The somewhat ubiquitous Higgins rang up Movieline earlier this week to discuss the filming of Bad Teacher, why that film is different from fellow summer female-fronted comedy Bridesmaids, the lost art of the four-camera television series, and what to expect from We Bought a Zoo. Hint on that last one: something potentially great.
You've done a lot of ensemble comedies in the last decade, what made Bad Teacher stand out?
The director, Jake Kasdan, was somebody I had worked with before on Walk Hard and really got along with artistically. We had similar ideas about comedy, so I always find that refreshing when I find that on the set. So, when he called up and said, "Do you wanna try Bad Teacher?" I thought, "Yes, let's do it." I also looked at the rest of the cast -- I would say that even though they're big stars, they are actually quite funny. They really are. Cameron Diaz is a very good comedian -- very skilled, I found. I really like her as a person as well, but she's quite a sophisticated comedian. I really appreciate that about her. It was great to work with her -- a real pro, and she has real chops as a comedian. The same thing is true of Justin Timberlake. He's a very funny person, as a civilian -- so is Cameron, incidentally. It was really fun to hang out with them, because they're actually funny people. Often comedians are sort of self-hating, dark curmudgeons against the landscape in person, but not those two. And Jason Segel, I had known a little bit before, and he's just a great guy. It was just a great hang.
You mention Cameron Diaz, and Bad Teacher is really being sold on her charms as a comedian. Coming so soon on the success of Bridesmaids, do you think there's some pressure on Bad Teacher to keep that female-led comedy box-office push going strong?
Well I supposed there is, actually. There is something in the air this summer that says maybe women aren't unbankable after all. And if someone is bankable, it's got to be Cameron -- she's got it all. I would think there's a bit of pressure on the film, though. Expect the film is not... I think Bridesmaids is basically a male film in dresses. You know? It's like a bunch of guys, doing that. This is not that at all. This is a woman interacting in a male world. It's sort of a throwback to the '80s with Working Girl, Desperately Seeking Susan -- these female powered comedies that occur in a normal world setting, not just a girls' night out, bachelorette party setting. I think the burden is off a little bit in that way, but at the same time, I'm really glad that Bridesmaids cut through.
I think that the comedies that we've been having have been so male-centric that they're starting to become ingrown toenails. The world has become so small, and sort of imploded in testosterone. And Cameron is such a great prow for the ship. She's got so much to offer as a movie star, so I'm glad the focus is moving along to the other sex, particularly in comedy. There's some weird notion in our culture that women aren't funny. There's just a couple of handfuls that we allow to be funny.
That's the thing, though. It feels like if you just rattled off your favorite comedy stars, many would be women. It seems like such a false premise to say that "women aren't funny."
It is odd. Particularly now. I totally agree with you -- if you grabbed me, unaware, and said, "Who's funny right now?" I would probably start rattling off women. I think that's just what's going on, and I think -- I hope it continues. I don't know why it shouldn't? The products they make are really good. They're funny.
I have a feeling that with the success of Bridesmaids, we're going to be inundated with female comedies over the next few years.
Even if they overdo it, we can afford it! I think our culture needs a bit of a correction.
Bad Teacher is also notable because it offers Justin Timberlake his first real big-screen starring comedy role. As a comedian, what did you think of his chops?
Oh, he's great. He's an unusual case, I think. He grew up in show business, and he can't buy a pack of gum without getting mobbed. It's a strange life; it's very difficult to remain sane, and to have a healthy version of yourself that you can interact with. But he really is an adult. He's got loads of talent, and it's just obvious. But it may not be obvious as a comedian. But he is built for comedy. He really is. If you watch The Social Network, it's a wonderful performance -- but in a way it's a comedic performance. There's a sheen on it; it's carbonated, as I like to say. Those are natural comic instincts, as an actor. He's also a good dancer, which is always a good tell for comedy. Comedy has to do with holding and releasing tension; it's very technical. It's more technical than drama. People who can dance and sing are often very good at comedy. I think he's a very good example of that. I watch the way he holds his body -- I'm a stage guy, so I notice these things -- and he actually understands how to hold and how to be still. Those are really important in comedy. People who don't do comedy well are people who release too much tension.
You're obviously known for improvisation, was there a lot on the Bad Teacher set?
Bad Teacher had quite a lot of improvisation. Jake is really into that. My entire part in Walk Hard was improvised, I think. It was almost like doing a Christopher Guest film, where I said whatever I wanted.
Do you like working that way?
