INT: Rudd / Mann

Paul
Rudd is one of those actors that is always interesting and always
choosing unique roles. And
lately, with his wonderful comedic work in such films as ANCHORMAN:
THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY, THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN and now KNOCKED
UP,
he is proving to be one of the best comedic actors out there.
And in KNOCKED UP alongside the very talented Leslie Mann,
they prove to be a match made in comedy heaven as a married couple
with children, figuring out how to make it work.

Both
Leslie and Paul share amazing chemistry and make for a very real
couple coping with jealousy and childrearing.
In fact, and I stand by this, if Leslie Mann doesn’t
receive an Academy Award nomination, I won’t be watching.
This is a character that many guys will have trouble with,
yet she is makes her very complex and layered.
She gives a wonderful performance which sadly, as comedies
often do, will probably get overlooked so I’m sure something else
will be on TV that night.

When
Paul and Leslie stopped by to talk to the press at the Casa del Mar
in

Santa Monica

, it was easy to see how they shined together in the film.
They are obviously friends and respect each other… well,
that is when Leslie doesn’t hate him.
And they were both so pleasant and open when it came to guy
talk – the dirtier the better – and what it’s like maintaining a
relationship like this in a comedy. It’s
also easy to forget sometimes what a varied career Paul Rudd has had
when you look at his recent films. But
it was nice to hear him talk about working with Jessica Lange in

London

in the stage version of “Long Days Journey Into Night”.
What a thrill it was to talk to a couple of major talents
like this. And make sure you
check out KNOCKED UP on June 1st. It’s
worth the price of admission, especially if you want some variety
aside from Pirates, Spidermen and big green ogres.

Leslie Mann	Paul Rudd

Leslie, did
you have any trepidation about putting your kids in an R-Rated Film?

Leslie Mann (LM):
I did. I didn’t want to put them in the movie, but Judd [Apatow –
her husband], he thought that it was a good idea. Time passed by,
and I was saying no, no. no, and then I’m like — I dunno, maybe.
And then it was like a week before and he said, you have to tell me
now. He would ask me when I was really busy, so I couldn’t really
focus on it and then it ended up just happening. But it’s okay…

Did you
explain to them what they were doing or anything about the movie?

LM
: Ah — anything
about the movie? Ah you know they just — what did we say to Maude?
She was just so good. I’m trying to think of what we said to her.
[To Paul] Were you there? We just told her she would need to
talk about how babies were born. You know, that’s as much as we told
her, and then she improvised that, right?

Paul Rudd (PR):
Yeah, yeah. She was sitting at the table and came up with several
different explanations.

LM
: That was all her.
She’s very comfortable improvising. We had three cameras on her,
people standing all around her, and she was so comfortable and
really funny — and good. So it worked out… so far. [Laughing]

What sort of
challenge did you face having to maintain the context of your
characters while doing the funny stuff?

PR: I don’t
know. We improvised a lot of arguments (both he and Mann laugh). At
first it was kind of startling because Leslie’s so good, I thought
she hated me after the first scene that we did, which —

LM
: I kinda did —

PR: Yeah. In the
restaurant, right?

LM
: I did. A little
bit.

PR: You said
‘you fight so much differently — much more different — from the
way Judd fights.’ I’d make a joke — yeah — and that’s not a good
thing to do when you’re fighting with your wife to —

LM
: Make light of it
— try to get out of it —

PR: Make light
of it. It seemed like that was a funny way to go, but it did make me
feel really weird the next day. I remember you came up to me the
next day too because you had heard I’d said, ‘I think Leslie
really like hates me’ [Leslie laughs] — We even knew each other
too before —

LM
: I just think it
was really fun. It was fun to kinda heighten — torque it a little
bit and make it even crazier. Like take a normal fight that you have
in your marriage and then just make it really big for fun.

