When Eva Mendes, Will Farrell, Adam McKay and Mark Wahlberg sit down for an interview, you can expect results to be anything but ordinary. Based on the camaraderie that was clearly present during a recent Q&A during SDCC, fans of the upcoming movie can expect a good time when the movie premiers later this summer.
Since this movie stars Will Farrell, one of the most obvious questions would be how much of the script was actually written, and how much was McKay allowing his actors to ad-lib and run with it. It turns out, McKay is so well prepared for this, he brings in a professional.
“For our bond company, we actually have to give them the exact percentages,” explained McKay. “So we brought in an actuary to break it down and this movie was 14.3789% was improvised and then the rest was scripted.”
A quick thinking Farrell noted, “that would be 86-85% scripted, if you round up.”
“It’s about 15-20% that is improvised, because we goof around in the scenes,” said McKay. “But the overall story structure obviously stays the same.”
Being a Buddy-Cop flick, comedic timing and approach are in the cards for both actors. Since Wahlberg isn’t a name that immediately springs to mind when you think summer comedy, how much did he end up learning from Farrell in the course of filming the movie?
“Actually, it’s the other way around,” corrected Wahlberg. “I threw a lot of curve balls at him.”
“It’s true,” said Farrell. “I had to keep up with Mark. It’s really the same approach, whether is a drama or a comedy. We both had the same philosophy of ‘treat the character as if it’s real, be earnest in every moment and we’re never winking at the camera,’ so within in that, it was good to have the same philosophy to improvise.”
The film also stars Eva Mendes, who plays Ferrell’s wife. Being surrounded by that much sex appeal must have been difficult for Mendes, and when asked how it felt to be working with the sexiest man in Hollywood, she quickly answered, “which one?” The other males in the group pointed to McKay, with Farrell chiming in, “we’re all Grade A USDA Choice marbled beef.”
When asked about a sequel to Anchorman, Farrell said “please petition Paramount Pictures” regarding that (try saying that 5 times fast), but that he was very happy to be back in “the Whale’s Vagina.”
The Other Guys opens on August 6, 2010.
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