By Fred Topel | Image property of Universal Pictures.
Jon Favreau
In Swingers and Made, Jon Favreau is usually the guy trying to reign in the wild antics of Vince Vaughn. In The Break-Up, Favreau finally gets the chance to go wild. He plays Vaughn’s best friend, who has some of the worst relationship advice ever.
Favreau on Breaking Up
“For me it was a real pleasure because it was probably the most fun I’ve ever had working with the guy because I’m usually the person either writing or directing the piece and I’m concerned about writing a role for him that he can really sink his teeth into,” Favreau said. “When they were putting this movie together, Pete [Billingsly] told me that they wanted me to come out and just not worry about nothin’. Just come on out, they’ll treat me like an actor, they’ll just fly me out there, put me up at the hotel, bring me to set and it was just a real pleasure to not have to worry about carrying a movie, not worry about the story and be more of a character actor like I sort of have been. I got to really just try to get under Vince’s skin whereas usually he’s the guy who’s getting under my skin and I’m the one keeping the story on track. So it’s a real fun time reversing roles and just trying to rattle him. There’s nobody I think that can make each other laugh as much as we can with each other.”
Every time Vaughn’s character, Gary, turns to Favreu’s Johnny O, for sympathy, Johnny O comes up with something outlandish like sending a killer to off Gary’s ex. All of those bits came out of improvisation between the buddies.
“I wanted to take the piss out of those scenes a little bit because it was very easy for those scenes to be really heartfelt moments. Vince and I really don’t like that. We sort of share that sensibility. If you look at the last scene in Swingers, it sort of almost is going to be this after school special moment where we break down the theme of the movie and then he sees the girl making faces at him. We kind of like to pull the rug out and so those scenes, each one of them begged for this heavy duty, real, weighted conversation about what the movie is about and we just played totally against it. Playing like that meathead was really fun and against type of the neurotic over-thinking guy that I usually play in movies with him. So it was a lot of fun.”
Since those bits were improvised, Favreau relied on director Peyton Reed to cut together a watchable version of the dialogue. “I’m very happy with how they actually cut it together because I’ve done a lot of good stuff in other movies but so much of it is determined in the editing room and these guys really took the time to sift through all that stuff. I know I do it when I’m directing or producing and the fact that you’re a performer and somebody takes the time to find the best moments and build something nice is flattering.”
The Break-Up opens on June 2nd.
For the trailers, movie stills, posters, synopsis and movie info, go to The Break-Up Movie Page.
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