You’ve been invited to a wedding between Paul Rudd and Rashida Jones. “I’m engaged to Paul Rudd! Look at my sparkler!” giggles Jones, showing off a huge diamond. No, you haven’t missed some essential piece of gossip; the ring is a prop and the engagement part of the DreamWorks comedy I Love You, Man which premieres Jan. 16, 2009.
So now I’m at this wedding where Jason Segel and Paul Rudd are on a stage, singing Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” but the mic isn’t on. That may be a good thing. It resembles the wee hours of a party where the alcohol is already consumed and everyone is just hanging, or in this case, hanging out with Grammy winning band OK Go who just played a set as Rudd’s and Jones’ wedding band. And Andy Samberg is hitting on Thomas Lennon. “I am Paul Rudd’s younger brother, Robby,” he tells us about his character. “I like dudes.” And not just any dudes. Straight dudes.
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To explain why Rudd and Segel are hanging out at a wedding is easiest done by describing the premise of I Love You, Man. It is a movie about platonic love between two men. Rudd’s character realizes as he’s about to get married that he has no male friends, and his fiancée, played by Rashida Jones, encourages him to find a best man. Rudd goes on a series of man-dates and hilarity ensues. After auditioning various candidates, like high-voiced guy at the Galaxy football game, he finally finds his best man in Segel, which is why today the two of them are strumming their guitars (playing I Want It Now! From Willie Wonka). And they have the bruises to show it. “Yeah, a war wound!” says Segel and shows us his black and blue forearm. “Also, my guitar is splattered with my own blood. You haven’t rocked until you’ve splattered a guitar with blood.”
In this comedy Segel moves away from being Mr Nice Guy, incorporating what he calls 50 percent Russell Brand and 50 percent his brother, to become “sort of a continental kind of guy who gestures oddly and is slightly effeminate but also a real raging womanizer.” As Jones puts it, “Sidney (Segel) is not necessarily the friend you would wish up for your husband. I wouldn’t pick that person as my husband’s best friend. At first. But he grows on you… like a fungus.” And he knows how to pronounce the word aioli.
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It becomes clear, not just from watching the action but from Rudd’s on-screen dad, JK Simmons, saying so, that they go through a lot of film on this set as the cast improvises its way to the funniest line delivery. Simmons recalls the highlight of the shoot, “[The best part was] sitting around two different dinner tables for a total of, like, four days just blowing take after take because we were all just cracking each other up to much.” But John Hamburg (Along Came Polly) seems to be having a blast, as are his actors. Says Jones, “This is like my dream come true. John is so good at establishing characters and the dynamics of relationships that it makes it easy to go into what we need to go into, and hopefully add something funny.” “We will do these little extended bits and runs that no one will ever enjoy except us,” says Rudd about him and new man pal Segel. “But that’s outside of the movie.” He’s probably right because by the looks of it, we’ll enjoy it all.
