Of course by now all of you have seen at least one of the classic Farrelly Brothers comedies like âThereâs Something About Mary,â âDumb and Dumber,â âKingpin,â âMe, Myself & Irene,â âShallow Hal,â âStuck On Youâ and âFever Pitch.â
Anyway, this new one is the first one that Ben Stiller has done since âThereâs Something About Mary,â but unlike that one which had one female lead, this new one has Malin Akerman as his new wife and Michelle Monaghan as the woman he falls for on his honeymoon. Come onâ¦itâs a Farrelly Brothers movie.
So while most of us thought the Farrellyâs would be paired together for the roundtable interviews, for some reason each was put with one of the female leads⦠and this interview is with Malin Akerman and Peter Farrelly. During the interview they talk about everything⦠from why they remade the movie to filming some of the crazy sex scenes.
As always you can either read the transcript below or download the audio as an MP3 by clicking here. And since I know some of you are fans of
Finallyâ¦if you missed the movie clips click here. âThe Heartbreak Kidâ opens this Friday at theaters everywhere.
Peter Farrelly: These are vibrators by the way so donât even think about stealing them. (referring to the tape recorders)
Malin Akerman: Oh well that one really looks like it is.
Question: You followed the 1972 film closely until a certain point and then you depart from the film and make it your own. Can you talk about remaking the original?
Peter Farrelly: Somebody asked us to make that about five years ago. They came to us and said, âdo you want to do a remake of the âThe Heartbreak Kid?â No, why would we, itâs classic. Then about two years ago, someone came back and said thereâs a new draft of âThe Heartbreak Kidâ because they really did something smart. It was written by Leslie Dixon and Scott Armstrong at separate times. What theyâve done is flip the original. The original was a very spunky girl who goes on this honeymoon and meets Cybil Shepard. This one he marries Cybil Shepard woman and goes on his honeymoon and meets a more down to earth girl. It really opened the door for us because first it of all it was a different movie. We didnât just want to remake âThe Heartbreak Kidâ as it was. It also helped the likeable factor. In the first one, as funny as it is, itâs a masterpiece, Charles Grodin was a cad. Heâs just dumping the homely wife for the beautiful girl. Cybil Shepard is a sociopath. He tells her Iâm on my honeymoon and sheâs like, âyeah, I donât care.â So thereâs a point where you donât know what youâre rooting for. Once the wife is out of the picture you donât really care if you get together. You follow it through because youâre curious, but you really donât. This one, the likeability factor helped make it a fuller story for us and permitted us to put our kind of humor on it. If you donât like out characters, our jokes donât work. Thatâs one thing weâve always known and go out of our way to set up these people. Also you said we departed at a certain point, well actually the first act was the departure. The original opened with them getting married and we felt we had to rewrite the entire opening to find out who he was. What was his background and really make him likeable. If you like him we can get away with stuff.
Q: Malin, those looked like the most strenuous sex scenes ever.
Malin Akerman: They were quite acrobatic. Peter actually performed them for me before because I did not understand what he was saying. Heâs like, âso Malin I want you to get on the bed and upside down with your head hanging down and your feet.â So he got on the bed and showed me.
Peter Farrelly: You were trying to embarrass me though.
Malin Akerman: Of course I was. It was really sexy when you did it. They were definitely some crazy positions that Iâve never tried myself and I donât think I would.
Q: Was that real sweat?
Malin Akerman: Was I sweating? I donât know. I didnât even see the sweat. Wow. What cut did you watch? I donât know. I guess it was. It was hot on set.
Peter Farrelly: They were moving around. It was a workout.
Malin Akerman: It was a workout, definitely.
Peter Farrelly: It was funny. It wasnât like when youâre shooting a sex scene, weâve never done it before, but when you are I imagine on a regular movie theyâre tension. âWow itâs sex.â But this was so funny that it didnât even seem to be about the sex. It was about the humor. We closed the set and just had a couple of people on there as a courtesy, but it really wasnât about the sex.
Malin Akerman: No, it was too funny. Weâd call cut and weâd all start cracking up. It was too funny. Itâs like youâre in a really funny scene and you just happen to be having sex in it. So that wasnât the initial thought. But of course it is awkward there with Ben and youâre like, âso howâs your wife?â
Peter Farrelly: By the way, it also got better and better because the more comfortable they got as we were shooting it the more they got into it to the point where they were hitting each other, theyâre hitting each other. They were batting each other around. They were really whacking each other there. It was fun to watch.
