'Step Brothers': Q&A with Adam McKay, Richard Jenkins and Mary Steenburgen
By Emily Christianson, Hollywood.com Staff
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Monday, June 23, 2008
HW: Richard, how does Adam, compare to working with the Farrelly brothers?
RJ: The feeling on this set, it’s just a lot of fun. There’s a lot of jobs that you can do that you can be miserable at. Making movies should not be one of them. It’s just a lot of fun.
HW: Can you each talk a little about your characters and how you both ended up with kids this age that won’t leave the nest?
MS: My character is the ultimate, ultimate enabler. That’s how she ended up with this guy. Even now when she’s trying to push him out into the world, she keeps undermining it. We just did a scene where I go in and give them $20 to go to the movies and tell them not to tell Robert (Richard Jenkins’ character), but that’s pretty much indicative of how she handles everything….Yet, she is sort of terrified that there is something extremely [wrong]. Her deep dark fear is that he has had some sort of brain damage.
RJ: That came from an improv.
MS: Yeah, that came from an improv. I said it to Adam on the first day and he said to go ahead and do it. So my secret, secret dreadful secret is that I think he was dropped on his head when he was little and that maybe I did it and that it’s my fault and that’s what all this is about.
RJ: Robert absolutely ignores everything in front of his face for the longest time. It’s interesting because I think they’re both forced to deal with this in ways since they’re together that they probably haven’t when they’re not together. We just rehearsed [a scene] where I realize that my son is going to meet Nancy for the first time and all of a sudden it’s a scary thought. She enables and I ignore.
Photo: Adam McKay (Daily Celeb)