With one or two exceptions, this summer has been a great one for comedies of the R-rated variety, and the next chucklefest is the latest from director Ruben Fleischer, the director of ZOMBIELAND, which just happened to star Jesse Eisenberg, who gives us a very different persona in 30 MINUTES OR LESS, in which he plays an aggressively dicky pizza-delivery guy. He smokes pot, is a lazy bastard, and is generally disagreeable.
His best friend is played by stand-up comic Aziz Ansari (from "Parks and Recreation," FUNNY PEOPLE, and OBSERVE AND REPORT). In 30 MINUTES, Eisenberg is kidnapped by two thugs (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson), who force him to rob a bank for money they need to hire a hitman to kill McBride's rich father (Fred Ward) so he can inherit his money to start his own business--a rub-and-tub tanning spa.
The film isn't just ridiculously funny; it's a tense action comedy that flies in the face of polite society and isn't afraid of getting a little violent on top of everything else. And Eisenberg and Ansari are a great comedy team in a world where successful comedy teams are hard to come by. The pair were in Chicago about a month ago, where we did an AICN screening to a packed, enthusiastic crowd. This interview was conducted a few hours before the screening, and it was fun seeing Eisenberg again (he'd been part of a Q&A for THE SOCIAL NETWORK last year). Having Ansari there seemed to loosen him up a bit, both to talk and be funny. Please enjoy my talk with Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari…
Aziz Ansari: You look nothing like your avatar!
Capone: I don’t think any of us do actually. Jesse, I don’t know if you remember…
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, you moderated THE SOCIAL NETWORK screening.
Capone: Right. And I’ll be doing it again tonight.
AA: [looking at my digital recorder] I use that same recorder too, for recording my standup.
Capone: Yeah, these are great.
AA: Is that a new one?
Capone: No, it’s about three years old I think.
AA: I think mine might be newer.
Capone: It probably is.
AA: [joking] They fixed a lot of the bugs.
Capone: [Laughs] All of those bugs. I hear these are really good for recording bootleg concerts.
AA: Right. I record my standup shows, so like I keep it on the stool.
Capone: That makes sense.
JE: Why is this better than like the little small ones?
AA: The sound quality is just better.
Capone: I like the stereo mics.
AA: You can put an SD card…
JE: Oh, more memory?
Capone: It does have a lot of memory, which is key. Are you going to be serving and eating pizza all over across the country on this tour?
AA: You know we just did. Yesterday we were in San Francisco, today, and then tomorrow. I don’t know, do we eat pizza in Miami?
JE: Probably.
AA: We haven’t been eating pizza, we’ve just been doing the interviews in pizza places.
Capone: Okay, okay. That'll never get old.
AA: Well, I really think people are going to see the movie, because of us doing this in a pizza place.
JE: Yeah, yeah. It’s the number crunchers who determine that.
AA: “When you integrate the themes of the film into the location of the interviews…”
[Everyone Laughs]
AA: “…it makes a huge difference.”
JE: Well, do you prefer it rather than doing the standard setting?
Capone: It doesn’t make any difference to me. Although I will say, it’s a little better, because I got some lunch out of it, so that makes it special.
AA: See? Told you.
Capone That’s right. So let’s just start with the obvious starting point--the script. How did it come to you or did you come to it? For both of you, how were you brought into this?
AA: I think for me, Red Hour, which is Ben Stiller’s company had it and I got it and I read it and thought it was really funny and I think with comedy scripts you rarely read anything that’s even mildly funny.
Capone: Like on the page?
AA: Yeah, you rarely read something and go, “Oh, this is good!” That is a rarity, like that doesn’t happen and this was one of those scripts and I was like, “That’s cool.” Then Ruben Fleischer came on board as the director, and I met with him and then auditioned for the role of Chet and got it and I think at that point Danny had been attached and I thought, “He’s really good. He’s the only person who could do that character,” and I thought Ruben was good, because I had seen ZOMBIELAND, and then the rest of the pieces fell into place with this guy and Swardson and you know here we are today talking about it all day.