No, I tell you. I end up doing that all the time -- I get hired for that a lot. I get on the set, and often the first thing they say is, "Michael, say whatever you want." It sounds great, but then I think, "Oh, just give me a script!" It puts a bit of a burden on me. I walk in and they're like, "We can't wait to see what you do!" Which is fine, except it puts these odd pressures on me. That's why every time I'm hired for a drama, I come home to my wife and go, "Honey, I'm doing a drama!" I'm thrilled, because I don't have to panic all day that I'm not gonna get it up. We improvised a lot on Bad Teacher, but to answer your question, I personally think improvisation is dangerous and overused. It is a great, useful tool to find things in the scene, unless what you're doing is specifically -- the spirit and structure of it is improvisational. Like Christopher Guest, where there really is no script and we're not, quote "improving" on anything. That's sort of what I resent sometimes about improvisation. The way Jake does it, is not that way. We really shoot the scene and then he uses improv to say, "Was there anything else in here that we missed? Could we have gone another direction in this bit of dialogue?" But we have a really good structure underneath it. And often the case -- and I think Christopher Guest is to blame for this, because he's been so badly imitated so many times -- people just abuse it.
I'm not so much into improvisation for itself. I don't think it's really -- I think it's a parlor trick or a theater workshop. It's for acting class. As a product, I'm not mad about it. It's not really story oriented. It's more of a competition. Or a cabaret trick. It's not about character and story and need and want. It's a laugh clock -- "Where's my next laugh? Where's my next laugh?"
It certainly feels like modern comedies are based on improvisation, though.
I do it all the time. Almost every single job I do. Except I'm doing a four-camera comedy now, and there's just no time for it. Every word is numbered and it's a 20-minute thing, so you really can't mess around too much. We might improvise in rehearsal, but that's where it belongs.
Is that part of the reason why you wanted to do Happily Divorced?
I'm really not running away from improv in a big way, but I'm often hired to do that. And the thing about the four-camera comedy, it's a little bit more like my real roots and really what I am. I'm a stage actor. That's what I was for 20 years before I did any film or television. It's really what I'm made of -- it's what I'm built for. And four-camera has great elements of that. There's an audience, we play it in real time -- each scene is in real time. I walk to the front door, put my keys down, "Honey, I'm home!" This goes on and on and on until the scene ends. Which means I, as a performer, can control time and space. It's almost like stage, where I tell the audience how long the conversation will last, how quickly I'll cross from the couch to the chair, and they generally don't edit that much. They're trying to capture something. That's the difference. I really like that. I haven't done a huge amount, mostly because I've been making films, but this opportunity came up -- and I happened to really love Fran Drescher -- and I thought this could really be fun for me. I just thought I hadn't really had a real series go as a four-camera. I hope this one does. It has a very good chance to go, I think -- famous last words, but it's not reinventing the comedy, which is a problem with four-cameras in the last ten years.
I would imagine the lead-in from Hot in Cleveland will help with whether or not Divorced catches on as well.
It's a really good lead-in, and I think part of the reason why Hot in Cleveland works is because it's a traditional, multi-camera show. And so is Happily Divorced. It trusts that the multi-camera format as invented by Desi Arnaz is a fully functioning format that doesn't need a lot of tinkering. It's an invention that seems to be invented complete. It's like the first car that they ever made was a Lexus. It's very weird that way, I think. But that's generally true of comedy, in a funny way. I bet if we were on the streets of Verona in 1511 and we watched some comedians to a couple of sketches, we'd laugh our asses off. I'm sure of it! It's funny. You don't need to improve upon it. Human nature is human nature.
You mentioned how you like doing dramas, and you've got a role in We Bought a Zoo -- does that qualify for you?
It's hard to even identify Cameron's work at all. I remember the year I went to the Golden Globes and the Best Comedy category. I was there for Best in Show, and we lost Best Comedy to Almost Famous. And I remember sitting at the table thinking, "Is Almost Famous a comedy?" We were up against Chicken Run and Almost Famous, so you tell me! I couldn't figure it out! We were obviously a dead-ahead comedy. Which is just to say that Cameron has a genre of his own -- whatever he does is its own thing. I really like that about him. In film, I like blurring those lines. Recently I saw Dog Day Afternoon again. My wife and I were looking at and were like, "This is a comedy!" It's a funny, funny movie. The types of problems that he faces are just comedic. This woman won't talk now, and now she's hot. Cameron makes movies like that. You feel real life pulsing in them. You feel like this real pull of emotion -- that's very apparent in We Bought a Zoo, particularly between Matt Damon and the boy [Colin Ford], which are very good and rich dramatic scenes.
And what's your part in this one?
Once again, I'm holding up the comedic end of it. I'm the heavy, but I'm the heavy in a light way. It was really fun to shoot. They actually built a zoo. I always call the movie "We Built a Zoo." Every day you go to the set and you're surrounding by animals -- odd animals, like giraffes. It was a great experience. Matt's a great guy, and Scarlett's very smart and interesting. It was a really fun movie to do.
It's the first Cameron Crowe fiction film since Elizabethtown in 2005. Do you think it'll have some big Oscar buzz this winter?
I would hope. It deserves to. It's a very unusual and interesting movie. It's very small scale for a movie with such big stars; it's a simple thing: a guy buys a zoo. Never seen that before. It's really good, and Cameron really covers the bases. It goes all over the place, thematically. I think it's going to be good, but for me -- it's a general -- if I think it's great when I'm on the set, it's going to be terrible. Maybe I should just say We Bought a Zoo is going to be terrible, because I'm pretty sure it's going to be great.