Come with me to the Paul Press Conference and hear film greats
chat about Paul, Nick Frost & Simon Pegg’s romance, Deep Throat, secret cameos, Baby boners, R Ratings, tit burgers, up setting the bible belt, hard ass bitches, 2001, Paul The Musical and showing up to work sober.
Those of you that read my review of Paul already know that although I’m pleased for Nick Frost and Simon Pegg – it didn’t quite hit the spot for me. But after sitting in the same room as most of the Paul team I can’t help but think that I may have missed the boat a little, the chemistry was off the scale and these guys are just fun.
Press conferences are a bit frustrating as out of respect you really have to keep the discussion focussed on the film that, well you have been invited along to discuss. So even though there are 100s of question kicking about for each team member you have to bite your tongue a little, act professional and maintain some air of dignity rather than drool, stare innanley while pointing and shouting out actor’s names. Even more so when are invited along to the opportunity to chat with; Nick Frost, SIGOURNEY WEAVER (damit! Ripley her self), Simon Pegg , Kristen Wiig, Director of Paul and Superbad (the pioneering and so far pinnacle of the recent spate of only youth comedies) Greg Mottola, Joe Lo Truglio and the legend that is – Jason Bateman.
Without much thought my list of possible questions consisted of:
1. There are many great references and homage’s to golden moments of movie magic in Paul. Were there any references that sadly didn’t make the final cut, which you would like to have seen?
2. Given that Paul touches on some fairly racy religious elements what did they think the reaction to the religious aspects be?
3. Was there any chance I could take a photo of the Paul team mid Spaced finger fight?
4. I was curious about Nick Frost and Simon Pegg’s working relationship, what were the dynamics? Was one of them the ideas man, did they work dialogue out together? Was one of them a visual person and the other the gag guy? How did they collaborate?
5. What were Sigourney Weaver’s thoughts on the impending Alien prequel?
6. Could Jason Bateman let us know the status of the Arrested Development film? And is there any chance that that greatest TV show from the 80s “It’s Your Move” could be remade into a film?
Many of the younger readers may not know of the 80s TV show called It’s Your Move. But Jason Bateman played Matthew Burton a good natured young schemer. Imagine Ferris Bueller mixed with a teenage Gordon Gekko with the wisecrack dial turned all the way up you are almost there. – It’s worth noting Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came out 2 years after It’s Your Move hit TV screens.
7. I’m sure Nick Frost & Simon Pegg are now all Hollywood jaded but how does it feel getting such a great the cast and team on board for Paul and how does it feel now that Paul is out?
Ok! So some of those are obviously non starters but enquiring minds need to know. I would be lucky if I even got to ask one of my questions but nothing wrong with having a back up as invariably someone else would have some of the same questions lined up.
The following is abbreviated for my sanity and your reading pleasure. However a video of the full conference can be found at the bottom of the post beware it is rife with spoilers. I have also blanked out some intresting but spoilerish bits below, if you really want to read them – drag your mouse over the white areas.
No cameras or photography was so allowed so below is an artists impression of what the Paul press conference team may have looked like if they were all looking at Nick Frost answering my question.
So this is how it all went down. The people’s champion Chris Hewitt enters stage left (sporting a rather fetching Kneel for General Zod T-Shirt, spoofing the iconic Obama Change symbology) demonstrating his taste in clothing is as good as his top shelf social lubrication & hosting skills. When you consider the star power in the room that is no easy feat.
With thanks to Universal Pictures – he welcomes, the Paul team into the room; Jason Bateman, Joe Lo Truglio, Greg Mottola, Kristen Wiig and 3 other people that are still hanging around outside namely – Sigourney Weaver, Simon Pegg, and Mr Nick Frost. After settling in Chris kicked the conference off by getting straight into it with a tough and hard hitting question.
Read on after the jump.
Chris Hewitt: Aside from Paul, what is your favourite movie alien?
Jason Bateman: The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man [from Ghostbusters, Yes - let the rumour mill start- fellow Paul actors; Sigourney Weaver & Bill Hader are already rumoured to be in Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters III]. At this point there is some contention as to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is a human, alien, monster or a ghost. Jason ends the discussion with – That’s my answer Goddammit!
Joe Lo Truglio: I’m a purist I’m going with Alien
Jason Bateman: Kiss Ass
Greg Mottola: I’m going with the extremely dorky Yoda [Star Wars]
Kristen Wiig: I was going to say Yoda. Is Chewbacca an alien? I’m going with him.
Simon Pegg: In Starship Troopers in the scene where they are attacking the base. About 5 rows back on the left, that guy. He was just giving it more than the others. He’s got something. But I never saw him again, really.