JE: I had the same reaction. When I read it I just thought, “This is fantastic.” I was kind of surprised, because like Aziz said, 99 percent of the comedies you read are really terrible, and even when the comedy is good, the characters are compromised, and they're just written in broad strokes and not realistic and not reacting in any kind of consistent way from scene to scene. And those are in good comedies, where it’s funny and this really had both. The characters were kind of acting consistently, they are good characters, the comedy was really funny, all of the big comedy set pieces were entirely earned. That bank robbery scene, to have two guys like us have to rob a bank is like an entirely earned huge comedic set piece, and stuff like that is really rare.
Capone: There used to be a time when there were a lot of comedy teams. What happened to those days? There maybe are a few actors here and there that work together consistently, but as an equal-billed pair, it’s kind of disappeared.
AA: It seems like now it’s a lot of mixing and matching.
JE: Yeah, right.
Capone: I'd like to see, if not these characters, then you two guys work together again. You have a really great sort of yin and yang approach.
AA: Oh, well thank you very much. That’s very nice of you to say. That is strange there isn’t like duos like that…
Capone: I’ve talked to like Jason Segel and Paul Rudd about it, because they’ve done it a couple of times and I’m like “What is going on? Why don’t people do that more often?”
JE: What are some old examples of that?
Capone: Matthau and Lemmon, Martin and Lewis…
AA: Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor…
Capone: Hope and Crosby…
JE: Oh right. Like they were in a few different movies together.
AA: “Those guys are doing another thing now, let’s go see that.” I don’t know. I think it’s so hard to put one of these movies together that who knows?
Capone: And your schedule is probably a little more difficult to work around because of the show? Do you get to the do the “one movie a year” sort of thing?
AA: Yeah, I mean I was going to do this movie that I’ve been developing for me and Danny, and then his schedule with "Eastbound" and my schedule with "Parks" kind of screwed it up, and hopefully we will do it next time, but yeah it’s hard. There are so many factors that need to come together to get one of these movies made. It’s really amazing and I’m really happy that we were able to make this one with such a great cast that I think was really a perfect cast for it.
Capone: I remember reading somewhere a while back that having Nick Swardson in the movie was really important to you, Jesse, because you were a big, big fan of his.
JE: Yeah.
Capone: What was it about him that you liked so much?
JE: When I was younger, like 12 or 13 years old, I had a VCR in my room and I accidentally taped, not that I didn’t want to, but I accidentally taped the show called "Make Me Laugh." Had you ever seen the show?
AA: I never saw it. I know of it, that it was a Comedy Central thing…
JE: I really liked the show, and Nick was on it and he did like a minute-long bit, and I thought it was so great, so I memorized the bit and I just said it was my own to everybody in school and to my family, and my family thought I was really funny, but why am I telling jokes about my roommate who’s a magician?
[Everyone Laughs]
JE: I just loved him and I got an autographed picture of him that’s still hanging in my parents' bedroom, because it’s the only thing that remains from my childhood and I ran into him on the street one time and acted like an idiot, and he had seen me in movies, and I think he just thought I was acting, and it was strange to act that way to him. Yeah, I still have a sycophantic behavior around him, because he was like my childhood idol. It was so cool to be in a movie with him. The only unfortunate thing is Aziz and I are only like the briefest of moments.
Capone: I was about to say, you’re not in that many scenes with either Nick or Danny.
AA: Everyone is like ,“What was it like when you guys were working with Danny McBride?” “Well I didn’t do any scenes with him this time, unfortunately.” That was kind of fun for us to see the movie, because for the four of us when we were talking about it it’s like it’s almost like watching a separate movie, because they didn’t know what we did with our stuff, and we didn’t know what they ended up doing with their stuff. Both of the things changed a bit from what was in the script, so it was interesting to see what they did with their stuff. I thought they did a fantastic job.
