T.J. Miller on Yogi Bear, Justin Timberlake and That Notorious Viral Video

T.J. Miller -- perhaps best known to movie fans as Hud from Cloverfield -- just wants to make sure you give his new film Yogi Bear a fair shake before you judge it. Then again, Miller, who in 2008 was named one of the 12 rising stars in comedy by Entertainment Weekly, has a bit at stake for this film considering that he theoretically could have been eaten by a real bear during his audition.

Miller stars as Ranger Jones in this week's CGI/live-action adventure, the 29-year-old's fourth of five releases in 2010, including supporting roles in She's Out of My League, How to Train Your Dragon, Unstoppable and the forthcoming Gulliver's Travels. Not shy about defending Yogi against a culture that has seemingly had its knives sharpened for months, Miller spoke to Movieline his famed audition tape, explains why Justin Timberlake should stop avoiding talking about his role as Boo-Boo and delivers his real-time reaction to the now infamous Yogi Bear-Jesse James viral video.

It's interesting timing that we're talking since that Assassination of Jesse James-Yogi Bear video has gone viral. Have you seen it?

What? I haven't seen that. I'll look at that right now.

It's basically the ending to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Boo-Boo shoots Yogi in the head.

Oh, God. That sounds awful.

I'm not explaining it well, but, yeah, I'm not sure it's meant for the target audience.

I'm letting it load. You know, Neil Hamburger declared war on Yogi Bear over Twitter and I got involved in that. We're already making arrangements for Neil's funeral on Saturday after Yogi comes out, if it opens well. You know, I'm a pretty staunch defender of it as a piece of groundbreaking cinema.

Explain that.

Well, it's the first live action 3-D hybrid film that was shot completely in a live environment. Even James Cameron didn't do that. [Avatar] was all in studio. And, also, it's a pretty epic everyman tale and the characters go through some real journeys. So, if people would pay attention to it instead of writing it off as this stupid family kids movie, or try to compare it to Alvin and the Chipmunks and those other movies, it's more the caliber of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Well, Justin Timberlake doesn't seem to be doing your film any favors. He seems to be in full on Oscar mode for The Social Network...

Yeah, I heard that he's doing a big campaign.

If Yogi Bear is brought up -- because that is his new movie -- he quickly tries to change the subject.

I think his work in Alpha Dog and The Social Network speak for him as an actor. But I'll say that I think he did great in Yogi. Let me just say this: I hope that he understands, comedically, how well he did in this film. Because he really, really did.

That's the problem: We wouldn't know because he's not talking about it. And that leads to speculation about the film.

It's got to be the Oscar campaign. I think he would be smarter to try to push for an Oscar as Boo-Boo.

His chances would seem slim considering the amount of actors who have been nominated for voice-over work.

Yeah, but he could be the first.

To be fair to Yogi Bear, I really didn't want to see another movie you were in, Unstoppable, and it wound up being very entertaining.

Yeah, the studio does this huge marketing push for the American masses, so that turns off a lot of cinephiles. And it shouldn't. I had the same experience: I was with some people who didn't want to see Unstoppable. Then they end up seeing it, because that's where we ended up, and they loved it. Everybody loved it, it got great reviews because it's a train movie with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. Some people said, "Oh, I bet that's not that great." It's one of the only movies that doesn't have a villain. How many movies come out now without a terrorist or some sort of arch-villain? That movie isn't about that; it's about ordinary people rising to the occasion. Yeah, it has a train full of kids, but it also has great moments between Chris Pine and Denzel, and the action is impeccable. So what else do you want? I love that movie. And I think Yogi is a really great version of what a Yogi Bear movie could be.

Did you see Saturday Night Live's Unstoppable parody?

Oh, yes. [Laughs] That was super-fun. And if you think about it, everything can be thought of in terms of the Chrysler Building.

When I saw the film, I remember thinking, Wow, she's really specific. Not the Empire State Building. No, the Chrysler Building.

Well, see, that's the size of the train. The Empire State Building would have been not as good of an estimate. We don't want to get out of hand! It's a Chrysler Building situation' let's deal with it as is necessary for that size problem.

They can save the Empire State Building for the sequel. "The last one was the size of the Chrysler Building..."

"This one's the size of the Empire State Building." Totally!

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