Sigourney Weaver: I always liked the pod people [Invasion of The Body Snatchers]. You know the version of yourself that’s completely humourless. It’s sleeping under your bed, and while you are brushing your teeth it become you. I just love that concept.
Nick Frost: No one said E.T. or the lovely water aliens from The Abyss they are quite nice.
How much was the script influenced by the cast and how much do you have to ask permission for the many cinematic references used in Paul?
Nick Frost: We had to change a few names. There was one “Graham Willie” and because of him we had to change Simon’s name to “Graeme”. So it was just kind of tiny, weird things like that. Because we couldn’t find that Graham Willie to ask if he minded if we used the name Graham.
Simon Pegg: In terms of the script, when the cast comes on board you want to play to everyone’s strengths, so you want everyone to bring what ever they want to bring to it and not feel too constricted.
We discussed using one of [Sigourney’s] most famous lines against you one night and Sigourney was like Bring it on!
Sigourney Weaver: I was so drunk.
Simon Pegg: The script is very much a love letter; there is nothing in it, that anyone in the films refrenced would be offended by. So we didn’t really feel the need to seek permission.
Regarding the super secret cameo – That was Steven Spielberg’s idea, we didn’t even ask him. He said: “Hey why don’t I be in it?
Nick Frost: We said no!
Simon Pegg: Oh all right.
Paul is a very fun movie but do you think that you are going to get any flack from the Bible belt?
Nick Frost: Who doesn’t get flack from the Bible belt? It’s a road with an alien in it. If they get annoyed by that …. I don’t know.
Simon Pegg: Really if you have faith. A film about a dope smoking alien isn’t going to affect that. You can’t have a film with an alien in it and not be counter to the idea of Creationism. Even Mac and Me is an anti-Creationist film as there is an alien in it.
We’re not being anti-religion, that’s just the world that the film takes place in. I think we lost the line in the end but even Paul was going to say something to the effect of: “I don’t know, I’m just saying it probably isn’t”. But that particular dogma can’t exist if Paul exists.
It wasn’t a crusade against organised religion. There wasn’t a mass Atheist protest when the Ten Commandments came out – it’s just a film.
Question 2 – Check v
Craig Grobler: A question for Nick & Simon. There are some great references to cinema magic but I was wondering if there were any references that didn’t make the final cut?
Simon Pegg: Deep Throat.
Nick Frost: We shot it too. I think it’s about taking a piece of work and trimming it down until you essentially have a very tight, very good 100 minutes, that hopefully a lot of people will laugh at. It was all about the finished film essentially.
Simon Pegg: We didn’t just do stuff for the sake of it either. The film is referential because Paul has influenced every science fiction film ever, so we’re retroactively ripping everything off by saying it was all Paul’s idea – it’s very clever when you think about it.
But I don’t think there was anything that we though “Ahh we could have got that in”.
Question 1 – Check v
Chris Hewitt: Joe [Lo Truglio], the poster says Seth Rogen as Paul but you actually sort of played Paul yourself, didn’t you?
Joe Lo Truglio: I did. I was on my knees for most of the shoot, but still kept my dignity. That was the Deep Throat reference that they were talking about.
It was great to work with Simon and Nick for two and a half months, I’ve been such fan of there’s since Shaun of the Dead. So I was thrilled to be the stand-in for Paul and to play O’Reilly – who’s a fan boy with a badge. This mission for O’Reilly is probably the biggest thing for him since he saw Lethal Weapon 2 and was thrilled when that came out.
Greg Mottola: We really couldn’t have done it without Joe. Seth Rogen was shooting The Green Hornet so we couldn’t have him on set. We recorded Seth scenes with Simon and Nick in pre-production, Joe was very serious and watched the tapes, saw what Seth was doing and channeled it, but also improvised and gave a real performance that Nick and Simon could play against.
In fact when Seth Rogen came back he stole Joe’s improv’s. It was a weird kind of collaboration, they know each other and they know each other’s style, so it just made it richer.
Do you think there is life on other planets and if you were to meet an alien what would you say, or do to it?
Sigourney Weaver: After we have finished probing them?
Nick Frost: There is other life out there, but it doesn’t necessarily look like us – it could be germs or bacteria. In that case I wouldn’t say anything to it because it wouldn’t understand me. I don’t know I’d say:” Hello, are you all right? Have you eaten? Then we would sit down and have a lovely meal”.
Sigourney Weaver: Or he would eat you.
Anwar Brett: I’m struck by the sense of peril in Paul. At least one character dies and a dog gets it. Was there pressure to leaven that in any way, for certificate purposes apart from anything else?
Nick Frost: So we are going to have the Christians and the Dog Protection League on us.