Capone: They're great, yeah. Having worked with Ruben before, were there certain shorthands that you could use with him, or was it a little easier in that you didn’t have to “get used to” each other’s routines.
JE: Yeah, when you re acting in something, it’s a very sensitive environment, because you're manipulating your emotions all day long, so it’s good to have somebody who you feel a little comfortable with, because you have to emote in front of them and have them evaluate it, so I felt like I kind of earned his affection in some ways.
Capone: When you're working with this style of comedic actor and you're watching them, what are you learning from them in doing this kind of comedy?
JE: It’s hard to articulate what you learn. What I liked about these three guys is that their comedy is very realistic. The character that Danny plays in this movie and the other characters he plays are so kind of depressing characters, like self-aggrandizing scary people, but it’s so touching, because he plays it with such great realism and pathos, and so that’s a really kind of fine balance. Aziz is not playing that kind of awful person, but he’s so funny with still being realistic, and Aziz is so creative, he can think of the most random detail in a scene, but it somehow is the funniest thing for it, and it’s just a great skill. It was just great to be near them.
Capone: Aziz, this is like your first big, name-above-the-title [then I look at the poster for the film and realize his name is not above the title], or name near the title…
JE: [Laughs] “Name near the title…”
AA: Yeah, yeah.
Capone: Did you want to make that first real big movie into film? I’ve seen you in other things, but was it important to you to get the right one? Tell me about saying, “Yeah, this is the one where I think I can make that transition.”
AA: I think the goal for me as a comedic actor was to kind of follow that path of “do some smaller parts and do a really good job and then hopefully that'll lead to bigger parts.” Look at someone like Steve Carrell before he was starring, he was doing small parts in like BRUCE ALMIGHTY and things like that. Then eventually that’s the path that you try to make, and so with this movie I felt confident in making this like the first one where I’m in the movie the whole time, because all of all the factors like “Okay, you have Ruben directing. You have this guy [gesture to Jess], you have McBride, you have Swardson. You have Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld producing it and you feel like, “Okay.” And the script is great, so you feel like “Okay, this should work.”
When you sign for a movie, you never 100 percent know. Even this, this is good, and it's possible no one will go see it. Hopefully they will, we’ve been talking to people all day. Hopefully people will read all of these things we keep telling people such as yourself over and over again, and they’ll be like “Alright, fine I’ll see it!” Butwith the factors you can control going in, the other actors in the film, the director and all of that stuff, I felt very confident in all of the choices that we had. I definitely felt more confident in that than in any other movies I had been reading at the time.
JE: Yeah, me too.
Capone: Talk about just working in the presence of the bomb, having it on you physically or being in proximately to it for a large part of the story. Tell me about how you adjusted your behavior.
JE: Yeah it changes everything for my character, because… Aziz too, but it’s on me. It changes everything, because just to have it tugging at your body. When you are acting something, you're trying to use as much of your imagination as possible to physicalize your situation, and in this I had the benefit of having something strapped onto me in that way of where it would chaff. I decided early on where it would hurt me and I’d play that same part, so when you are in a scene, there’s this consistent feeling of where it’s painful and then it changes the nature of the comedy, at least for me, because it’s no longer a tongue-in-cheek comedy or ironic. It’s not ironic comedy, it’s this guy who is in this really tough situation and if you could laugh at it then the comedy is derived from that.
Capone: And what about you just sort of being near it all of the time?
AA: I think in any kind of situation like that, eventually you acclimate to what that is, and then things revert to the normal relationship between these two guys. So I think I was aware of it, but at the same time, you’re not going to be thinking about that all the time; you eventually become normal people and realize, “Okay, well now we are in this situation.”
Capone: Aziz, I think it’s funny that you have to spend huge chunks of this movie thinking about him having sex with your sister. I love that in your mind, as you say, “It’s like having sex with me.” Was that something that you came up with or was that in the script?
