your first major movie role, right?
Dilshad Vadsaria: Yeah.
How did you come onto the project?
Dilshad Vadsaria: I auditioned, the whole traditional way. I went through the whole auditioning process.
Did you know who you were up against and were you intimidated at all?
Dilshad Vadsaria: There's this really, really pretty girl. I don't know her name, but I've seen her at auditions before and I came out of my audition and she was sitting there. I was like, 'Oh, okay.' Then I walked out.
Michael Peña: Yeah, the pretty girl beat the pretty girl.
Dilshad Vadsaria: This girl is like gorgeous. Maybe I would sleep with her if I was a guy, that kind of guy.
Can you talk about Chango? He's a hitman who kills Danny McBride's father?
Michael Peña: Danny McBride's father, and he actually calls off the deal because Danny McBride is like, 'Yeah, can I bump it,' as if it's a reservation at Sizzler. I'm like, 'No, dude. You can't bump it. Fu*k this. You became the hit.' So then I go after Danny and then with this scene over here, everything just comes to a head and I want to kill Danny. Then I see Nick Swardson's character and I was like, 'What?' Then I have to kill two guys.
Are they actually doing this whole thing to get money for you?
Michael Peña: Yeah, it's kind of crazy. They're putting a fu*king bomb on one dude to go rob a bank to pay the other guy to kill his dad, and I was like, 'Why don't you just put the bomb on the dad?' You see what I mean, but the fact is another thing that they got from Wikipedia which is that it's one of the shittiest ways to die or something like that. The guy was actually in on it. He wore a bomb on his fu*king neck and he was like, 'Give me the money,' and he robbed a bank. Then he gave the money to his friends and then his friends blew him up. I mean, what do you expect, dude?
There was a Colombian movie like that, too, where they asked for ransom money or else they were going to blow somebody up -
Michael Peña: Think about that shit for a second. We're like, 'Henry, this is what we want you to do?' 'Is going to be real explosives?' 'Oh, yeah. Fu*k yeah. It has to be.'
Dilshad Vadsaria: 'But trust us. We'll split it with you.'
Michael Peña: 'Yeah, no worries'.
Is your character a professional assassin who's done other jobs?
Michael Peña: I think he thinks he's a professional assassin because if not he wouldn't have ...you know what I mean? I'm like The Professional.
In his head is he any particular assassin from the movies past?
Michael Peña: You know what, that's funny. I won't tell you the name, but there's somebody that I know in Chicago that talks a lot like the way that my character does and he's in and out of the pen. He loves Scarface, Goodfellas, The Godfather. He's always quoting them. I'm like, 'Dude, you're not them. Obviously you always get caught. That's why you go to the pen all the time.'
So he's remaining nameless because you're afraid that he'll come after you? He knows who he is. Do you think that bank robbers will be influenced by this movie, thinking that this is a way that they can do it?
Michael Peña: That's how they did it in Heat and not much happened after that. Not too many people are that stupid. I think now, to be honest with you, they just say, 'Give me some money.' Nine times out of ten don't they get caught. You should write that so nobody will be like, 'You know what, they presented this pretty fucking good. I might rob a fu*king bank.'
And you have a partner in crime as well, right?
Michael Peña: Yeah, this girl Juicy. She's like an ivy league chick...nah, she's a stripper. She's a straight up stripper and we have a little bang session.
I was going to ask you to be a little more specific with bang session, but -
Michael Peña: I think with the fist going like this, bang sesh, you know? Whatever. We have a romantic scene where we're both facing the same way. You know what I'm saying? Use your imagination. No, but we have a same directional romanticism going on and she's a stripper and is the one who kind of sets us all up. She gives Danny a lap dance, and is like, 'Oh, really? You want to kill your dad? I think I know the guy,' and then she calls me up.
How long do all the tats take?
Michael Peña: I think it takes as long as your hair takes.
Dilshad Vadsaria: We come in at the same time.
Michael Peña: Yeah, we come in at the same time.
Dilshad Vadsaria: And then all the boys come in a half hour after us.
