Jonah Hill: The Movieline Interview

So is it odder to improvise from this character's perspective, since he's so unlike you?

No, because you're always within the character in any story. The only difference is that this is a very different type of movie than you're used to seeing me in. On a bigger comedy movie, the improvisations used in those films are to find new jokes and character moments. In a movie like Cyrus, it's funny but it's a lot more grounded in human stuff. You're truly improvising just to find raw moments, as opposed to improvising for jokes at all. You want things to play out like they would in real life.

So how did you keep his behavior from appalling you, even as you improvised it?

I always said to myself that if I ever did a more dramatic movie, I wouldn't come off pretentious in interviews like I was some amazing actor, but in all truth, you do just have to be that character. You can't think of anything else. When I'm watching the movie, I hate Cyrus's behavior and I think the relationship between him and Molly is very weird, but when playing that character, I can't think any of that behavior is negative. I have to believe that behavior is normal and routine, or else it's me, Jonah, judging that person. It wouldn't feel real if I placed any judgment on what he was like.

Did it change your improv technique when you produced Bruno and worked so extensively with a master improviser like Sacha Baron Cohen?

Yeah, and all those writers. To me, everything I get to do is a huge learning experience. I'm always working with someone more talented than me. [Laughs] You think about the things I've been lucky enough to be a part of, there's always someone I consider to be more experienced or talented, so I just like to be as much of a sponge as I can and absorb knowledge from the experiences they've had. For me, I learned so much from Mark and Jay, I learned so much from John and Marisa...on a movie of this scale, what you're improvising can literally change the momentum of a scene. In this movie, scenes that were real funny on the page could be kind of dark when you shot them, or vice versa. You should read Cyrus, the script. It's such a beautiful script.

And is it completely different from what ended up onscreen?

It's different. I loved their script. I was like, "Guys, let's do what's [on the page]!" Mark and Jay wrote this script that I literally thought was perfect, and I didn't want to change a word of it. They were like, "Let's improvise," and clearly from the movies I've made, I improvise a lot, but this time I didn't want to! Now, though, when I watch the movie, I can give you moments that were actually improved by improvisation.

Like what?

[The scene where Cyrus says] "Seriously, don't f**k my mom." I just riffed that. It's meant as a passive-aggressive joke, but there's a lot of emotion underneath that joke.

So how does it feel to see that phrase on a T-shirt now?

Well, I think after Superbad, I'm pretty used to it. [Laughs] I would literally go into Urban Outfitters and there'd be keychains [that would play] lines I improvised when you pressed a button.

Have you seen the TV commercials for Cyrus where they change it to "Please don't pork my mom?"

Uch. That made me sick. I was just so let down by that commercial. Fox Searchlight has the best marketing in the world, in my opinion, and then I was like, "What? You couldn't think of anything besides, seriously, 'Don't pork my mom'? That makes it sound like a total frat guy movie." Even though "f**k" is a crude word, "pork" is just so gross and unoriginal. I don't know why they used that.

[Lead Photo Credit: Don Arnold/Getty Images]

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