PR: And then
just to know what to say to provoke somebody is really fun to do.
It’s fun to do in life, but you can’t really do it in life without
fearing the repercussions, but we — that was kind of why we were
playing these parts to do that. The first day — I think — the
first scene that you and I filmed together was — we were in the
bathroom together and just kind of talking about our lives — you
know — just about sex — do you want to have sex? — and we
probably should — it was really hard not to laugh because I think
that was the first thing. I asked Leslie if she wanted to have sex
and you just went (makes ugh sound). It’s always hard not to laugh
when you’re doing these scenes when somebody says something really
funny.

Leslie, were
you familiar, comfortable with, or shocked by the male group
dynamics?

LM
: You know, one
day, at the end of shooting the movie, I was stuck in the hospital
room, in the waiting room area, with all of the boys during the
birth scene, and I was so disgusted by — all they talk about is
like porn sites —it’s real — the way they talk in the movie,
that’s how they talk. And I had to sit there all day with them, and
[to Paul] you. And he knows all about that stuff too, and I just had
to sit there and listen to them talk about the dirty — you know,
DIRTY stuff. Like you just don’t hear, that I’d never heard about.
[To Paul] You remember any examples?

PR: No, I don’t
remember any —

LM
: The site . . .
you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?

PR: Which site
in particular? [Laughing]

LM
: You know what —
there was one that I remember being really shocked by —

PR: Of different
sexual terms?

LM
: No, not the
terms. They were like websites with dirty —

PR: Oh yeah. I
do know the one you’re talking about. Yeah. [Laughing] I probably
shouldn’t — it ended .org which also was one of the funniest
parts. It seemed like it was some kind of business or an educational
facility, but it wasn’t.

LM
: I thought that I
had heard —

PR: Well, Jonah
had a picture of it on his phone too. He was like — that’s what it
is.

LM
: I thought that I
had been around all these guys. They don’t — for some reason, they
felt very loose and comfortable with me, or they forgot that I was
there and they just talked like they normally talked. And it was
really disgusting. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Dirty, dirty
boys. They really are.

PR: And they
were all like 7 or 8 years younger than me. I was really like the
oldest guy which was even more sad, really.

Paul, I’ve
seen a lot of your recent films and it seems like you give the
smaller characters a lot of detail.
It kind of feels like you have a different hair cut for each
movie.

PR: Yeah. It’s
true! “Night At The Museum” was just stupid-looking. And then in
“Diggers” it was longish. And in this one it was kind of cool
and bed heady. It’s all about the hair.

Can you give
me more than the hair?

PR: Well, I
mean, you know with those ones in particular — with “Diggers”
it was a guy who was much more internal, it wasn’t really a comedy,
although it was kind of funny, but it was a clam digger in Long
Island, so his dialect would be different. “Night In The Museum”
was just a scene — you know, you just put a bunch of weird phones
and pagers on your belt to try and dork it up, but that won’t really
sustain itself over a whole movie. And this character was obviously
different. And then there’s something like an “Anchorman” which
is just truly hair. I mean that’s really long hair and a mustache. I
don’t know. They’re all different characters, so you just play
them differently.

What’s the
dynamic of working with Judd – just being on set and getting
direction from him?

LM
: He’s so — He
creates such a nice working environment, like a very safe working
environment for an actor, so you feel like everything you do is okay
and good. So you’re more
willing to try new things and explore, and you never feel judged by
him, like you’re doing something wrong and stupid. That’s how he
gets great performances out of people, I think.

PR: Yeah, I
think you’re right. It’s never been a case of wondering — oh
God, did I just go too far with that joke? He just won’t use it . .
. because I think we all have at certain points… yeah, especially
me. Sometimes in an improvisation or something, it will go in a
completely different way than what might be in the script, and he’ll
encourage that. He certainly feels comfortable enough to spend the
time going in a direction that is completely new and he can process
all of it in his head while he’s making it, knowing that this will
fit into what the next thing’s going to be. And he’s so funny
himself. He’ll yell out a line while we’re shooting a scene, and
we’ll just incorporate what he says into the scene, hopefully
without stopping.