AA: That was in the script, the idea that he would be so upset with him. I think originally he just said he had a crush, and then as we were doing it, we though about it like “Maybe he should have had sex with her at one point.”
Capone: But the idea of that being a version of you…
AA: Yeah, there were lines and I don’t know if it’s in the movie where I’m like, “She looks exactly like me!” And you were like, “No, no you’ve got the beard.”
JE: Is that in the movie?
AA: I don’t remember.
Capone: I can’t remember either; it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. And of course, I haven’t even talked about like the violence level here is pretty high--you set a guy on fire at the end of the movie. It gets seriously bloody sometime. Was that kind of fun to just go completely nuts with that?
JE: Yeah, I mean it’s fun, because it came out of the plotted elements. These two small time criminals are really irresponsibly violent people, and our characters are these regular guys, so the finale is that much more frightening for us, because these guys are just so irresponsible with what they bring to the scrap yard.
Capone: I love that all of the characters at one point try to put on a very tough-guy persona, and none of them really pull it off.
AA: That's true. All four of us do it at different points.
Capone: And it never quite sticks or is convincing, but can you talk a bit about that false macho front that everybody seems obsessed with?
AA: For me, I guess that that would be most manifesting itself when we are doing the bank robbery, and I kind of in my head for my character thought that his favorite bank robbery would be the one in HEAT and that he would be trying to channel De Niro’s character in that, like, “Think about your families. Don’t do anything.” You know, being very serious and calm, but tough, but it’s me and I’m playing that guy, so it doesn’t’ come off that way at all; I come off like an awkward dude.
So that’s why there’s like these little moments like when I get the money, I’m like, “Thanks Sandra.” It’s little things where you really can’t hide who you are. You can’t really stay under that façade.
Capone: Speaking of HEAT, were there other films that Ruben said, “We are kind of going for this vibe.”
AA: In the whole film or the bank robbery?
Capone: Yeah, in the action-oriented moemnts of the film.
AA: In the car chases, he was definitely referencing like THE FRENCH CONNECTION. He wanted to shoot us really in the car and not use green screen as much or at least try to use green screen as little as possible. For the bank robbery, he gave us like a folder full of like every bank robbery from every movie from OUT OF SIGHT, HEAT, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, THE KILLING, and it was really interesting to watch all of that stuff.
Capone: So he had you watch those?
AA: I watched them all just kind of as a reference to see, “Oh, that’s a different thing….” I tried to focus on the ones that I thought Chet would have seen like POINT BREAK, HEAT.
Capone: POINT BREAK is mentioned, right?
AA: Yes, “Stick to the tellers.”
Capone: Did you watch the movies? Had you seen most of them already?
JE: No. I chose not to. I don’t know why, at the time. Maybe I probably should have, but…
AA: You should have!
JE: It would have helped?
AA: [slamming his hand on the table in faux anger] It would have been a much better scene!
[Everyone Laughs]
JE: I don’t know.
Capone: A pizza delivery guy is this iconic slacker, while a school teacher is the salt of the earth. And neither one really fits the mold of this kind of film, was that something you guys liked about the approach to character in this film?
JE: Yeah, I think that’s part of the irony of it, that these two guys, in any other circumstance, would never rob a bank and are forced to under legitimate circumstances.
AA: And they have very unexciting lives, don’t do anything really, very little ambition from either of these guys. My character is a school teacher, but you can tell he’s just kind of settled for that, you know what I mean? So, for them to be thrust into an extraordinary situation, I think is like the same as… Ruben I think was telling you like he felt like this was kind of Coen Brothers-esque in that it’s ordinary people put in extraordinary situations.
JE: Like those Coen Brothers movies…
AA: That’s what happens in a lot of them…some of them.
Capone: Was there the freedom to improvise?
AA: Totally.
Capone: Even with the script being as strong as you said it was?
