If you enjoyed the first Paul Blart Mall Cop then the second one should be even better featuring comedians and comedic actors like Kevin James, Loni Love, Ana Gasteyer, Raini Rodriguez, David Henrie, D.B. Woodside, Gary Valentine and Bob Clendenin.
Co-written by Kevin James and directed by Andy Fickman, Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 is set in Vegas at a Security Guard convention. The sequel takes place six years after the original and now Maya is all grown up and headed to college. What’s meant to be a relaxing vacation for Blart and his daughter turns into work when Blart learns of a heist happening in the hotel. With a team of mall cops at his side Blart faces an all new challenge far greater than he’s ever encountered. One of Paul Blart’s allies includes Loni Love’s character, Mall of America cop Donna Ericone.
“She’s tough as nails but she has heart. She’s also the only mall cop that actually can fight. They gave me some great fight scenes, it gets exciting and it’s funny at the same time. This is a dream come true for a person like me who is a natural standup, to be able to play this type of role,” Love shared with Jones.
Loni loved shooting on location in Las Vegas. “We were there for two months and Vegas is beautiful and exciting at the same time. When we did have a couple days off, we would all hang out together so we really became like family on the set and Kevin had a lot of family members in the movie and friends so you can see it in the movie that it’s going to be a great family movie.”
Her favorite scene was when, “I square off against one of the bad girls. It was really funny and exciting at the same time, I can’t wait for people to see it.” She added, “Andy Fickman is one of the best directors I’ve worked with. He works well with actors, letting you be true to the characters, but also giving you enough guidance so that you can make it into what the script calls for. I was really happy and pleased to work with him. He’s such a nice man and very patient. He’s also funny too and you want that when you’re doing a comedy movie, a director that kind of gets the joke and he does and he worked so well with Kevin and he made the set so lovely. There wasn’t any tension on set, it was just a good time. This is one of the best movies I’ve worked on because there hasn’t been any stress and that’s what it’s supposed to be, it was fun.”
D.B. Woodside plays a very bad guy. Someone who used to work for the NSA or the FBI, who wasn’t making enough money in the public sector, so he decided to go private in a very bad way. Now he’s just trying to make as much money as he can with this heist that they are planning in Las Vegas. He enjoyed working with Kevin James stating, “Kevin was fantastic. He’s absolutely fantastic. Not only is he one of the funniest human beings on the planet, but one of the great things about him, and you so rarely see this nowadays, is he’s such a down to Earth guy. I mean, he is just such a normal guy. I feel bad saying that the business that I’m in you rarely see that, but that’s the truth. It’s kind of like a breath of fresh air when you meet someone like Kevin who’s fantastic at what he does, but he’s also just a normal guy. A real guy.”
Comedy great Kevin James wrote, produced and starred in Mall Cop 2. On what inspired the sequel, he told reporters at the world premiere, “We wanted to do it only if it could be bigger and better, and that’s what we did. We never planned on making one until people were always asking me, ‘What’s going on with this character? When can I see him again?’ When my fans are asking that enough I said … I just don’t want to do a movie that’s parallel to the first one. I just want to take it bigger, and a bigger platform, and make it bigger in every way with the physical comedy, the emotion, the stakes and everything like that. That was the goal.”
On Paul Blart being an unconventional hero, James reflected, “I live that line so you know. I mean I’m that guy. I’ve been an underdog a lot in my life and it’s nice to root for people who just kind of want to do the right thing. Even though it seems like the odds are stacked against you and he gets knocked down a lot. He does, but to see him get up again, that defines who he is.”
On why Mall Cops don’t get the respect they deserve, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve noticed it my whole life. It’s a scary job because they’ve got to uphold the law like any other security person, but … they have non-lethal weapons. They don’t have the skill training maybe so it’s hard. You have to run out there and you don’t know what you’re going to face in the mall. You have no idea … Working with the other comedians was the greatest for me because to bounce off of them, and to see them take the material that we wrote and raise it to another level … It’s great to have that back and forth. It was fun.”
https://youtu.be/nhSWGNM2vmo
Nishat Baig contributed reporting.