LM
: He kind of
rewrites it as we’re rolling.

PR: And that’s
why we shot a million and a half feet of film.

LM
: That’s why, yeah.

Leslie, your
character goes off on the bouncer at the club. Was that easy to do?

LM
: [Laughing] We
just thought it would be fun for my character to do, and no, I
didn’t feel uncomfortable. I liked taking it all the way. I think
that’s like a dream that people have when they’re in that kind of
situation, where there’s some dumb bouncer guy saying no, you’re not
good enough. That’s like a dream to tell that guy to f*ck off, and
scream at him and call him stupid. Right? Isn’t it? No? It is mine.
You feel like that sometimes, but you don’t do that in polite
society, but that was a fun thing to do in the movie. It’s the only
time you can do it, I guess.

Leslie, were
you always going to be in this role? How did Judd ask you to do it?

LM
: He knew he wanted
me, Paul [Rudd] and Seth [Rogan] from the beginning and then it was just
finding Katie [Heigl].

Did you like
doing the romantic and serious parts of the movie?

PR: We did. That
scene, for instance, in the driveway, I think that the hurt that
Leslie’s feeling, and the confusion, and the stuff that I’m saying
is because I think we kind of do love each other. What’s tough in
our marriage is heightened because it’s a comedy but I think that we
were both… I know Judd and I talked about, [to Leslie] you and I
talked about it, you want to believe that these people really are
married, and why would they stay together really, so if you can have
a couple of moments where you see their love for each other, at the
birthday party when we’re talking about having the cupcakes…

LM
: It’s sweet and
romantic and does that answer your question? Does it seem like we
love each other? Or does it seem like we’re just mad?

Yes, there
are those moments where there are real emotions and it’s a nice
balance.

LM
: That’s good.

PR: Otherwise,
it’s just a one-dimensional cartoon.

Paul, was it
ever your intention to have a big career in comedy?

PR: I always
loved comedies growing up much more than anything dramatic, and when
I was in college I started thinking about really becoming an actor,
then I started to love both, and it just so happens that in the past
few years it caught on with comedies for me, and I love doing them.
These movies, especially with Judd and Leslie and [Steve] Carell and
Will [Ferrell], they’re a blast to make, so I’m psyched.

LM
: There’s a story
that Judd tells about before he met you on “Anchorman”…

PR: When I met
Judd, actually I knew who he was, I was a fan of his shows and stuff
and I was at a dinner explaining fake names and how it’s really
tricky to come up with a great fake name. And I said the perfect
fake name was Gern Blanston, which was from a Steve Martin record,
so somebody at dinner said well, that explains Judd’s email address,
so I went home and emailed him congratulating him on his reference,
and we kind of became pen pals. I actually never met him until
“Anchorman,” but we sent emails back and forth for about a
year. Isn’t that great?

LM
: There’s more.
You can ask Judd, but he actually thought you were a pretty boy, and
then he met you and found out …

PR: That I
wasn’t.

LM
: That you’re
hilarious.

RP: I just
remember the first email I ever got back from him, he said cool, now
he feels he has an “in” to getting free tickets to Neil
LaBute plays.

Paul, you did
“Long Day’s Journey Into Night” with Jessica Lange and
Robin Phillips. What was that experience like?

PR: Different
from this one. [Laughs] It was incredible. It’s an amazing play and
to do it in London, and to play a role like Jamie, which is so
tortured and tragic. Actually it was one of the first times where…
I’ve always been pretty good at separating what I was working on
from my real life. I don’t do any of that ‘bring the character
home’ type stuff. But
that play, four hours, and living in London and it was the winter,
it was really tough. It was fulfilling and a great experience but it
was the opposite of working on a comedy, especially a comedy with
friends where it’s all about jokes. Equally fulfilling and amazing
— something I would do again in a second, but just a very different
feeling. And also it was a play which they tend to be different
experiences anyway.

Let me know
what you think. Send questions
and comments to [email protected].