AA: It’s not about the script being strong. In every project I do, I think the scripts have been very good, but when you're actually there on set on location in the costumes with the actors reading the lines out loud, it’s just a different thing and you have way more insight and you can come up with things on the fly. When you repeat the scenes with the actors, you just come up with things, and we would always do the scripted takes and then afterwards we would improvise some takes, and then if we had any alternate lines or jokes, Ruben was always very encouraging for us to just try anything and a lot of that stuff is in the movie. Different moments like that are in the movie for sure.
Capone: Jesse, do you like the improvising?
JE: Yeah for the same reason Aziz said. The script was wonderful, and all of the jokes were specific and funny, but when you are there in the situation with the other person and it’s an actor playing the role with a different sense of humor than necessarily you thought of, it’s whole different thing.
AA: It’s like this, if you are interviewing someone, when you are actually there in conversation, it’s a different thing.
Capone: That’s true. Hopefully people aren’t just reading their questions to you.
JE: Yeah, right.
AA: When you are actually there and doing the scene, it’s different.
Capone: Jesse, one of the best “making of” documentaries I’ve ever seen is for THE SOCIAL NETWORK, where you talk about shooting that first scene in the bar 99 times and how much you loved it, because it felt like theater where you could make small adjustments to the performance rather than new lines.
JE: Yeah, but that’s a situation that never occurs in film. We filmed one scene over the course of two nights.
Capone: Yeah, that was the point you made.
JE: Stuff like that doesn’t happen. One of the great things you discover by doing something like that is like finding tiny nuances of character and of interaction. That’s something you do in theater, because you have four weeks to rehearse a play, and you find tiny things and you say, “I’m just discovering that, a month after you’ve been doing the show you realize, “Oh no, now I know what it is.” It’s not that the actors are in the dark and don’t understand what the scene or what the play is, but it’s in the constant pursuit of creating reality. You're finding different interesting moments, but you know there’s no economy for that kind of thing in a movie, nor should there be; it’s just too much.
Capone: What do you guys have coming up next? Is "Parks" coming back next for you. or do you get to squeeze in a movie for that?
AA: I go back to "Parks" at the end of July, and then I recorded another standup special a couple of weeks ago, and then I’m developing a couple of movies to shoot for the next hiatus that I have.
Capone: Those are the Apatow-produced films?
AA: One of them is an Apatow thing called SPACEMEN, where it’d be me and another guy are two disgraced astronauts. Then another one is one for me and Danny called OLYMPIC-SIZED ASSHOLE. We're two guys who are best friends, a really famous Olympic athlete comes back to his hometown, has a three way with our girlfriends, and it destroys us.
Capone: Jesse, you were just announced to be in the next Woody Allen film, and that's all you need to have coming up.
JE: Yeah, I am.
Capone: Have you seen the script yet?
JE: Yeah, I did. 'Well, they sent me… They don’t send you the things you’re not in.
Capone: Oh, they just send you your scenes? Okay.
JE: Yeah.
Capone: Wow.
JE: But yeah it’s great. I mean he’s the best.
Capone: For you, has that been a milestone you were hoping to hit at some point in your life?
JE: No, because I never assumed I would be ever be asked to do it.
AA: Do you have those pages? Maybe he could post it on the site?
[Everyone Laughs]
JE: Do you mind? It’s a pdf. I don’t know if that’s okay. Can you guys transfer it?
Capone: Gee, it's electronic. I'm not sure we could handle that.
JE: No, I mean, he’s my favorite person doing anything in the world, but I never suspected I would be in one. I’m very happy to be, I just didn’t think it would work out that way.
Capone: So you get to go to Rome?
JE: Exactly, yeah. I'm required to.
AA: I thought I’d have been in like 10 Woody Allen movies by now. I have not been for some reason.
JE: The way it works is you have to think you’re not and then it happens.
AA: Whoops…
JE: I don’t think I’ll win the lottery tonight, I don’t know why. I just have got a feeling I’m not going to win.
Capone: Okay, well guys I’ll see you tonight. Thank you so much.
