The comedy “Neighbors” hits theaters this weekend.
We attended a press conference with Jarrod Carmichael, Dave Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Check out what they had to say about the film.
Q: What are your most memorable moments while working?
Carmichael: These party scenes were really like … had to be a monster to coordinate. It was 250 extras along with us and all of these things. You get all of this smoke and military grade lights that we weren’t allowed to stare into. We had to wear the protective goggles and all these things. A lot of hard work went into this.
Mintz-Plasse: It’s interesting. Shooting these party scenes, in between takes you don’t want to continue to party. You just want to go back to the trailer and drink tea.
Franco: Just to hang out with these guys to be honest. Everyone sort of feeds off of Nick’s energy. Nick Stoller is the sweetest, most affable person in the entire world and so there’s just that blanket vibe over the whole set and … it makes people who don’t know each other at first – it brings you together. Everyone just wants to love each other?
Q: How did you feel about doing the Robert De Niro scene?
Carmichael: The Samuel L. Jackson thing…it was an idea that I asked Nick about…everyone was being Robert De Niro and we just didn’t have that kind of makeup. So an easier option would be to play Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown which Robert De Niro was also in. And then just an idea … I was like, “Hey, we should do the thing from Pulp Fiction.” And then realized that I had no clue what any of those words were. So I took Stoller’s phone and I had to learn the whole thing in 15 minutes. So that was really, really fun.
Franco: I was the most anxious about that scene more than any others when I first read the script. From day one I was trying to perfect the impersonation so I was looking up videos on Youtube and actually watching De Niro movies and just trying to figure out what he does with his face and I just couldn’t get it. I’m not good with impressions. Literally the night before I stood in front of the mirror and basically pushed my face around and it just kind of took form and then you throw on the mole and the pleated khakis and give me the cat and I just fall into character. It hurts. And when you’re doing it for six hours it just…it hurts.
Q: How did you get to that level of “bromance” with Zac?
Franco: I met Zac a few years back on “Charlie St. Cloud” and so we planted the friendship seed then and it blossomed on this movie. We went out with Zac before we started the movie so we could get that natural chemistry going. The one story from that night is we came up with a handshake that you don’t see in the movie because, believe it or not, it’s actually too racy for even this movie. It’s basically one person gets down on their knees, pretends to “fellate” one of the other brothers. Then takes his load in his mouth then spits it to a nearby brother who catches it in his mouth.
Q: Can you guys speak about working with Seth and Rose and going head to head with them?
Mintz-Plasse: This is my third movie with Seth and he’s just always one upping himself from the last project it’s amazing. But Rose was holding her own more than anybody she was hilarious in this movie. Probably my favorite character.
Franco: Yeah Rose’s comedy comes from this very honest place where my favorite moment, maybe in the whole movie, is when the doctor tells her, “Your baby has AIDS…is how this conversation could have gone,” and she just has this vicious reaction which is how a parent would react in that situation and I just love how silly she is and she could go toe to toe with Seth and she’s not just the typical wife in a movie who’s either nagging or not getting walked over by her husband. She crushes it.
Producer Evan Goldberg, Director Nick Stoller, and Producer James Weaver also discussed the film.
Q:This is frat versus family. Was there any real contest between what the movie was going to come out in favor of?
Stoller: I don’t like villains in the movies that I make now and I think all of us – we’re on the same page where we didn’t want there to be any villains or anyone because it gets boring very quickly if you go “that person’s bad!” and there’s no real lesson for them to learn. I think what was cool about the movie is if you’re young you take the side of the frat and if you’re the age–closer to my age, you take the side of the family. That was the goal. Those kids in the movie are doing what kids would do. Party constantly.
Q: For Evan, you seem to be the man behind the man when it comes to a lot of comedies, especially with Seth Rogen. What’s the process of working with a Seth Rogen?
Goldberg: It’s never a good answer when someone asks me that question because we’ve been working together forever and it’s the most normal, standard thing for me. We just do everything 50/50 except act. We write everything together, we share one desk, one computer, one keyboard. We just do everything as a team. Except acting because I’m not good at it.
Q: What inspired the main concept for “Neighbors”?
Goldberg: It was the writers Andrew and Brendan that came up with it. I believe they were listening to “This American Life” or something like that, that was all about a reporter that stood on a street corner in a college town and just watched what happened for the night and they became obsessed with this podcast because they saw kids stealing a heat lamp, people were smashing bottles, and they were just like we have to make something about a college town! And then Brendan’s wife…Brendan and Andrew totally partied when they were younger…and Brendan’s wife saw some kids skateboarding outside of their house one night and she said to Brendan, “Those kids are up to no good. We should call the cops.” And he said, “Did you just say those kids are up to no good?” And that was the moment where they combined those moments and came up with the setting.
Stoller: Yeah and that…”This American Life,” I heard…they never told me about it. I heard about it after we were done with the movie and I was like, “Why didn’t I know about this?!” I could have taken some of these things from the podcast.
Q: Were any of you guys in a frat? What kind of experiences did you bring into the movie?
Weaver: I was the president of my fraternity and my pledge class in college. And now my fraternity has since been disbanded from my college because we did such terrible things. We did shoot fireworks at each other which is not actually in the movie, but is on the DVD. And I actually think the idea that I think I pitched that ended up in the movie that was the most specific to my fraternity experience is the Boot and Rally. It’s a thing that we did. We would always drink heavily, there were would be some expulsion and then we would continue.
Q: We knew that Seth Rogen was going to be in this from the beginning. How did Zac and Rose in terms of casting?
Weaver: Zac was originally the concept, the idea of the president right from the beginning. When Andrew and Brendan brought it to Seth, Evan, and I they said, “We think Seth would be great for this one role. We should definitely get Zac Efron for this other role.” So that was from the very beginning, even when we pitched it to the studio and started writing the script that was the case. And then once Nick said he wanted to direct it then we had a guy for the casting process.
Stoller: As soon as we figured out Rose’s part, we were like, “It has to be Rose.” It was very quick. She’s the funniest on the planet. She’s so game and she really there and she does it. And we had a table read with her and her and Seth had great chemistry from the beginning.
-Joshua Kaye