Todd Phillips, as I found out, is not afraid of confrontation. And maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that the director of The Hangover and this weekend's new release, Due Date, wasn't afraid to push the boundaries, even in an interview setting. Phillips makes it clear from the start that he's not particularly a fan of Movieline. And to be honest, knowing this now, I actually respect the fact that he went ahead and did this interview, even though, yes, we did get off to a rather rocky start.
As you know from the incredible marketing push, Due Date stars Robert Downey Jr. as Peter, a man who just wants to get from Atlanta to Los Angeles to witness the birth of his new child. Zach Galifianakis, a Phillips favorite, stars as Ethan who is on his way to "Hollywood" in an effort to fulfill his dream of staring on Two and a Half Men. These two unlikely travelers find themselves driving cross-country together after an unfortunate kerfuffle that lands both of them on a no-fly list. I spoke to Phillips (after some initial, well, let's just call them, unpleasantries) about his love of Galifianakis, why Malcolm X jokes can be polarizing, the sequel to The Hangover and what really pisses him off about this Mel Gibson situation.
Thanks for taking the time to do this.
This is for Movieline?
Yes.
This website's the worst, but, all right, let's do it.
Oh, no. Why do you say that?
No, honestly, I'm teasing, but you guys just hate every movie. So it's like, "Ugh, really, I have to do this and open myself up to some snarky, clever title?" You know what I mean? There are movie sites that love movies and there are movie sites that are just bitter people that just hate movies. I find Movieline to be in the latter. The tone is bizarrely hateful.
Really? I wouldn't call it hateful at all.
In print. You're right, in person I've only had great experiences with [the writers]. And I'm not even talking about my own personal things, I'm saying that when I go on that site and read about other movies, it just seems like one of those sites.
Would it make you happy to get Mel Gibson out-of-the-way early? I'm not really sure what you can add at this point. Do you have a favorite Mel Gibson movie? I'm a bit partial to Bird on a Wire.
I think Apocalypto, probably. Have you seen it?
I have.
I mean, the guy is a masterful filmmaker. That's easy.
Where were The Dan Band?
In Due Date? Yeah, we didn't use them in Due Date. You're right, they do not make an appearance. That is correct.
I didn't think about it until after the movie, but it always a treat to see them.
I love those guys.
Why did you make Peter and Ethan each so individually frustrating? The second you start to like one of them, one of them does something like spit on a dog...
I think that's a good question, that's kind of what made the movie interesting for me. To not take that studio note mentality of, "OK, let's make them likable." I think what Robert Downey brings to a role is the ability to spit in a dog's face, lose the audience for five minutes, and then win them back. Quite straight with you, not kidding, that was what the challenge was of the movie and that was made me want to make the movie with the guys. And I think what made them want to do the movie was kind of f*cking with the tone of it in a way -- it's not a very linear tone. The structure might be a linear story but, tonally, we go from really f*cked up stuff to sometimes sad stuff to sometimes something way out of line. It's just shifting of the tones that made it interesting and I think the same thing goes for the tone of each character. Ideally, to me, that's what makes the movie special. Like you just said, we didn't make one guy the good cop and one guy the bad cop or one guy the straight man and one guy the crazy man.
You make a good point about Downey. He spits in the dog's face and I hated the guy, but I forgot about that pretty quickly.
That dog was a total as*hole, too, don't forget that. You know, I was spitting in his face between takes.
Has Zach Galifianakis become your go to guy? Is he to you like DiCaprio with Scorsese?
(Laughs) I was trying to think of a funny one, what immediately came to my head was Pesci for him, but I couldn't think of something funny for me. You know, people work like that -- in no way are we comparing ourselves, you said that one -- but people find each other and you find the shorthand as a director and a filmmaker and a writer, I find myself, when I read scripts, working on an idea, my head goes to Zach because he's just somebody that I have such a shorthand with. Somebody that I know can do anything. And I'm talking about stuff that he hasn't done yet in any movie yet that I still know he's capable of.
Where did this movie come from? Is this from a personal experience? I will say that a road trip when you're 21 is a lot more fun than when you're in your 30s.
