In an interview with Movieline, Hill couldn't contain his excitement over the movie (directed by Mark and Jay Duplass), though when it came to the way it was being advertised, he had one strong quibble.
How are you holding up, Jonah? You've been pretty busy lately.
I got back from Australia last night for the Get Him to the Greek tour, so I'm a little jet lagged, but I love this movie, so it's kind of cool to transition from talking about one movie to the other one.
You've done so much press over the last year, whether it was at Sundance for Get Him to the Greek or this Cyrus press tour. You haven't even had time to shoot a film since Get Him to the Greek, right?
Yeah, I shoot Moneyball in a few weeks. It's going to be exciting to actually shoot a movie. [Laughs]
I'm sure a lot of the people interviewing you for Cyrus have asked you what you wanted to do with this character. I'm more curious, since there are so many pitfalls to playing someone like this: what did you not want to do with this character?
That's a good question. You know, this character is very different -- and the movie is very different -- from what you're used to seeing me do. It was an interesting thing to tackle because I don't know anybody like this and I don't see any semblance of myself in him, so I couldn't really relate to him. It's always been said in acting classes that you have to like or love the character I'm playing, but I don't like Cyrus. I don't love him.
Not at all?
No. He's so manipulative. I couldn't be friends with someone like that, with his manipulation and dishonesty and all those qualities he has. The way I found a way in, though, is that I sympathized with Cyrus. I didn't like him, but I found a tremendous amount of sympathy for him because I realized that all his flaws are not his fault. His flaws come from desperation and a fear of being alone. He and his mom have a special relationship in a lot of ways in that they're so close and they're best pals, but it's every parent's duty at a certain point to say, "Here's the world, go check it out. You're gonna be scared sometimes, it's gonna be hard, but you'll find your way and figure out who you are." For whatever reason, Molly couldn't force him to go out into the world. She couldn't bring herself to do it -- maybe she needed him as a friend. I felt bad for him, because his manipulation comes from not being brought up correctly. When another man comes into her life, it threatens his world.
When you say it's the most unlike any role you've ever done, what do you feel when you actually watch it onscreen?
I feel pride and I feel weird, to be honest with you. My brother and my girlfriend saw the movie on two separate occasions and they were both looking at me all weird [after]. I asked my brother, "Did you not like the movie? Did you not think it was good?" And he said, "No, it just really freaked me out. For the first time, I watched you in a movie and I didn't recognize you. I didn't feel like I was watching my brother, and it scared me really badly. There was no trace of you in there."
How did that make you feel?
I was weird about that at first, but it's such a massive compliment to say that I played a character where he didn't recognize any semblance of his brother in there. My girlfriend said the same thing, and that seems to be the general response -- from my loved ones, at least. Even when I watch it myself... a) I don't like this guy until the end when you feel bad for him, and b) I don't feel like I'm watching me. I think Get Him to the Greek is a good performance on my part, and I love the performance, but it's a character closer to who I am. I recognize things of myself in that character. In Cyrus, I don't feel like a parallel at all with who that guy is.
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]