Steve Carell and Paul Rudd
Paul Rudd, Steve Carell and Jay Roach – three of cinema's comedy greats – collaborate for Dinner for Schmucks, an American take on the French farce, The Dinner Game. Roach, known for his Meet the Parents flicks, directs a slew of comedians, including Zach Galifianakis, Jeff Dunham and Kristen Schaal. When Fandango visited the set of Dinner last December, we got a chance to chat with Rudd, who plays a businessman on the rise, and Carell, who plays Barry, the schmuck who he invites to dinner. It's a cruel game the execs play to see who can bring the best schmuck, but it does provide the setting for some fun comedic fodder. The two share the details here on creating the movie's laughs, and crack a few jokes of their own.
Q. Steve, You look pretty normal compared to the rest of the schmucks.
Carell: My wife can’t stand this and it freaks my kids out a little bit. I didn’t want to go too outrageous with the look. I wanted it to be slightly askew without being a cartoon. When Paul’s character and I first meet, I didn’t want just my physical appearance to be the thing that drew him in, but more our interaction and my behavior.
Q. How did you approach this role?
Carell: I approached 40-Year-Old Virgin the same way. On the surface that concept sounds ridiculous. I remember going back for [my] high school reunion and I had just shot it. It hadn’t come out yet and people asked what I was doing and I said I’d just done this movie called The 40-Year-Old Virgin and I could just hear eyes rolling back in their head because it sounds different than what we had intended it to be…could I be more longwinded with that answer?
Rudd: I think you were saying some great stuff. I agree with all of it except for the part about the reunion.
Carell: It’s true. It happened.
Rudd: You’re lying. You didn’t go to high school.
Carell: Check the transcript. It’s all there man.
Q. Barry's working on a bunch of dioramas for his Tower of Dreamers. Can you explain what that is?Carell: The Tower of Dreamers is sort of his piece de resistance – it's a culmination of many years of work for Barry, for this character. It’s an ode to dreamers throughout history—people who dared to dream. He has recreated these moments in mouse dioramas.
Q. Did either of you see the original?
Carell: I chose not to watch the original just yet until we’re done, then I’ll see how wonderful it is and realize how short I fall.
Rudd: I’ll watch it when it’s done because I don’t want to do things the other character does--like speak French. [Laughs] I heard our version is pretty different. I think the French version takes place mostly in…
Carell: France. [Laughs]
Rudd: ...Where this is all Los Angeles.
Q. Steve, we're used to seeing you in character-driven films. Is this one more farce than you're used to?
Carell: I think it’s a bit different, but we tried to still ground the characters because we agree that the more grounded they are, the more you can…stretch into farce and get away with it. If you believe that these are actual people--that they exist--it’s going to be funnier.
Q. One of the other schmucks is a vulture lover. What was it like working with the vulture in the dinner scenes?
Rudd: The vulture farted right in the middle of our scene.
Carell: It was a disturbing sound, because for a second we didn't really know what it was. It was a release of air that I've never heard in my life. [Laughs]
Q. Isn't this more easy for you Steve, since you had experience with this in Evan Almighty?
Carell: Or less, depending on how you look at it. Yeah, I had a scene with a bunch of birds on me in that. I think birds are disconcerting to me because they have a very distinct odor and this vulture's no exception. There's something like a bird pit. [Laughs] You know, when a bird opens up its wings.
Q. What is it that makes Jay Roach unique as a comedy director?Rudd: I've always felt Jay's been somewhat omnipresent, omniscient over the last few years. Everyone knows Jay. Everyone really respects his opinion because he's super smart. I felt really comfortable with him steering the ship, and because he's so even keel—
Carell: There's another ship.
Rudd: I'm all nautical. [Laughs] He's really the captain. I consider myself a seabee.
He's concerned with story and character and he wants it to be funny but it's not at the expense of keeping the story on point, and that's good.
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