Right! Yeah, it's a little more of a hassle. But to me, really, the road trip element is the structural element. But what the road really represents is the ability to take your main characters out there and put them out there without a safety net. They don't have their family or friends or personal belongings. When that element shows up in movies, that's what it represents.
Were you at all inspired by other movies with similar themes? I sensed a little Planes, Trains and Automobiles in there except, like you said, the characters aren't quite as likable as Neil and Del.
Well there was a lot of movies -- and Planes, Trains is, of course, a movie I've seen many times and loved -- but we talked about Midnight Run. We talked about Rain Man. Rain Man we talked about all of the time. The road trip element of Rain Man was something that we talked a lot about that relationship and that kind of tension and a weirdness that those two guys had.
No offense to Mr. Creepy, but I enjoyed your cameo in Due Date.
(Laughs) Thank you. I'll tell him when he gets back from the peep show.
Please do that. You share that scene with Juliette Lewis. I interviewed her for the first time a few weeks ago. There's a lot of crossover, in a good way, in her personality to what you see on-screen. Does that make sense?
That makes absolute sense. She's a live wire and she brings so much energy and so much sunshine to every role that she does. I have no other way to explain her, she's just like sunshine when she shows up on set. Everything changes, I love her so much.
In a movie you can never have enough masturbating jokes.
(Laughs) That's funny.
In college, when you have a roommate, you get used to falling asleep with those kind of noises in the background. The scene in the car reminded me of that.
I actually never had to deal with that. For me, that scene is about representing how unaware Ethan is and unaware of the social norms.
And the Malcolm X scene caught me off guard. I let off an embarrassingly loud laugh.
I know, it's such a bizarre joke out of nowhere. Yeah, it's a little ridiculous but I'm glad that you dug that one. Not everyone loves it (laughs).
I can see that one going both ways.
Well, you know, that's how all comedy is. Comedy is so subjective. You could be in a room with 400 people laughing at a joke and you could just not think it's funny. You're just sitting there like, "Am I in the twilight zone? Why is everyone laughing?" It's such a personal thing. People have such a personal visceral response to comedy.
Where did all of the Two and a Half Men stuff come from? Why that show out of all shows?
Again, I just think it's to illustrate just how completely ridiculous... Listen, the show is great. It's a fine show... well, it's a good show.
That's a good way to describe it. It's very popular.
It is. But I would doubt that anybody has been inspired to become an actor because of that show. So we just thought what a ridiculous concept that it is [Ethan's] frame of reference. That it's the reason he wanted to become an actor. And even if that does exist, even if someone is like that, they would never say that's why they wanted to become an actor.
When there's an actual Two and a Half Men scene in he film, did you direct that or did the regular director of the show?
They directed it. I was there that day and I walked Zach through what he had to do, but we wanted it to feel and look exactly like the show. I didn't want to step on any toes.
The car chase scene with the Mexican police comes out of nowhere compared to the rest of the movie. Where did that come from?
It's hard to say where ideas originate or come from. We're thinking of it more as when we're thinking of a complete story. To be quite honest, I don't like to hear that it comes out of nowhere, but I know what you mean as far as suddenly there's this big action scene in the middle of a comedy.
I didn't necessarily mean it in a bad way.
I understand, I think we just got started off on the wrong foot. (Laughs) That was my fault, but I do understand it. You know, I smoke a lot of pot when I'm conceiving of or writing these movies and making these movies. It's hard to always justify everything. You know, it's really tough.
I felt it took the film to a different level.
We try to make it real but with absurd situations. And even in The Hangover and my other films, it's sort of what I try to do. The characters, we try to make them living in the real world but put them through absurd situations.
Was it satisfying that The Hangover was such a huge hit considering that you walked away from Borat, which also became a huge hit?
Well, I could have done both. I have good feelings about Borat. I was still involved in Borat; I was nominated for an Academy Award for writing with Borat. And I love the movie and I'm proud of my involvement in Borat. So they're separate things for me and it's not as if one happened the other wouldn't happen or vice versa. To me it's all part of a body of work.
Is it tough coming back for a sequel to The Hangover? I mean, these guys wind up in this impossible situation in the first one. Is it hard to find a way for something else crazy to happen to these four guys or does it just flow like it did the first time?
