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Published on Thursday, October 4, 2007 - 8:27am |
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Quint talks HEARTBREAK KID, FOOT FIST WAY and man-boobs with Danny McBride!!!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my latest interview. Last Friday I did 5 interviews about 4 different movies… after hitting Fantastic Fest hard for a week and staying up late to party with the attendees… tough life, I know.
Anyway, I was scheduled to talk to Danny McBride at the tail end of my day, so I was not only a little burnt out, but I was completely and utterly unprepared. I got caught up with my other interviews that I just didn’t have much time to think up some questions… add on to that I was interview Danny McBride for THE HEARBREAK KID, which I hadn’t seen, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Or at the very least a boring interview.
Thankfully, McBride was just as funny over the phone as he is on screen. If you’ve been lucky enough to see THE FOOT FIST WAY at one of its festival plays then you know how funny this dude is. The majority of you will have probably seen him in HOT ROD, where he played Rico (the dude with the fireworks!).
One little bit of background before the interview starts. This was arranged by the lovely Tamar at Paramount/Dreamworks. I go through her for a lot of my interviews and coverage, so we know each other a bit and she’s been working with McBride on this for a while, so she’s brought up a few times. You just have to know she’s beautiful and has a great sense of humor.
Now on to the chat! It gets pretty damn ridiculous, but that just makes it that much more entertaining, I think. Enjoy!
Danny McBride: Quint, real name Eric, hello!
Quint: Hey, how’s it going man?
Danny McBride: Not to bad. I’m a big fan of yours, man!
Quint: Well, I’m a big fan of yours, so we can love up on each other.
Danny McBride: We will just make this a lovefest.
Quint: A lovefest, that sounds perfect. I’ve heard you have had a long day of interviews and I’ve had a long day of interviewing, so…
Danny McBride: Oh brother tell me about it. Let’s crack open a beer in our respective places over this interview.
Quint: Well I have a Diet Mountain Dew ready, so I’ll get to the beer after.
Danny McBride: I have a Fiji water, so we are in the same boat.
Quint: I don’t have too much prepared, so I figured we would just wing it
Danny McBride: Let’s freestyle it.
Quint: Knowing me, that means I’ll probably make it suck and you are going to have to save it, so all the pressure is on you.
Danny McBride: Okay, okay, I’m with you.
Quint: We should definitely start talking about how you came on board, since that’s the easiest thing. How did you join up with these fools?
Danny McBride: You know what? I think it’s been the same way that I’ve been lucky enough to get all of this recent work.
One of the producers on this, Bradley Thomas, had seen THE FOOT FIST WAY and showed it to the Farrellys and so all of those guys seemed to dig it and yeah, I guess they saw that there was an asshole southern guy in the script and so they figured I would be perfect for it.
Quint: FOOT FIST WAY… One, it’s great and I love the movie, too, but it seems to be opening a ton of doors. I talked to Jorma (Taccone) and Akiva (Schaffer) for HOT ROD and they were saying the same thing that it was FOOT FIST WAY and they couldn’t not have you in the movie after seeing that.
Danny McBride: It’s pretty weird, you know, because I went to film school and the same one as David (Gordon) Green and then Jody Hill, the guy who directed FOOT FIST WAY and I was going there to study to be a writer and a director.
We made THE FOOT FIST WAY after just living in Los Angeles for a few years and just having shit jobs doing stuff we didn’t want to do and so we just decided to go to North Carolina and make something and had no aspirations to be an actor or anything and then it just so happened that we put up on the screen what we liked and it’s gotten response from the right people, which has been great.
Quint: That’s cool, and it’s also the Apatow people. You are doing lots of movies with them now, right?
Danny McBride: Yeah, which that’s not a bad camp to be in business with.
Quint: Tell me about it. They are on such an awesome roll.
Danny McBride: Their whole philosophy and how they’re working and how loose they keep everything is just, to me, the way to do it and it’s just amazing to get to a place where you can work with people who are doing it just the way you want to do it.
Quint: You’re coming in at the right time, because there’s so long where, I wouldn’t say that comedy was dead, but the studio comedies are starting to get funny again.
Danny McBride: Yeah. It’s weird and I think there for a while it was like growing up as a kid, I loved all of the R rated adult comedies that I was not supposed to watch and I’d watch scrambled through Cinemax and it just seems like they… what happened as I got older was those movies would start to disappear and just turned into teen comedies and it just really left a lot to be desired still, so it’s awesome that these rated R adult comedies are coming back in and they obviously perform at the box office, but I’d like to think, too, that it’s just all these people that are my age and around this age group who are such fans of those movies that it’s they’re finally getting a chance to step up to the plate and they are making the types of things that they liked when they were younger.
