Valderrama
was a pleasant surprise, I must admit.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when he sat down with us for
an interview on the set of UNACCOMPANIED
MINORS.
He was polite, amusing, down to earth and absolutely adorable
with his Spanish accent — which by the way, I thought may be fake
for “That 70’s Show”. Turns
out it’s real and sexy. It’s
no wonder this smooth, Latin charmer has a string of broken hearted
celebs aching for him.

Valderrama
talked a little (or a lot) about his
recent scandal on the Howard Stern show, new and old projects
he’s worked on, his family and film career and of course his
desire and persistence in getting the role of flight attendant on
UM. Before you continue to
read, let me apologize for the length of the interview.
Please do not scream or pull your hair out.
One thing is for sure, the man can definitely carry on his
own interview without the help of any one else.
Check out all he had to say.

Wilmer
Valderrama

So
Paul told us that you found the script and chased after him for the
role…

Yes,
I did. I read the script. I’ve been doing comedy for 8 ½ years,
and I’ve been brought a lot of comedies, so when I actually read
the script it was actually one of the few family comedies that I
thought was somehow speaking to our audiences today. When I talked
to Paul about this, I said for the past 30 [or 3, not sure] years,
we all know there’s this blueprint, this theory that, they assume
they know what sells, they assume they know what movies are going to
be blockbusters but at the end of the day the audiences have spoken.
They’ve said ‘You know what, we need the next wave of movie
making, the next wave of entertainment because movies are not making
as much money as they used to make.

That’s
why it’s really fascinating and it’s really exciting to find
people like Paul. Especially Warner Brothers and the producers who
were willing to take those chances and re-create the wheel a little
bit. We all know when American Pie came out we were all like
‘What?’ and the kids were like ‘Exactly! That’s what I want
to watch.’ And then you have all the drama that came out at the
time that didn’t work. We don’t have the Pulp Fictions. We
forgot about the Pulp Fictions, the Top Guns, all those movies that
for decades we remember as the best of the decade. I think that when
I read the script I saw the opportunity to do something very
timeless and the style of it and the way he was presenting it was
something very exciting because it was something I hadn’t really
seen before.

He
really wants to do a Christmas classic. The role in the movie is
Zach Dabourgh so that being said, it was definitely not written for
someone like me so I sat down with Paul the first time I remember,
we were laughing about this the other day, I walked in wearing my
leather jacket, my black t-shirt, my watch and my ‘cool’ wrist
band. I walked in saying hi to everybody, cracked a few jokes, da da
da. When I left, my agent, managers called about an hour later and
said, ‘So, they’re having a tough time seeing you in this
role’ I said, why is that? ‘They said that you were a little
too, like, electric, and the character isn’t very electric.’

So
they were thinking about a lot of other people, they were thinking
about a lot of very obvious choices for this movie and the names
they were throwing around I thought, okay, I see where they’re
going with that. I said, ‘do me a favor,’ I was flying back in
from New York at the time, I said ‘ask Paul if he will go to
coffee with me. I really want to talk to him about the role and tell
him how I see it and please send him my reel.’ So I sent him a
reel and there were scenes from Party Monster, there were scenes
from Summer Catch, there were scenes from a bunch of things. So he
saw it and said okay, let’s meet again. So we met at this little
coffee shop in Burbank across from Warner Brothers. I walked in,
first of all, I knew what they meant. I walked into the [first]
meeting with a Mohawk. That’s not Zach Dabourgh.

I
decided to try something different so I didn’t do my hair. I
combed it a bit to the side and I took all my jewelry off and wore
just a plain grey t-shirt with a zip-up all the way to the top, very
schoolboy. Plain light jeans and I walked up to him and said
“Hi.” He was all ‘Wilmer, hello,’ very proper. And I said,
‘Listen, I completely understand your concerns but I haven’t
read a script like this in six years. I’ve been turning down a lot
of comedies because what I want my fans to see, what I want anybody
who follows, anybody really, that whatever comedy I’m going to do
next, it’s going to be something I want to be remembered by.