Simon Pegg: We wanted it to be perilous. We wanted there to be a sense of danger. The reason … dies first is because he is so loveable and a knockabout funny one. As soon as … dies you think if … dies anyone can die. You have to have peril otherwise there is no danger. It’s important that there is some threat in the film and something is at stake. They are not just going to tickle Paul if they catch him. They are going to cut his head off and scoop his brain out of his skull.
Jason Bateman: Also Paul has an R rating; people come in with their knees a little more bent and are a little more willing to accept stuff that’s outside the box. I think it’s part of the experience of that you get when you go see an R Rated comedy.
How similar are you two to your characters in Paul?
Simon Pegg: We look like them.
Nick Frost: I think if you took these two and everyone we played in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, combine them you would have 14% of who we are as people.
Simon Pegg: We are kind of nerdy like them but we are kind of higher function nerds.
Kristen Wiig: And you wouldn’t travel in an RV.
Simon Pegg: No, not without a driver. But certainly the relationship between them is similar; there is a great love between them. Nick and I are best friends before we are colleagues so we channelled a bit of our own romance into it.
Sigourney Weaver: Would you guys like to sit together?
Question 4 – Kind of Check v
Sigourney, is it more fun to play a heroine or a hard ass bitch?
Sigourney Weaver: I try to bring the two together. I loved playing the character. I just loved the movie and the idea of being part of this ensemble.
I’m a huge fan of these guys [Nick & Simon], Greg Mottola and everyone in the cast. So even if they didn’t let me wear such a nice dress I probably would have wanted to do the movie.
How important was Nira Park’s role play in Paul, Especially in the absence of Edgar Wright.
Simon Pegg: Nira is a great friend, important mentor and creative collaborator. She is as much as part of the unit as I or Nick and will continue to work with her forever.
Chris Hewitt: Kristen, your character Ruth swears quite a lot, did you have a swearing coach or was that all you?
Kristen Wiig: It was kind of these guys (Nick Frost & Simon Pegg). We did what they wrote in the script but there were a lot of serious talks about alternatives. Sweaty…
Nick Frost: Sweaty Butt Plugs? Wasn’t there a Baby with a hard-on?
Simon Pegg: Nick’s was Baby boner.
Jason Bateman: That’s the name of my production company – Baby boner. Am I pronouncing it correct?
Joe Lo Truglio: Is that copyrighted yet?
Simon Pegg: One of my favourites of your’s [Kristen Wiig] was Tit Burgers. It was a question of getting disparate words and putting them together. Get away from me, you stupid vaginas is a good one.
Nick Frost: Over here in Britain we have a heritage of great swearing, why not use it? I remember asking a Danish friend of mine “What’s the worst swear word you could say to someone in Danish?” He thought about it for ages and came to me and said “OK it’s long haired, Communist fag”, that was it. That was the most abusive thing he could think of. That’s nothing, that wouldn’t touch the sides in my house!
Sigourney, you have previously resisted to send your self up, especially with the Alien mythology and given that your character was originally a man what was it about Paul that drew you to it?
Sigourney Weaver: I like it when they write a character and they don’t really worry about whether its going to be a man or a woman.
I would be careful. I love the Alien franchise. This was done in a context I thought was somewhat believable. This was done with a wink. There are homage’s to many science fiction masterpieces, to the extent that I think you need an annotated DVD. Only having seen it once I’m sure I missed some of the references. If it wasn’t in the hands of Greg Mottola and these guys. I would not have wanted to do it.
Paul has a great comedic ensemble do you have any stories of practical jokes on set?
Kristen Wiig: There was a lot of singing on the set.
Simon Pegg: We used to write songs everyday, we had a running game called Paul the musical was being written. Which featured songs like; Who is the alien now?, I’m just a poor little creationist girl.
You spend a lot of time hanging out and we spent a lot of time hanging out together on the set, so we made a lot of odd games up like; What noise do you make when you fly away at the end of a sentence that classic and Making a face after a trumpet solo. Which wouldn’t mean anything to you because they are weird little in things that you play.
Rather than practical jokes there just ways to relieve the inevitable, sometimes boredom of a film set.
Greg Mottola: I’ve never been on a movie that people stayed out of their trailers as much. Maybe because New Mexico is so beautiful.
Nick Frost: Because they stank.
A lot of comedy right now is about men behaving like children Do you feel that there are limited possibilities for strong comedic female roles?
Kristen Wiig: Working on Paul was different from my previous experiences. A lot of times the female role in big comedies is kind of like; the nagging wife, the crazy neighbour or something like that, which is one of the reasons I was so drawn to Paul. They thought about the female character and gave me so much comedic play.
