Currently playing in limited release is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie centers on John (John C. Reilly), a film editor who’s down on his luck and still emotionally attached to his soon-to-be remarried ex-wife, Jamie (Catherine Keener).  John’s prospects take a turn when he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. However, when her 21 year-old son/housemate Cyrus (Jonah Hill) enters the picture, he becomes an unexpected saboteur of John’s attempts at Molly’s heart.

While you might think making a studio movie with Fox Searchlight might change who The Duplass Brothers are, they stayed indie by filming the movie in order and using a ton of improv.  What they ended up with was a touching, original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Anyway, I recently got to speak with the brothers and we talked about filming in order, the improv, using the RED camera, what might be on the DVD/Blu-ray, their next film Jeff Who Lives At Home, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to check it out:

Currently playing in limited release and expanding into more theaters this week is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie centers on John (John C. Reilly), a film editor who’s down on his luck and still emotionally attached to his soon-to-be remarried ex-wife, Jamie (Catherine Keener).  John’s prospects take a turn when he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. However, when her 21 year-old son/housemate Cyrus (Jonah Hill) enters the picture, he becomes an unexpected saboteur of John’s attempts at Molly’s heart.  While you might think making a studio movie might somehow change who The Duplass Brothers are, they stuck to their indie roots and delivered a touching, original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Yesterday I posted my video interview with John C. Reilly, and tonight I’ve got Marisa Tomei. During the interview we talked about making Cyrus, what it was like to film the movie in order, and what it was like to do so much improv.  We also talked about working with Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly and a lot more.  Hit the jump to check it out:

Currently playing in limited release and expanding into more theaters this week is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie centers on John (John C. Reilly), a film editor who’s down on his luck and still emotionally attached to his soon-to-be remarried ex-wife, Jamie (Catherine Keener).  John’s prospects take a turn when he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei) at a party. However, when her 21 year-old son/housemate Cyrus (Jonah Hill) enters the picture, he becomes an unexpected saboteur of John’s attempts at Molly’s heart.

While you might think going down the studio road might somehow change who The Duplass Brothers are, they stuck to their indie tricks.  The way they did that was to film the movie in order and to improvise much of the dialogue. What they ended up with was a touching, original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Anyway, I recently got to talk with John C. Reilly about how he got involved in the project and what it was like to work for the Duplass Brothers.  I also asked him about his future projects like Cedar Rapids and We Need to Talk About Kevin, as well as what will it take to get him paired up again with Will Ferrell.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say:

Jay and Mark Duplass’ steady professional climb just hit another peak.  Their first two features, The Puffy Chair and Baghead, won enough critical praise and independent film fans to get a green light for their first studio feature, Cyrus.  The aforementioned peak comes this weekend as the film kicks off its national rollout in New York.  It is a fitting sign of their upward mobility then, that Cyrus’ executive producers are a pair of blockbuster sibling filmmakers; Ridley and Tony Scott (Gladiator and Top Gun, respectively).

The Duplasses tracked their career path for Collider during a busy breakfast-time interview at New York’s Gramercy Park Hotel.  Hit the jump for the full audio and transcript, including their transition to life with a film studio, the guilty pleasure of having a Google alert for yourself and why Jonah Hill was like their mascot, onset.

Dramedies about love triangles are somewhat commonplace.  Dramedies about an unconventional love triangle with stalker-like behavior attached to one of the three characters is much more rare.  That smaller sub-genre becomes almost non-existent when the perpetrator is also the son of one of the other two involved.  Cyrus, which begins a national rollout today in New York and Los Angeles, pulls it off, due in large part to its stars: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei and Jonah Hill.  The latest film from writers/co-directors Jay and Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair and Baghead) follows John (Reilly), a man in dire straits whose life turns around when he meets his dream woman Molly (Tomei) at a party.  Her son Cyrus (Jonah Hill) stains the picture with a severe failure to launch syndrome, compounded by Oedipal overtones.