Quint: I haven’t seen it, but from what I hear, the Farrellys are kind of back on the top of their game with this new one.
Danny McBride: Yeah, the first time I’ve seen HEARTBREAK was last night and it was great. It killed and it’s such a great movie beyond the big laughs in it. I was like “wow,” the last frame of the film is just like such a fucking great way to end this movie and it’s terrific.
Quint: I think this movie’s still kind of under the radar for a lot of people and clips are starting to come out now, but do you want to give a basic synopsis of what the flick is?
Danny McBride: Yeah, you know Ben Stiller is a guy who just has a very, very hard time committing to a relationship and committing to taking that next step with somebody and that’s kind of where he’s at in the beginning of this film and his dad, played by Jerry Stiller, and his good buddy, played by Rob Corddry, they kind of convince him that it’s time to take that plunge.
So he meets Malin Akerman’s character and decides to take the plunge with her and just jumps right into marriage and as soon as he goes on his honeymoon, he starts to realize that she’s not really the person he thought she was and so that’s a great time to fall in love with someone else. He meets Michelle Monaghan on his honeymoon and comedy ensues.
Quint: You play her cousin, right? Michelle Monaghan’s cousin?
Danny McBride: Yeah and the whole family digs Ben’s character a lot, but I’m the one that smells that there might be a snake in the garden.
Quint: Well, if you are going to be cousins with anybody, be cousins with Michelle Monaghan… kissing cousins…
Danny McBride: Yeah, it’s not bad. She obviously got the looks.
Quint: I guess we can talk a little bit about working with the Stillers and working with the Farrellys. You got a couple of comedy institutions there…
Danny McBride: It’s pretty crazy. I’ve been a fan of Ben since I was a kid and just watching everything he’s done and tracking his career from CABLE GUY and everything….
Quint: Oh, I love CABLE GUY…
Danny McBride: I remember that’s when Judd got put on my radar as well through CABLE GUY. I love that movie and just wanted to really seek out everybody involved with that and followed them from there on out and it’s just crazy to make a film like FOOT FIST and then suddenly it opens up these doors where you are working with all of these people that you’ve idolized for all this time and you just suddenly appear with them… You’re working with them and it’s just hard to believe.
Quint: Is there anyone else out there that you would like to work with?
Danny McBride: Is George Burns dead?
Quint: Yes, he’s dead.
Danny McBride: He is, isn’t he? Then nope. No one then.
Quint: Maybe he can be CG-ed up, like Gene Kelly or whatever…
Danny McBride: I’m thinking like OH GOD or OH GOD, YOU DEVIL... another one of those…. MR. T maybe, from DC CAB… do a remake of that with him.
Quint: DC CAB is the bomb… very underappreciated.
Danny McBride: That movie does suck, though. I tried to revisit it recently and not that it doesn’t hold up, I don’t think it really ever held up, but…
Quint: I haven’t watched it in recent years, so…
Danny McBride: You should watch it, it’s quite interesting.
Quint: Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe just keep the memory alive.
Danny McBride: It’s just Mr. T ripping doors off of cabs and it’s just ridiculous.
Quint: I like some ridiculous shit though, so maybe I’ll still like it, because I like stuff like MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE and stuff like that, so…
Danny McBride: That’s brilliant. My favorite part is when the soda cans kill the whole entire T-ball team.
Quint: Yeah, all the little kids getting pegged to death by a soda machine…. Brilliant and way before Michael Bay put it in TRANSFORMERS…
Danny McBride: He stole it!
Quint: Will Farrell is a big fan of yours, right?
Danny McBride: Will’s been terrific. THE FOOT FIST went to SUNDANCE, but it didn’t get picked up there and we didn’t get any offers for it there, and we were just playing at the midnight screenings, so it was one of those things where we had gathered the attention of CAA, so they were trying to help us out, but there wasn’t really anyone who knew what to do with the film and it got into the hands of Will and Adam (McKay) and those guys just responded to it and luckily they had just set their deal with Vintage to do this very thing, to break out films that they believed in and get behind, so we were lucky that they pulled us on to be their first film to do that with and they have just been terrific.