Michael Peña: Yeah, they have to do a lot. Don't they straighten your hair?
Dilshad Vadsaria: My hair, yeah. They have to blow it out and stuff, but you look over and he's sitting still.
Michael Peña: With my iPod.
Do you have any real tattoos?
Michael Peña: Yeah, of my mom right here. I'm going to get my son right here. Or maybe not right here, but maybe like this. I've got some real ones going. I have the starter kit. I've got the fu*king band right here. I've got the skull right here. No big deal. It's like a starter package for posers in L.A. Where's the barbed wire?
The movie is balancing the comedy and action sequences. How has that been?
Michael Peña: That's really interesting to me because when I did Observe and Report it was mainly, like, you knew you were doing a comedy, and I was, I guess, the bad guy for that. This one, it's interesting because you have to do a little bit of drama. This one, even when I read it, there are two scenes that I've done out of my character's sequence where they're actually more like drama. Then the other ones you can fu*k around with a little bit. But there's some that are drama and then some that are comedic. I'm not sure how yours are.
Dilshad Vadsaria: My character, she's like the love interest. So I don't necessarily get to play with comedy as much as I get to try and figure out what's going on with Jesse's [Eisenberg] character. He meets me on top of a rooftop and all of a sudden he's telling me that he loves me, but she has no idea what's happening with the bomb or anything. So it's kind of two different movies going on at the same time. It's kind of like, 'Okay, that's nice. I love you, too,' not thinking anything about it, basically. 'I have to go downstairs because I have a meeting,' and then he goes, 'No. You're not listening to me.' I said, 'Well, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.' So I don't get to do the stuff that these guys get to do.
What about being kidnapped?
Dilshad Vadsaria: Well, we haven't done that yet and so I don't know what's going to happen next week. I'm kind of looking forward to beating them up a little bit and seeing what happens with that. Obviously, I'll try not to hurt them as much, but kind of figuring out how to hit them and surprise them and seeing what kinds of response I can get out of them.
Just don't go for the balls.
Dilshad Vadsaria: No, no, no. Just using the elbow, going like this.
You've been screaming a lot tonight. How has your throat been?
Dilshad Vadsaria: I know. After the fourth time I was like, 'Ooh,' but now I'm going to have actually do it. That was just for them, but we haven't shot any of that yet. We're going to have to turn around and go in that direction.
What's happening when you scream?
Dilshad Vadsaria: He shows up and then he knocks Jesse's character out because his character and Jesse's character, they've had a run in.
Michael Peña: Yeah, this is from Aziz, this character. It was a pipe and he just hit me in the face. My character remembers that and I have to hit that guy. So I take the first opportunity.
Dilshad Vadsaria: Yeah. So he goes down and that's where the scream is coming from.
Now that you've had a chance to work with them, who would make a better real life criminal, Nick or Danny?
Michael Peña: Danny McBride. No. I don't know. Maybe Danny McBride.
Why would Danny make a better criminal?
Michael Peña: Look at Danny McBride. I don't know, no.
Dilshad Vadsaria: I think Nick, maybe.
Michael Peña: You think, because he would make everybody laugh, like, 'Dude, just give me the money. Come on, just give me the money, dude.'
I saw him breaking up in the scene with you, having a hard time keeping it together -
Michael Peña: He breaks up all the time. He says something funny and he's like, 'That was really funny. I'm sorry, lets do that again. Sorry, man. All right, flamethrower.' He's really fucking funny.
Dilshad Vadsaria: One line that he keeps saying that we just can't hold it together on, Jesse and I were cracking up on our coverage and he's cracking up on his own coverage when he says it, and so you're kind of like, 'Oh, God.'
What's the line?
Dilshad Vadsaria: It's not even written in the script, but he just sort of came up with it. When Jesse says to Danny's character, 'Throw your gun,' and then he says, 'Take the thing down,' he goes, 'Well, I can't really throw it down. It's attached to my back,' like my backpack. He's giving an explanation. We just all lose it on that line.