Comedy
is a very easy sell in any studio… they know I have timing, they
know I can do this and that. I sat down with him and I said I’ll
just explain to you how I see this character. He never thought about
this, but I said ‘Paul, he works at the airport and he has a fear
of flying.’ He looked at me and starts laughing to himself and
says, ‘I never thought about that, that’s really, really
funny.’ And I go, he has a fear of flying and when he talks to his
boss he can’t even make eye contact because he, Lewis Black, you
know, he’s the nicest asshole in America. But when he talks to the
kids, he feels like he’s an equal, so he talks to them like he’s
a kid himself. So everything that I was saying to him was kind of
making more and more sense and what was really fascinating was that
he wasn’t looking at me as anything but an actor. And that was my
goal. My goal was to have him see me as someone who could morph into
anything, really.

So
when I told him about the fear of flying and the way he suns bus,
about the way with the kids and how I thought the journey, mentally,
for him was, he just kind of got it and that I might be able to pull
this off. Finally they called and said, we’re officially offering
the role to Wilmer… talk about commitment, talk about being
persistent and taking a chance, you know. If I would have walked
away from the meeting when they said, Oh, well Wilmer was this, we
didn’t see it very much and if I would have just said, ‘okay, on
to the next thing,’ as opposed to pushing for something you really
wanted to do, the moral of the story is if you want it you can go
get it and this is a movie I really wanted and I gave Paul no option
but to give it to me and I said, ‘Do not change the name of the
guy because I have always wanted to be named Zach,’ but it’s
impossible for many reasons.

It
was really fascinating and Paul and I became this deadly team and we
met up two days after we closed the deal at this restaurant called
Jar, I think, it’s on Melrose, it’s really new. I walked in and
it looks very new age, late or mid-60’s, it’s really hard to
describe. Anyway, I sat down and he started to describe the look of
the movie, what he wanted to create with it. What he’s doing is,
even though it takes place today, what is so exciting is that
everything visually, looks timeless. From the admirals club, to the
airport, some of the visuals he’s building for this movie are so
timeless and so rich that it just makes the movie look like it could
work in any decade.

He’s
bringing a lot of feels from the 60’s, as you can see, he’s very
60’s, and he’s bringing a lot of those feels to it which in
retrospect somehow that sort of fashion, that type of style is sort
of making a comeback and that’s what’s making the movie so rich
and so exciting. Some of the scenery and airport scenes are so fun
because, we’re not even at an airport, but he’s making it look
so cool… the convention center, the colors they’re picking,
everything is very rich. It’s just exciting to be in a movie like
this where the director very specific with what he wants to make.
Look, these types of comedies, they’re gonna sell because there
are kids, and all that, and you know the master marketing people are
gonna market it.

But
what’s exciting about this one, as opposed to all those other
family-feel-good movies, Paul is so talented and has been so
incredibly aware of not missing the message in the movie… a lot of
these movies become a lot of funny gags, funny things, funny scenes
with adorable kids, but this movie has all of that plus, it takes
you on this beautiful journey about family, love and most
importantly the spirit of Christmas – why the holiday is so
special to everyone. That’s why he’s so smart.

What’s
it like working with all the kids?

Working
with the kids is amazing. I think I’ve found something really
beautiful in every single one of them and I try my best to be a good
older brother to them. Most importantly, they’re so talented and
such a privilege to work with. To see kids that age, just get what
is having fun, being professional and being courteous, all at the
same time, on a set, is really rare. They’re very innocent,
they’re not yet jaded to this bullshit we call the entertainment
business, or Hollywood, you know? They’re still having fun. To be
honest, it’s a great tribute to the moms because the moms have
been incredible with them. I’ve seen a lot of moms that are all
over their kids, but what’s really great is that they’re really
letting their kids make their own vibe, create their own reality
when it comes to their working habits.

They’re
there, supporting them, being really sweet to them, and they’re
very aware of what their kids are doing at all times, but they’ve
been so supportive of them that the kids feel free to make their own
choices. They’re having a lot of fun with the job. So working with
the kids is really refreshing for me. Like when I go to New York or
LA for business stuff, I just can’t wait to come back to my kids,
you know? It’s so much fun to be here. It’s refreshing, the pace
is different, going to the arcade with them is like going to the
arcade when I was 12 again. It’s really neat and I have three
little girlfriends, which is exciting. Talk about headlines, right?