Sigourney Weaver: Good comedy is very hard to find and it has to come together in a kind of magical way. I think it’s true that there aren’t as many female driven comedies that are just about being goofy and irreverent, but I think that will come.
Now they have to be about shopping or about getting married. I think it’s too bad because we can be just as goofy as guys. But with the new emphasise on geeks and nerds that women can’t be far behind and we’ll have our moment.
Chris Hewitt: Greg, Paul is a love letter to Spielberg. Were you conscious of channelling your inner Spielberg or changing your style?
Greg Mottola: There were a lot of things I had to try and do on Paul that I hadn’t done before like; show up to work sober.
I grew up at the perfect time for being a Spielberg lover. I was 12 when George Lucas’ Star Wars came out and 13 when Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out. Those films were my childhood. I can’t pretend that I could ever touch Spielberg as far as technique.
There are things I would have loved to have done but strangely I ended up watching films like Sugarland Express and Duel more than any movies (besides the obvious ones like E.T. and Close Encounters) just to see what shooting in the South West American Landscape felt like.
For me those movies (Close Encounters and Star Wars) came at a time when they were doing things [movie magic], those films could not have been made a decade prior. Special effects had changed to such an extent that they could make movie magic that in a way could not be done before.
Just like 2001 made in 1967 could probably not have been made in 1962. Growing out of 2001 into the 70s there was a lot more ability to make films. A film like Alien is such a beautifully designed and acted film; it’s such a perfect film. I think that’s why the references are so obviously from that time. Because Science Fiction movies changed at that time they became a different thing.
So for me that was when I first loved those movies and when I read the script I had all the same nostalgia, love and sincere feelings about it. I was intimidated because there was a lot of visual stuff that I hadn’t done before but we had a great Director of Photography [Lawrence Sher] and Simon and Nick are walking encyclopaedias and we could talk about shots from movies.
Simon Pegg: You had to direct Steven Spielberg as well which was a big day for you. Wasn’t it?
Greg Mottola: Steven Spielberg came in to do his cameo in LA, we were shooting Seth Rogen with multiple cameras, because everything he did we would record for the animators for references. So I was waiting for them to tell me when all the cameras were up and running so I could call action. So this is my first moment of calling action for Steven Spielberg and I somehow missed the signal that the cameras were rolling. I’m waiting and everyone’s waiting for me to say something and finally Steven Spielberg asked “Can I start?” So I blew it.
He was very nice and I had to give him direction and he got a lot better.
Chris Hewitt: Jason, you had to channel your inner bad ass, you are a bit of an action hero in this one, was that fun?
Jason Bateman: It was a lot of fun. I haven’t got to play that guy before. Joe [Joe Lo Truglio] and Bill [Bill Hader] were doing such great comedic work; you need a straight man against people being so funny. This guy was written as prototypical straight man so my job was pretty easy in that sense – except for trying to keep a straight face when they were doing a lot of their stuff.
Simon Pegg: When we cast Jason’s role, we were very adamant that Zoil be played by someone that was a credible threat. We thought what if we get someone who is not a comedic actor? But the studio were very keen that we get someone who could do funny and I was very anti that. Then they said Jason’s name and I kind of went OK!.
Jason is one of the few people that can do both convincingly. You believe both sides of him. If you look at a show like Arrested Development in that show Jason Bateman’s character Michael is essentially the straight man yet he is one of the funniest characters. It is a rare gift and exactly what we needed for Zoil. He is the only man for the job.
Chris Hewitt: And on that bombshell I’m afraid that’s it everybody. Give it up for; Jason Bateman, Joe Lo Truglio, Greg Mottola, Kristen Wiig, Simon Pegg, Sigourney Weaver and Nick Frost
Whilst the Paul team shuffled out followed out by the press I sat in the ball room on my own soaking up the last remaining moments of what had just happened.
When I finally left I was lucky enough to bump into Jason Bateman and asked him if he could say anything about the impending Arrested Development film and if there was any chance It’s Your Move might make it to the big screen? He said he couldn’t really say anything about Arrested Development and that an It’s Your Move film would be fun but this was the first he had heard of it.
Question 6 – Check v
We were not allowed to film the conference but fortunately I discovered a YouTube clip of the conference for your viewing pleasure. It is in 3 parts which should play one after the other. Please note it is verbatim and rife with spoilers.
Director: Greg Mottola
Writers: Nick Frost, Simon Pegg
Stars: Seth Rogen, Jane Lynch, Kristen Wiig, Simon Pegg, Jason Bateman, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, Nick Frost, Jeffrey Tambor, David Koechner
Paul will be crash landing into screens all over the UK from Monday 14 February 2011
