If you think getting a straight answer out of a politician is hard, try getting one out of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. Coming straight out of a scene of their new movie Step Brothers the two stars had a hard time keeping the improv out of the conversation, but they tried really hard.
Hollywood.com: You two worked together on Talladega Nights, did that lead to a shorthand on set this time?
John C. Reilly: Yeah, well that’s where we developed the hand signals.
Will Ferrell: It is like a 300 page, Morse code like booklet that we pass out to the crew, to visitors, you guys will get it later on your departure.
JCR: The movie is virtually indecipherable if you don’t have this book too so, the studio coughed up the cost to provide one to every audience member.
WF: We are going to hand them out at the theater as well to decipher the film, but we think it will be a cool novelty item 20 years from now.
HW: How did the writing work?
WF: Actually, I shouldn’t even say this – we farmed it out to China. There are a group of writers who work, they are called the Omega group and they are pretty close to our voice, there were some cultural things that were slightly different.
JCR: All the script notes came from India. And they would just talk to the writers in China.
WF: It was a very belabored process, but we didn’t have to do any of it, which was great.
Photo Credit: Sony
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HW: John, what’s with the ice pack strapped to your head?
JCR: It is for the scene. We got in a fight in the movie and we are in the recovery stage right here.
HW: What happened?
JCR: We have a big fight on the lawn and I hit Will with a baseball bat
WF: It was a simultaneous knock out.
JCR: He hits me with a driver, golf club.
Photo Credit: Sony[PAGEBREAK]
HW: In the scene you were just shooting, your dad keeps referring to the dry wall.
WF: We slammed each other into it. This is all a fight over who touched John’s drum set. Whether I did.
HW: Did you?
WF: I would say I didn’t, but you’ll have to watch the movie.
JCR: I have forensic evidence. However, we have no witnesses.
HW: John, does your character ever allow Will’s character back into the beat laboratory?
JCR: He’s allowed to go back in there eventually, but never to touch the drums even when we become very close friends.
WF: I can just hover in there, that’s it.
HW: Do any of your friends make appearances, for example the people you have worked with in other films?
JCR: When you say friends …
HW: I don’t want to drop any names …
JCR: People we don’t really like that we call our friends?
WF: There are cameos of other comedic actors that we all love and know.
Photo Credit: Sony
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HW: In the scene that we just watched, it appeared Richard Jenkins was the hard ass of the two parents and Mary Steenburgen pretends like she is but then she kind of softens up.
JCR: You can’t make too many assumptions about what you see because we are literally completely changing stuff up not doing the script anymore. We are making a whole big pallet of things to choose from and they both, Richard is really upset because we just got in a fight in this scene but he is by no means the hard ass in this movie both parents…
WF: trade off at times.
JCR: The reason that they are able to stay where they are at in their lives is because both parents let it go on.
HW: Is it true that this film is a little harder or darker in concept than what we see on the surface?
WF: I’m not the best one to ask because I never understand. I will watch a movie that is quote unquote dark and not get the qualification of what is dark and what is not.
JCR: It doesn’t seem dark to me [laughs]. It is about two guys who are sort of stuck in their childhood, you know. So it has a certain innocence to it, but I guess we do swear and stuff so if that is dark, that doesn’t seem dark to me. What is darker to me is a movie about dismemberment and taking people hostage and torturing them.
HW: There is none of that in this film?
JCR: Dismemberment? No. Hostages? No.
WF: No, I don’t think so.
HW: Well, you still have a few more days on the shoot so you could.
WF: Yeah, we could add that in.
Photo Credit: Sony
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HW: Can you talk about leaving the nest yourselves? Were you the types to drag your feet?
JCR: No, I couldn’t wait to get out.
WF: I could totally relate to this. I lived at home for three years after college. I had the benefit of a very patient mother who was like, “alright.”
JCR: You had a cozier situation, I had five brothers and sisters so by the time I could at all get out I wanted my own space, which I never had at home.
HW: Do you guys plan to work together again? Maybe Land of the Lost?
JCR: You got something for John Reilly in that?
WF: We are probably going to do a musical together. Fiddler II.
JCR: Hello Dollies or Two Dollies.
HW: Will, are you going to do that as an action comedy or straight comedy or maybe something more serious?
WF: It is going to be very serious; it is going to be kind of on the tone of the English Patient, but with dinosaurs, horribly frighteningly realistic dinosaurs. In fact we only survive for 12 minutes in the movie the rest is mostly just action shots of dinosaurs communicating through Sleezestacks. It is going to be more like a nature documentary.
HW: Is it going to be a parody or a spoof?
WF: It is going to be kind of hopefully like Jurassic Park, it is not going to be a spoof in terms of the look it is going to be as real as possible and hopefully funny.
JCR: Will Ferrell reacting to real dinosaurs that sounds funny to me.
Photo Credit: Sony