Speaking
of Hollywood B.S., I caught some of the Howard Stern interview…

You
caught it or you read it? Because a lot of people read it. I have to
admit, it was a lot of fun to be on that show. I am a huge fan of
Howard Stern and I think we all know what you’re going to get when
you go to that show. You know exactly what he’s going to try and
talk to you about and the only thing you can do as a performer or as
an artist, when you come into his home, is to just play along and
have fun with him and that’s what we did. We had fun, we played
around and we made fun of a lot of general topics that eventually,
in the transcripts, were completely narrowed down to a name and a
statement. That was not fun.

But
you have to know that anybody is going to anything to sell
something. We all know the reason why they did that and why those
transcripts were emailed to every tabloid possible. Look, I’ve
been in this thing long enough… I’ve been in this business for
about 9 ½ years and I’ve seen people come and go. I’ve seen the
flavor of the month. I’ve seen the best TV shows get cancelled
after 6 episodes. It’s in the most unpredictable thing you can
find. I know right now that as flattering as when you read the good
stuff it is, if you read and believe the good stuff you’re also
going to read and believe the bad stuff. I have a greater
responsibility than just… to be honest, none of those people who
are either hating or saying all these things really pay my bills.
I’m the only one who’s really responsible for that.

I
have a family and three siblings who I want to put through college.
That’s really where I work for. And I work for the people who are
willing to see something I make. Anybody who also does, has a
choice. Why would they really waste that much time on this kid, you
know? You can’t take some of that stuff serious. You have to know
that it’s entertainment and you have to know that half these
people are trying to sell a magazine or two or five.

How
many angry calls did you get?

You
know, my friends are incredible. Everybody knows what this business
is and they know what that type of thing is. You know what you’re
going to get with Howard. There are going to be a lot of unnecessary
headlines and that’s fine.

You
don’t let backlash affect you?

No.
At the end of the day I get it. I’ve had a really good last year.
I setup my year very strategically. So as soon as “That 70’s
Show” ended, I could go ahead and do my other things. Between
finishing the last season of the show, which by the way, we’ve had
an incredible year. We’ve had better ratings than the year before
and we’re missing two characters. That was unreal, I was doing
back flips. It was fantastic to see people come back and watch for
this last year. So finishing that, to launching my MTV show, which
was a huge launch for us. I mean, we had 50% more ratings than any
other show on the network that night and we were the most watched
program across all television for that 6 o’clock hour. So that
alone is something to live/look for. From there, to do THE DARWIN
AWARDS, to do FAST FOOD NATION, and then to do this, it’s just
something I find to be so incredibly awakening. It’s just so
refreshing to do comedy without an accent.

How
difficult was it to put your MTV show together?

It
was very tough at the beginning. It was tough because you had a lot
of agents and managers sending their models and their actors
thinking it’s a show on MTV, it’s great exposure. So then you
would have all these actors come to the auditions and I would have a
kid from Compton or Englewood just tear them apart. And I’m like,
‘What are you doing?’ and they would say, ‘Well, my agent said
it would be good exposure’ and they would be all humble and sweet
about it and I would be like, ‘I’m so sorry. This is so not that
type of show.’

But
in the beginning it was challenging because people didn’t get what
this type of show was going to be. A lot of people thought it was
going to be a Punk’d where actors could go on and feature their
improv skills. This is not that, this is for the people, by the
people, and with the people, if that makes sense. I think that what
was exciting is once the ball was rolling, because we went to high
schools, we went to colleges, we put out emails, phone calls, stuff
like that. People that were coming out of the high schools and the
freshmen in college, those were the kids who were coming through
with the heat.

Now
that the show is out, it’s so much easier because people know what
the show is. When we cast the whole season, you have to have your
hits and your misses, some kids, as mean as they were or as good as
they were zappin,’ some of them would just freeze in front of the
camera or in front of the audience. And that’s just good TV. It
was win-win. Whether you’re good or bad, it’s just good to see
people crash and burn, especially when someone’s getting insulted
in front of other kids, it’s a lot of fun. But it was a little
challenging at the beginning because how do you describe it on a
radio show? ‘I’m looking for people who can say yo mama jokes’
I went really against having professional comedians on this, I just
wanted real kids.

