Jason Segel on the Good Times of Bad Teacher, and the Dramedy of Five-Year Engagement

Bad Teacher presents both good news and bad news for fans of Jason Segel. Your favorite Apatow repertory player is quite hilarious in the film as a gym teacher hot for teacher (Cameron Diaz's titular poor educator), but he's decidedly a supporting player. Which actually isn't that bad for Segel when you think about it -- especially since he's spent the last two years working on How I Met Your Mother and writing a pair of highly anticipated films: the upcoming rom-com Five-Year Engagement and a little thing called The Muppets.

The busy Segel rang up Movieline earlier this week to discuss what led him to take a role in Bad Teacher, the film's Freaks and Geeks Easter eggs, what to expect from Five-Year Engagement, and those outstanding trailers for The Muppets.

Normally, you're heavily involved in the creative process of your films -- I'm thinking Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Muppets and Five-Year Engagement. That's not the case with Bad Teacher. What made you sign on for this one?

Well, to be honest, I had a phone conversation with Jake Kasdan way before I even got the script. And Jake described the role to me -- I've known Jake for 15 years now. So, I was just excited to work with Jake again. We've been trying to for years. That was what was most exciting. Then I found out Cameron Diaz was involved, and it seemed like a really fun thing to be a part of.

You're definitely a supporting player in Bad Teacher. With how busy you are, I imagine that was attractive, too.

Yeah. It was very easy. I literally worked for 10 days total. Ten shooting days. It really was like a fun side project that ended up being really great to do.

When you get scripts like Bad Teacher as a screenwriter, is there something you're really looking for in particular from them that someone without a screenwriting background might not be?

For the past couple of years, I've spent so much time writing, I haven't read so many scripts. Writing a script from beginning to end and getting it made takes so much time. And to do that while being on a TV show, I basically have my head down and am focused on getting the scripts done. We were writing Muppets and Five-Year Engagement side-by-side, so it's been a pretty heavy couple of years.

I kinda loved the idea of you being back in a school setting along with Dave "Gruber" Allen. You two even share a little moment together in Bad Teacher. Was that kind of faux-Freaks and Geeks reunion something you guys came up with on-set?

That was in the script originally. And there's also a tiny cameo by Paul Feig in there, which you might not notice. We tried to get as many people in there as we could.

Both Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake are kinda playing against their normal types in this one. What was it like working through the film with them?

It was great. It was very easy to me to interact with Cameron, because I took our real-life relationship and portrayed that in the movie: I constantly hit on Cameron Diaz, and she constantly tells me she has no interest. And that's that. [Laughs] So it's very easy. And Justin, he's supremely talent. It's almost frustrating how talented he is. The guy can literally do anything. So, it was really exciting to get to know him -- he's a great guy, I think we'll be friends for a long time.

You mentioned Paul Feig, and Bad Teacher is coming out six weeks after Bridesmaids kinda flipped the script on female-fronted comedies. Do you think there's any pressure on the film to perform at the box office?

You know, it's sort of an ironic question. It points to the whole problem. If there was a comedy with a bunch of dudes in it, and then there was another comedy with a dude in it, you wouldn't be asking if it was weird to have a comedy with men coming out right after a comedy with men came out. You know what I mean? I think that points to that there's still a discrepancy with the way women and men are viewed, especially in comedy. In my opinion, it's about time -- there's so many funny women out there. I dare you to find three men who can contend with Kristen Wiig, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in a room together.

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