They set a lot of things into motion and when we sat down and met with them, they kind of picked our brains for what we wanted to do, so we pitched them this idea for this HBO show and those guys were really into that and it’s one of those things where they were able to get us in the door with HBO and when you walk into a pitch meeting with… I think we walked into that pitch meeting with HBO literally the Monday after TALLEDEGA NIGHTS opened, so it was just one of those things where we could have gone in there and just sneezed on them and that’s it… When you have Will and Adam sitting in the room with you telling HBO that this is a funny idea.
Quint: You should come out to Austin. They did a FOOT FIST WAY screening with Patton Oswalt and it was a big hit.
Danny McBride: That’s what I heard, Patton told me all about it. One of my buddies, Mike Lucas works at the Alamo Drafthouse and he was telling me all about it. He said it went over pretty well there.
Quint: They love you. You should try to arrange something with PINEAPPLE EXPRESS or something, whenever that’s ready to come out and try to have them do a FOOT FIST screening.
Danny McBride: That would be great. Right now we have the release for it and I think it’s coming out at the end of March, like the 27th or something around there. End of March into early April…
Quint: Oh, then do it for FOOT FIST itself, that’d be awesome.
Danny McBride: It’d be great to get out there.
Quint: You got the Austin support, that’s for sure.
Danny McBride: These days that’s all we’re shooting for. I’ll just crash at your house and bring some friends and stuff and hang out there and make Totinos Pizzas and stay up all night…
Quint: We can compare breast sizes.
Danny McBride: Yes, yes… mine are very large.
Quint: I’ve got decent sized ones too, so we’ll have a good contest.
Danny McBride: I love it. (To Tamar) Me and Quint are going to have a tit comparing contest in Austin . (back to me) I’m in!
Quint: Tamar’s seen us both, so she might be able to be an early indicator of who’s going to win.
Danny McBride: [To Tamar] Who has bigger tits? She says Quint, but she says it through her teeth.
Quint: I don’t know, comparing all three of us, Tamar has us beat, but man-boobs, I think I might have you.
Danny McBride: You know what? I have some time to train and get mine bigger, so we’ll see. We will set a date and make it happen.
Quint: You’re going to need some ROCKY montages, but with donuts.
Danny McBride: Exactly! Me eating donuts with me just bulking up only in my breasts…. No where else…
Quint: Try to look like Meatloaf and get our bitch tits on. (laughs) This interview is fucking absurd, but that’s fine, it makes me happy. So what are you doing now?
Danny McBride: I just finished shooting… I’ve been in Kuai for the last three months working on TROPIC THUNDER and it’s very tough… it’s a hard life, like working in the coal mines, but you just don’t black lung from this which is nice and you also get per diem,.
So now I’m back in Los Angeles and I have a few more days to shoot here and then we just have to get these episodes written for the show. We want to start shooting in January, so…
Quint: This is the HBO thing?
Danny McBride: Yeah.
Quint: What’s it about?
Danny McBride: I play this guy who is like a John Rocker type character, where he’s just like this guy who kid of blew up from the south real quick and has an amazing arm, a major league pitcher, and the success just instantly goes to his head. He’s racist, he uses drugs and just kind of blows this big shot and is getting bounced around from team to team until he’s basically just bounced right out of the league. The show picks up several years after all of that has happened and he’s connived his way back to the town he grew up in and is crashing with his brother. He’s on the run from the IRS and all of this shit, so he has to get a job so that the government can garnish his wages, so he starts getting a job as a substitute PE teacher at this middle school. You know, we just did this thing where we didn’t want it to be a sitcom, so it really just follows this guy’s epic fall, so at the beginning you’re with this guy and you just think he’s hit rock bottom, but as the show goes on you just realize that he has a long way still to fall.
Quint: Do you know when that’s going to premiere?
Danny McBride: I think HBO is talking about having it go in June.
Quint: So, next year’s going to be a pretty big year. It will be FOOT FIST finally getting a release and all of you Apatow and Farrelly work will have been out by then and so this time next year you’re going to be so popular that you can’t walk down the street.
Danny McBride: It’s like what we like to call in the weather community “The Perfect Storm.”
Quint: Cool man. I don’t know how much more I can stretch this and I think that we all probably just want to go chill out…
Danny McBride: Hey, just go take the rest of the night off and just relax and have a good one. Thanks a lot for getting on the horn with me, I appreciate it.
That's it! I'm really damn tired, so I'm going to sleep now. Hope you guys liked it.
Still have 4 more interviews to hit you with by the end of this weekend, plus my Fantastic Fest wrap-up. Keep an eye peeled!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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