When
you see the show, you see that they’re real, I go to their homes,
you see how they live. It’s refreshing, as opposed to some
comedian who comes in with a Bible of jokes, tears it up and leaves.
For me, my goal was to capture a little bit of what our streets look
like and what our kids, the wise kids, the live kids are. At the end
of the day, you have actors everywhere, especially in LA. Everybody
wants to assume they can do this or that, but when you’re from the
streets, you can’t fake that. These kids are not faking it. I was
in Compton, at one of these houses, which wasn’t depressing for me
at all because when I first came to America, I didn’t have any of
these kind of opportunities or platforms. I lived just like they
live. There were many nights where my mom would be like, ‘I’m
not hungry, you have dinner,’ and I just knew the reality was
something else. Somehow I hit the jackpot with “That 70’s
Show”.

Is
it refreshing being out of LA and New York, being on location here
in Utah?

Super
refreshing. It’s a great change of pace. There’s absolutely
nothing to do here and absolutely nowhere to get in trouble.

Do
you miss working with your cast mates from That 70’s Show?

I
do. I do miss my costars but I don’t. We talk everyday.
Laura
[Prepon] and Ashton [Kutcher] we were just two-waying today.
Laura
’s back in LA and Ashton just finished his movie. We were all we
had when we first started. We were, literally, all we needed when we
first started. We didn’t have to go through any kind of bullshit
where people were trying to tell us their definition of what
Hollywood was or what cool was or where you should hang out. If we
wanted to go have a drink we would go to a bar together. You would
see all of us in a bar just drinking together, or going to dinner
together or going to the movies together when we first started back
in 1998.

We
re-created what the whole young Hollywood look was supposed to be.
We were the first young real cast on television. We were kids who
you would see at the clubs, like anyone else, dancing like a fool,
you know? You would see us at the mall like everyone else. We
weren’t the kids who were roped up in those VIP areas, we never
were those kids. So in that sense, we were able to kind of stay
ourselves and hold each other down because we never changed for
anyone. The moment anybody said anything that was a little weird,
people would be like, ‘Ah, A…’ backhand. So nobody got out of
line. We helped each other during the most crucial days of our
careers.

We
were 18 and 19 when we started. I had just turned 19 when I started;
I’m 26 years old now. It’s unreal. Having that standard, having
those brothers and sisters to look up to and vice versa, it’s so
refreshing so I miss being on set. Look, one of the most
heartbreaking moments of my career was seeing the basement being
torn apart piece by piece that last episode. I remember sitting
there with Danny [Masterson] and Ashton. We were called the Three
Muskateers. We used to make every trip together. But we were sitting
in the audience stands looking down at everybody working away after
the last episode… it was 4 a.m. and we were all quiet, watching
our grips pulling the set apart and realizing that you’re never
going to see that basement put together like that again.

You’re
never going to see that driveway, that living room and kitchen put
together like that again and we will never do a scene as Fez and as
Kelso and as Hyde ever again. So that was definitely one of the most
emotional days, but at the same time so exciting, because we still
have each other to con with. We hang out ALL the time.

You
might get punked again…

I…
definitely won’t, just so you know.

Do
you own clubs and restaurants with the guys?

We
don’t own clubs, we don’t do clubs, we do restaurants. We own
three restaurants. Well, I own three, but I own two with Ashton and
with Danny. One is Dolce, the other is Geisha House. The third one
we just opened is called the Lodge. It’s so good… the steak, the
big ass crab legs. Plus it’s so cool inside. When I walked in I
thought, ‘Shit, I own this?’

When
will you bring one to New York?