Well, it's been flowing for us and it's not necessarily going to follow the same idea. We're in the middle of making that movie, but I think people are going to be surprised with how much of a... How do I put this without getting some f*cking snarky feedback in the headline?
You've already pretty much sealed your fate, the headline's going to be "Todd Phillips Doesn't Want Your Snarky Headline." It's already a done deal so anything you say now is not going to change that.
(Laughing) No... I think people are going to be surprised at how much this holds up to the first one. That's all. Honestly, I don't feel pressure, It's kind of the opposite. I feel pressure when we're standing outside some strip club at five in the morning in Las Vegas, shooting a scene, and I'm looking at my camera guy going, "This is really funny but is anybody ever going to see this movie?" That's a different pressure and that's real pressure. In a weird way the expectations make it liberating. It's like, "All right, I know I'm making a movie that people are at least going to show up and see." That's a big part of the battle. So, in a weird way, it's the opposite of pressure.
I swear I wasn't going to ask anything more about Mel Gibson situation...
Oh boy, here we go.
Do you think it's true that any press is good press?
No, I don't! I don't subscribe to that at all. Particularly in comedy filmmaking where so much of what we do relies on surprise. So, no, I don't believe any press is good press. And I don't mean that I'm talking about from a PR stand, like this is bad for the image of The Hangover. I'm talking more about comedy just works better when you're taking people by surprise, not talking about it on a blog six months before we even shoot a scene. You know what I mean?
Well I also have to imagine it's frustrating for you because you have a new movie coming out this weekend and you want to talk about that.
It's not that part that's frustrating. It's really not. I'm sure if people had heard we were doing a cameo with Mike Tyson in The Hangover, it would have been the same sort of nonsense. I just feel like, hey, let's just do our thing and let's talk about it after. Disagree with it or agree with it after, but to pick things apart before they're even done and people make assumptions about how it's going to be done or what the spirit of it is being done, that's the frustrating part. Certainly not answering questions about it.
Anything you regret about one of your films? Something you wish you could go back and change?
There's so many. I think any filmmaker looks back and thinks, "Boy, if we only had four hours more on that day when the sun was going down," or, "If we only spent more time and went back."
Some directors balk at a question like that.
They balk at it?
Well, someone like James Cameron who says that he refuses to look back.
Well, yeah, but I'm kind of balking at it, too, by not giving you one in particular. I do think that there is stuff, particularly in comedy, you can always push things further. You can always do it another way. I agree with him, there's nothing I would look back on Avatar, either, and do differently. I think he did it beautifully. I'm sure when I re-watch Old School there are things where I go, "God, if I just had more time that day or if we would have just pushed this scene even further."
Speaking of Avatar, Hangover 2 is not going to be in 3-D, is it?
No.
OK, good.
You don't like 3-D?
I like it in moderation.
Let's pretend I said "yes" -- which I'm telling you that it's not -- every movie comes out and you have a choice to see it in 3-D or not, right? I'm actually asking, you can go see Jackass not in 3D, correct?
I'm not sure 100 percent, but I believe so.
It's got to be because there are not enough theaters to even have done the business that Jackass did, I would think.
What's funny about Jackass, that's actually a movie that was fun in 3-D because they actually filmed it with 3-D cameras as opposed to the upconvert.
Oh, right. We wouldn't be upconverting The Hangover. I don't even know what that means, "upconvert." It gives me a headache just thinking about it. Why is it called "upconverting"?
I wouldn't want to be the person who coined that phrase, it does kind of make me angry.
Everything makes me angry today; everything is going to make me crazy today.
I know! As soon as I started talking to you, you were angry.
I know, I know. I apologize. I just feel, tonally speaking, how movies have a certain tone or comedies have a certain tone, I feel like websites do have a tone. And the tone of the Movieline website seems very high school to me. Does that make sense? I'm not telling you to agree or not, I'm just saying that's where that is coming from.
I understand what you're trying to say.
I'm making it worse.
No, you're not. I enjoyed this. I hope it wasn't too bad for you.
No, this was a pleasure. For real. I liked that when you remembered something in the movie you started laughing like a stoner -- that's how I am.