If Jonah Hill could tell you one thing, it would be this: You don't know Jonah Hill. That was a point the star of Superbad and Funny People couldn't emphasize enough when I met with him in Park City yesterday to discuss his hilarious and affecting work in Cyrus. In Jay and Mark Duplass's first foray into the semi-big leagues, Hill plays the title character -- a devious, passive-aggressive man-child who makes John C. Reilly's life a living hell when he starts to infringe upon the cozy domestic arrangement Cyrus shares with his young mom, played by Marisa Tomei. We spoke with Hill about the fun of showing fans some creepy new colors, the horrors of Twitter identity-theft, and what is shaping up to be the "proudest year" of his life.
Well, for starters, I want to congratulate you. You took this weird, fascinating character Cyrus to dark and emotional places that I have to admit really took me by surprise.
I laugh so hard when I go online and read the talkbackers. I've only starred in one movie, and for the character that Greg Mottola asked me to play, it was honest that he was a real loudmouth person who spouted out dick jokes. I was in this one very popular movie that people only know me from, and that was the character people know. This is the second time I've been one of the stars of a movie, and it's a completely different character. And Get Him to the Greek is a different character from either of those.
So you find people conflate you with your Superbad persona a lot.
Guys like us who know about movies or pay attention may not, but the general public -- say a mom from North Dakota came up to me, she'd say, "I loved Superbad!" That's what she knows of me. Then when you read what people write about me on the internet, which I'm guilty of doing, they just draw conclusions from that one movie. I have other movies coming out, so wait and see if any of those are similar.
Well, there was also your character in Funny People.
Funny People, yeah. But as an actor, you're kind of doing what the director wants you to do. It's their movie. And I played a comedian -- that's what comedians are like!
In seems in both films you play someone who finds himself being squeezed out of a situation he wants very much to be a participant in, and you manage to draw a lot of laughs out of your growing resentment and frustration.
Well, in Judd [Apatow's] movies, I think Judd noticed inherently that he found it funny when I was angry. So that's where maybe the loudmouth, angry, screaming thing comes from. But in this movie, I think it's very quiet and controlled. I'm just happy you noticed that, and I hope the assholes who write on the internet notice the same thing.
So their primary complaint is that you're only capable of doing one thing?
They say, all he does is scream and curse. And like yeah, in that one very popular movie that's what I did, and it was completely appropriate for what Greg Mottola asked me to do. In this movie, I do something else, and I hope they see that and ... uh ... shut up. [Laughs.] Here I am saying that I'm not angry. It's more that I'm mad at myself for even reading this shit.
Since you bring up the internet, I was following that story about your Twitter impostor pretty closely.
Yeah.
I remember watching you talk about it on Letterman, and then I was later led to this confessional posted by the guy. He actually thought you'd find it funny, and was hoping there might be a chance that you'd want to work with him after you discovered it.
It's like King of Comedy. Rupert Pupkin.
Did you feel violated by that whole incident?
I did. I think that website is so silly and so stupid.
Twitter?
Yeah! I would be so arrogant and egotistical to assume that anyone would care if I was sitting in traffic and how annoyed it made me. You read those, and it's like some celebrity who thinks that where they are is important enough to tell people, so that other people pass along the message that, "Oh my god, so n' so stubbed their toe today. That sucks." But yeah, it felt like, if someone went to the bank and impersonated me, they would be arrested. People thought this person was me. I thought that was really harsh.
He even roped Doug Benson into it.
Was Doug angry with me?
The guy found a photo online of the two of you at South by Southwest, and had used that encounter to prove to him that it was really you.
It's so rude man. He did something really gross and disgusting. I have never gotten into an argument with anybody. I would just not be mean to someone. But someone told me that they read that Marlee Matlin wrote to my [fake] Twitter, "I love Superbad." And then my character wrote back, "How would you know? You can't hear it." And I thought that was just disgusting, rude and offensive, and not something I would do.
Once again, people take that character from Superbad and think that's what I am: just this loud, offensive, don't-give-a-shit kind of person. And that's so disturbing to me, man. If I met Marlee Matlin, I'd shake her hand and get to know her, and especially would not make fun of her handicap. It's just disgusting and rude, and it made me sick that people believed that.
It really fascinated me as this cautionary tale about the flip-side of celebrity in a social media culture. But I also just sort of felt for you.
I kind of told it as a funny story on Letterman. Like with most things, you try to see the humor in them. But it really is disheartening that that can happen, and that people came up to me and believed things that this person was saying were coming from me. Honestly, it bums me out super hard. It just sucks.
Well at least it's over.
I've had him killed.
And that's one of the perks of celebrity! But going back to Cyrus for a second, were you concerned that there might be a danger of making him too unlikeable?
I had no fear of that. I don't care! I go by the filmmakers. I love Mark and Jay, and I believe in what they did. I saw they had a voice in a short film of theirs I saw seven years ago -- Intervention. I had no fear, and that was the main thing we all agreed upon before we did it: the character has to be heartbreaking, twisted, manipulative, sweet, sad, fucked up, dark. And if any action or word is ever breaking that, then we can't do it.
I always think, I'm a nice person, so some of that niceness or genuineness will shine through. But other that that, let's make him totally unlikeable. Let's make him disturbed. But if you're playing someone who's fucked up, there's always a reason they're fucked up. It's because someone was horrible to them, or in Cyrus's case, he just cares so much about his mom -- she's probably the only person he even knows! All of it comes from the fear of that being taken away from him. If you know that, then all the fucked-up things he does don't seem quite as hateful.
The confrontation scene in the bathroom at the wedding was a really heartbreaking moment for the character. I loved that scene.
I can't even watch it.
Why not?
I don't know. It's a douchey, actory thing to say, but it's just hard for me to watch. I feel really bad for him at that moment. The scene between Marisa and I on the bed, when I explained to her that I want her to be happy, but I don't feel John is the right person, and I'm worried I won't be the same person to her anymore -- that's the scene when I kind of cry, because I just find it so sad. He's an adult, but he's just a scared little kid who's afraid his mom's going to be taken away from him.
So besides Cyrus, what else do we have to look forward to from you this year?
I'd say this is the proudest year I have of stuff coming out. If you had asked me when I was younger and I had started doing this, what would you want your career to look like, it would be this year. Because I have this very small, thoughtful, weird, heartbreaking, hilarious movie, and then Get Him to the Greek, which is a rock and roll comedy. I don't think since Superbad I've been in a movie that plays like a rock concert. You see it Friday or Saturday night and you leave amped up. It tested the same as Superbad. We're in great shape -- it's just so energetic and so funny, and Russell [Brand] and I are just such a weird combination. [Director Nick Stoller and I] agreed we wanted to attack the audience. We wanted to make a hard, awesome, rock and roll comedy. It's one of the most fun movies I've ever seen.
And what's the status of The Adventurer's Handbook, the script you co-wrote based on the best-selling book?
I think we're going to shoot that this year!
I've heard it called a Goonies for twentysomething dudes.
That would be great. I think we just really liked Indiana Jones, and Goonies, and adventure movies from the '80s when we were growing up. We just thought it would be really cool to write a movie with guys in their mid-to-late 20s going on an adventure thinking it's going to be like Indiana Jones, and it turns out more like Three Kings. [Laughs] Like, oh! There's guys actually trying to kill us. It's really fun.