We’re
talking about bringing a Lodge to New York but I know for a fact
we’re opening a Geisha House and Dolce in Atlanta. And then
we’re looking into Vegas. I plan to open another two restaurants,
probably one in New York… actually; there are three on the
horizons right now, I’m thinking Miami and Vegas for my next two
restaurants. We have crazy ideas, but it’s a lot of fun because
building the credibility with Dolce was great because people knew
what they were going to get every time. They knew a restaurant owned
by us was going to be a very safe bet. And that, to me, is super
flattering because all we do is love food. They give us a great plan
for a beautiful restaurant and we go ‘Okay, that looks cool but is
the food good?’

Do you get to
decide on the food?

They
give us a big menu and ask us what we think of everything, but we
have a great management team and great chefs, who we stole from the
best of the best. They’re just great. It’s good to just let them
do their thing. But we get to pick what the uniforms are… the
Geisha uniforms, we did that on purpose for the guys, we just
thought that would be funny. The girls look beautiful but the guys
are hating it. They look like sailor boys. But hey, the restaurant
is great, it’s really good.

How
do you stay so grounded, because you are very much in the Hollywood
scene, yet you’re very in LA?

I
live in the Valley. I live in Tarzana, 818! It’s funny, I love the
Valley. You know I just bought Chuck Norris’ house, the f*cking
coolest thing in the world! I mean Fez owns Chuck Norris’ house!
It’s funny though, I still have some of my friends I went to high
school with and I still have some of my friends who were there at
the beginning but most importantly, I live five minutes away from my
mom. I feel really bad saying this, but my mom won’t let me do my
laundry.

She
wants to come over to my house and do my laundry every day.
I’m like, ‘Mom, I can have it done somewhere else,’ and
I feel bad, but at the same time good, because my mom tells me…
it’s really what my sister said that ‘look, she still wants to
feel like she’s involved in your life’ So how do I stay
grounded, you ask? When I come home and my mom is at my house…
when I see my sister’s car out front, which means my mom is
inside. I walk in and I see my mother with that look and I go, ‘Oh
no, what mom?’ And she says, ‘Come here, follow me,’ up to my
room and she goes, ‘Mira! Mira! Your socks, your pants,
everywhere!’ She’s yelling at me because I’m leaving things
all over the place, but I’m like, ‘Mom, I just got in from New
York.’ And she’s like, ‘You got back from New York a week
ago!’ My bags are still there…

So your mom has
a key?

Oh
yeah. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. She knows the days
when she should come. My mom and my dad are very important to me.
When you have two parents who sold everything they had in Venezuela
to just bring us to the states, because I was born in Miami, but
just to come back to get a better education and a better future, a
better shot at something. To be honest, it’s impossible to not try
your best to make them feel proud. Any son’s dream is to
eventually have your dad or your mom say, ‘My son, I am very proud
of you,’ you know?

When
I got “That 70’s Show”, first of all, none of my family
had done any kind of acting before or any kind of performing. All I
was doing was dancing and singing and acting since I was 6 years
old, only because I lived in a town that only had 10,000 people,
like this little. When I tell people I come from Venezuela, people
are like, ‘Are you shitting me? How the fuck do you come out of
that? It’s impossible.’ But to see those sacrifices makes you a
little more driven, you know? Because
if they’re able to say, ‘Forget about our life, it’s now about
them,’ and for them to sell everything they had, just to bring us
back, that’s huge. So it’s hard for me to forget where we came
from and it’s hard for my to forget that my family, we lived in a
two-bedroom house and it was five of us, for many years.

It’s
hard to forget those days where we were struggling a lot here in the
states. And now that we’re not, it’s so much more exciting to be
grateful, rather than to be like, ‘This shit belongs to me, of
course I’ve got a bendi, which I do. But it’s really… look,
it’s as simple as this. I never had any of this shit before and
it’s been nine years of me working my best, doing my best… if I
had one line a show, this goes back to ’98 when I had one or two
lines a show per episode I said I want to make sure that this line
is the one that’s quoted when people watch the show. I worked my
ass off to make it the funniest one I could find, the most endearing
whatever it is. Because my character it could be that either you
love him or you hate him and I was very fortunate that a lot of
people found him endearing and I worked really hard for it.