Reilly and Tomei recently did a press day in New York and we got to attend.  Hit the jump for the full audio of each roundtable interview, along with highlights, including: Reilly on whether masturbation got him to say yes to Cyrus, both on what it was like to improvise their way through a film, Reilly on Paul Thomas Anderson and whether he’ll be in PTA’s new film and why Tomei thinks Jonah Hill makes his real-life mother proud.

Opening this weekend, in limited release, is Cyrus.  Written and directed by Jay Duplass & Mark Duplass (The Puffy Chair, Baghead), the movie stars John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener and Marisa Tomei.  While the Duplass brothers have made a number of indie films, this is their first studio movie.  While you might think getting financing from Fox Searchlight might somehow change who they are and what kinds of movies they make, they brought all their indie tricks along for the ride.  The way they did that was to film the movie in order, and they also did a ton of improv on set.  In fact, while they (of course) got takes that stuck to the script, they did take after take of improv to try and make everything seem real.  What they ended up with was a original story that blends humor & heartbreak.  Definitely recommended.

Anyway, if you’d like to check out some of Cyrus now, we’ve been given 5 clips from the film.  I’ve also provided the full synopsis after the jump.  Again, Cyrus opens this weekend in limited release.  It expands into more areas in July.

Judy Greer and Susan Sarandon have signed on to co-star in the Duplass Brothers’ (Baghead) upcoming stoner comedy Jeff Who Lives at Home.  They’ll join Jason Segel and Ed Helms.  According to Variety, the story “revolves around two brothers, one of whom is going through a mid-life crisis (Helms) and believes his wife (Greer) is having an affair. The other (Segel) is a lovable loser who still lives with his mom (Sarandon). One day, the two brothers set out to spy on the wife, with all sorts of unintended consequences.”

Greer (who really deserves to be top-lining films), is co-starring alongside George Clooney in Alexander Payne’s The Descendants and in Ed Zwick’s Love and Other Drugs.  Sarandon will next be seen in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps playing Shia LaBeouf’s mother.

Jason Segel and Ed Helms, comedy titans on both the big (Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Hangover, respectively) and small (How I Met Your Mother and The Office, respectively) screens, are coming together to co-star in the upcoming stoner comedy Jeff Who Lives at Home.  The project, being written and directed by Duplass brothers Mark (actor in Humpday and The League) and Jay, tells the story of Jeff (Segel), a stay-at-home son who gets an epiphany about his destiny while out on an errand for his mother.  Helms will play Jeff’s more stable though overbearing brother.

The project is being produced by Jason Reitman’s Right of Way Films and John Malkovich’s company Mr. Mudd, which, coupled with the Duplass brothers, may mean there’ll be a slice-of-life element to this “stoner” comedy (see: Juno, Baghead, Up In the Air).  Judy Greer is in talks to play Helms’ wife, but the mother has yet to be cast.  These are all really talented people, both in front of and behind the camera, so I expect this’ll be a film to keep an eye on.  Production is set to begin next month. (Via THR)

Movieweb reports that Jay and Mark Duplass, the men who brought you the indie laughers Baghead and The Puffy Chair, are set to write and direct another comedy called Jeff Who Lives at Home. In the words of Mark Duplass: “It’s our take on a quest movie. It’s like a Sword in the Stone movie. But it’s starring a stoner who is looking for wood glue.”

Sold! No word yet on who will play the lead, though Duplass indicates that they’re in the final stages of locking someone down. All we can say for certain at this point is that whoever it ends up being will, at best, be competing for runner-up on the all-time cinematic stoner list behind the insurmountable #1: James Franco as Saul in Pineapple Express. Unless, of course, it actually turns out to be Franco, which would be…just swell.

Jeff Who Lives at Home is the Duplass’ second studio picture and will be produced by Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air). It’ll start shooting in the spring with sights set on an early 2011 release. Hit the jump for more from Mark Duplass on what you can expect from the film.