Since Judd Apatow comedies depend so much on improv comedy, it helps to cast people who already have a natural banter. To play Ben Stone (Seth Rogen)'s stoner buddies, Apatow cast real life buddies Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Martin Starr and Jason Segal. Shooting hours and hours of conversation, only the best stuff made it into Knocked Up, said Hill.
Jonah Hill Talks Knocked Up
"I think it works out for the best in the end," said Hill. "It’s like especially after seeing every version of the movie while it was coming towards the final cut of it, from the longer ones thinned down, it’s all appropriate to pushing the movie. It’s what makes the movie best. You can’t think of like, 'Man, my joke’s not in there that I really like.' It’ s like you know there could be a lot of funny jokes in the movie but the best version of the movie makes the movie good and that’s all that counts is if people like the movie. They don’t want a four hour version with more jokes. Maybe for us."
One riff that viewers are already remembering from early screenings is a rant on Munich as the ultimate Jewish action movie. "I remember that was the first day. I remember shooting that and being like, 'If this isn’t in the movie, that sucks,' because I found that to be so funny a bunch of dudes talking about Munich in a nightclub. It’s true. Those places, those cool, hip kind of places and stuff and you get a bunch of guys that are like nerdyish dudes and it’s like the whole movie is about or a lot of judge movies are about people that have a hard time like being a normal member of society and they’re like able to go out and talk to everybody. And it’s funny, I think a lot of times if we were all at a bar we’d be sitting around talking about like something as trivial or silly as that. It’s a way of avoiding having to be like let’s meet a stranger."
Knocked Up
There were plenty of funny antics on the set too. "One of the funniest things was when we shot the opening scene of the fight club stuff kind of. It was 120 degrees outside and you would go inside and me and Jay everyone would be like passed out with fans in front of them. Then me and Seth and Jason had oxygen."
The gang even plays character with their same first names, suggesting these aren't necessarily performances. "It was a joke. Also like Judd wrote it, he likes to write I think for actors and I think he wrote it with all of us in mind so the names in the script were always our names. I think a week before we started shooting, we were rehearsing in Santa Monica and someone was like, 'So, uh, we just keeping the names like our names?' And they were like, 'Yeah, it’s kind of funny. All right, we’ll just keep it like that.' I think it’s actually funny but until the movie comes out, it will be a little bit odd. They’ll think that we’re playing ourselves which I’m definitely not exactly like my character in the movie or anything."
Knocked Up opens to
theatres June 1st.
For trailers, interviews, stills and more movie info, go to the Knocked
Up Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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