And
then little by little you saw the evolution of his character slowly
into having his own plots and leading the 100^th episode,
doing the musical and the dancing, so I’ve never forgotten to have
fun with my job. I m seriously making the most and the best out of
my opportunities and when I hear about people hating here and there,
when I read a good article about me or whatever, to me, it doesn’t
make much difference when you remember where you came from and what
you had and what you didn’t have, to be honest. Because none of
this makes any sense unless my family has a roof and food. You can
say whatever you want about me and I’ll still laugh about it and
find it humorous.

But,
to be honest, as long as my mom is smiling and going to the mall and
buying everything for everybody except her, even though I give her
money for herself, as long as they’re happy and they’ve got food
and a roof, bring it. Hate. Hate. The only people I really work for
are my fans, who want to see me do good and for my family, who did
everything possible for me to have a clean shot at a better future.
I didn’t take it for granted and I took 100% advantage of that
platform my dad gave me to use the good. You almost feel
destructible when you accomplish something like your family’s
happiness. At age 18, when I got That 70’s Show the first thing I
did was buy my mom a house and we didn’t have to pay rent any more
and ‘I was like dude, we don’t have to pay rent anymore, do you
know what that means? We can have a lot more snacks now!’

What did your
mom think about you going on Howard Stern?

She
said the same thing, you know, because the show is so famous, Howard
Stern is so famous, everyone was really excited for me to be on it,
but at the same time they were scared. You guys see me, I didn’t
do anything different there that I’m not doing here. She’s like,
‘Look, your real friends know what type of entertainment business
you’re in, ‘ but she doesn’t really have an opinion about it
but she loves my show ‘Yo Mama,’ though. I had her call on TRL
when I was promoting ‘Yo Mama.’ She called to ask a bunch of
questions. She speaks English, but she’s very shy about it so
she’d rather speak Spanish. She’s so embarrassed of her accent
and I’m like, ‘Mom, who cares? Was I ever embarrassed of my
accent?’ So she called in and, because it was live, she was like,
‘I’m seeing you on TV, you look so cute!’ so I was like
‘Thank you,’ and I’m really embarrassed in front of the entire
MTV audience, I’m trying to be all hard core, Yo Mama jokes… it
was very funny.

Is Topher on
the last episode of “That 70s Show”?

Yeah.
Everyone came back.

Do we find out
where Fez is from?

I
don’t know. But I will tell you this, we do have one of his best
friends come to visit him from his home country. Actually, I called
in a friend of mine… A lot of networks, they’re really into the
stunt casting, you know? And look, we’re on That 70’s Show, what
more stunt casting do you want to have on the show? The cast is
enough. So we figured let’s bring in really talented people, good
friends of ours to just kind of come in and share the last year with
us, so I called in my friend Justin Long, and, he’s fantastic, and
I said ‘Dude, you need to play my best friend in the show.’

It
became so unpredictable because, you know, he has a blonde wig in
the show and is the best friend from my country, but white and
blonde, it was really f*ckin’ funny, it was really good. Look,
Justin and I, we’re trying to find things together right now
trying to find a buddy comedy movie or something because he is
seriously one of the funniest guys ever, very very talented. If you
guys ever get a chance to interview him, ask him about this, he does
the most incredible impersonation of Wilmer Valderrama. He’s left
me messages as Wilmer Valderrama, which is hysterical. He does a
great job with that, he’s hysterical.

Seth
Green is another one of my best friends, who by definition, is one
of the best performers of our youth, he’s incredible too. But
Justin is the next one in line, I tell you, he’s another one I’m
really excited to see what he’s going to do next. We’re in the
same agency, so we’re trying to find something to do together,
he’s one of the people I’d really like to work with so we’ll
see. You might just see him on Paunch, Paunch and John in the CHiPs
movie, but we’ll see.

Can you tell us
about the CHIPS movie?

We
start shooting this summer. Trust me, there was one superhero I
wanted to play, it’s Poncho. He’s the man, dude. So it’s
actually very flattering. The studio, Warner Brothers, have taken me
in as one of their own and I’m doing a bunch of pictures with
them, this being one of them, CHIPS is the other one. It’s
exciting because we’re really keeping in mind all the mistakes
that every other remake has made, and not going to make them in this
one.

Is
it going to be like the show, a hyped-up version with special
effects?

It’s
going to be, we’re really going to do it right. It’s an
action-comedy but the comedy comes from the chemistry, the comedy
comes from a very organic place. We don’t want it to be funny gags
or funny costumes because, to be honest, in doing the research for
this movie, we realized the worldwide ChiPs is still a huge
phenomenon and a huge drama for them, and a serious drama, so if you
were to disrespect an idea like that… look, one thing we did right
on That 70’s Show was we never made fun of the 70’s.

We
always grew up, we were growing up during the 70’s and we were
always doing very human, kid-like
things. We never made fun of anything. And I think with this type of
movie, you don’t want to make fun of, but you don’t want take it
too serious either. One of the things I want to do for this movie,
that we wrote in there, we have huge stunts, motorcycle stuff, but
at the end there’s always some sort of human, real payoff. Whether
it’s hands shaking, after a huge jump… Things like that where,
it’s not in the movie, but for example, we did a huge jump from
one building to another and we land, the close-up is on the
hands-shaking and us saying ‘Okay, let’s just not do that
again.’ So we’ll do things like that, to make sure that even
though it’s an action-comedy, I want to definitely cater to the
people who want to take that light as well. And the story is
awesome. I already read the first draft… and it’s actually going
to take place today.

Do you have a
director yet?

We
don’t have a director yet. We’re tossing around a few people
right now, seeing which one is going to be the one. But it’s a
movie that, lucky for us, everyone wants to be in it. It’s so
exciting to see so many great actors…
we’re talking Oscar-winners who are saying, ‘I gotta be
the chief.’ So we’re very excited. I don’t know who’s going
to be John. I know I definitely have two people that I really want,
I’m not going to say the names, but they are two friends of mine
who I know, we have good chemistry, and we’ll make it really
funny. but they have to be believable that they also can get in a
fight. There are so many factors, but we’re excited.

Are you
producing it?

Yes
and no. I don’t take a producing credit but Greg Silverman and
Warner Brothers have been so great about letting me in with the
writers and telling them what I think the character would be, what I
think the movie would be. The writers are incredible too, so they
really captured it. He’s been really great about letting me get
involved in the casting and all that stuff too. So I guess in a way,
silently I’m doing it. Because I brought it up to Warner Brothers
when I went up to them I said, listen, I don’t have much of a base
on how perfect I am for this role, but the only thing I can do for
you is this: [Eric Estrada impression] and that totally sealed the
deal. After that he goes, ‘Let’s do it!’

We heard there
was a lot of improv, is that something you like to do?

I
gotta tell you, Thank you, Paul. A comedy like this one, there’s
so many unpredictable things happening throughout the whole movie,
with all the kids, there’s so many last-minute things that happen
whether it’s forgetting a line, or someone adding it in and
we’ve been very quick at jumping on those things. We’ll do like
one or two takes scripted and then he comes back to me and goes,
‘Dealer’s choice.’ And I’m like, ‘Hmm… dealer’s
choice. Okay, give me an action.” So I start improvising a bunch
of things and he’s laughing. We high-five after each take.

We’re
having so much fun and yesterday, the day before yesterday we had a
great scene where the kids start throwing all kinds of food at me,
start taking advantage of the fact that I’m the only one taking
care of these 400 animals and I just went on a rampage… I said
every possible line, like, ‘There’s kids starving in Africa!’
and ‘This is for eating!’ All my costars took turns behind the
camera throwing food at me, really wailing me, by the way. M&M
bags really hurt, by the way, they really do hurt. And after they
said cut the crew started clapping and all that stuff, so we’re
having a good time. Creatively, I’ve never been more inspired.

“That
70’s Show”, I was so inspired with doing this character, but
we were very by the script, because the writers were so great. Here,
we have a writer that is so great, a director that is so willing as
well, a writer/director, actor as well, so he kind of understands
where to go with it. So we’re having a lot of fun with it. Trust
me, we’re, my goal is to make this movie is one of the most
memorable movies yet. I’m working my ass off to make sure that
this is what it is because it’s the next comedy people will see me
in, besides the show. But I’m being a guy you’ve never seen
before too, so that’s cool.