Is nudity something youâre comfortable with?
Malin Akerman: Comfortable enough. Itâs never completely comfortable. Iâm definitely not prudish when it comes to those things. If the scene requires it and itâs for a reason and itâs not gratuitous, then yeah. Itâs gotta be real. In Europe and
Q: How sympathetic are you to this character?
Malin Akerman: Sheâs not a mean person. She does pull herself back and apologize so you she knows sheâs out of control sometimes.
Peter Farrelly: Well thatâs the trick. The trick is to love her and then you are kind of annoyed by her, then you start to hate her, then you start to like her again, then you kind of find the sweetness. That was the balance. We never wanted to lose her. We never didnât ever want her to come to the point where you donât give a shit about her. Even at the end you do. It doesnât work if you donât do that. That was the real acting trick there because she has to show us. Itâs not what she says or what she does; itâs just in her face. When sheâs in bed looking at him like, âI love you Eddiebear,â you feel like this is a human being and despite everything, sheâs going to be hurt and this isnât good. We didnât want to let Eddie off the hook. Forgive me if Iâm repeating myself because you do so many rooms you canât remember what youâve said, but there was an earlier draft where she became a racist down in
How much did that make you think what guys have perceived as being crazy behavior?
Malin Akerman: I do think it comes from the truth. Iâve watched it myself where a guy can give a compliment to a woman and she takes it as like, âwhat you think I look fat in this?â Itâs not at all what they said. Women have a way of contorting things sometimes. We all have our moods, ups and downs. Or if the guy doesnât say anything when you walk out with a new top and the guy has no idea why youâre mad at him. So of course, women are complicated. I think there is some truth. There are different stereotypes and truths that you put into scripts and of course she has a lot of them in this movie just to make her more of a character. I donât mind it because I think thereâs a truth to it.
Was it fun to do the over the top scenes or was it hard to know where that boundary was?
Malin Akerman: I loved it. It is quite over the top for most of the parts. You donât want to go too far or push too hard or else it wonât be believable and you do want to make sure that you sympathize with her.
Peter Farrelly: Part of the actorâs job though is to go over the top because when weâre making the movie we have a sense of where weâre going, but we weâre not positive. So you push them all limits. You push them this way, this way, that way and then get over it and come back again so when you get into the editing room itâs like having all different kinds of colors and you can try them all out. The worst thing you can do is get there and realize you should have gone further. So basically you try to pop that ceiling where you know sheâs over the top. Thatâs what good actors do. Theyâre not afraid to embarrass themselves. You donât have to nail it every time. Thatâs why we try to keep a happy set where youâre not embarrassed to try it because if itâs stiff, everybodyâs nervous. You want to nail it every time. We donât want you to nail it every time. We want you to nail it and then push it and push it even further so that we know perfectly where it is. We see it on the tape. Thatâs the one. Thatâs the one. I donât know when Iâm filming. I kinda know it, but Iâm not positive.
Malin Akerman: There were a few times when Peter would come up and go, âI want you to go even further with him.â âReally further?â
Peter Farrelly: I wasnât sure if I needed it, but I wanted to have it because you donât know.
Thereâs a lot of people who think women particularly beautiful women are funny. I would say you and your brother have disproved that theory. When did you and Bobby starting writing strong comedic roles for women?
Peter Farrelly: Well a funny thing happened on âDumb and Dumber.â That was our first movie. We were reading actresses for the Lauren Holly role. Mariel Hemingway said, âthatâs a piece of shit. This is garbage. Youâve got nothing here. Why would I want to play this women? Thereâs nothing. They guys get all the jokes. Iâm just a nothing. Youâve got to punch this up.â She didnât get the part. I remember thinking sheâs right. You know what, we didnât do that. Thereâs the traditional playing off the woman as the straight man thing, but you can also try to give the woman along the way more of a reality. We write better for guys. Weâre guys. Thatâs what I write better for. I know guys. I know the way they think. You have to put yourself in the role of the women because by giving them humor you make them more real. You just get better at it as you go along. You remind yourself to try harder for that role because you do tend to get lazy when youâre writing female roles especially when theyâre beautiful. You think thatâs enough and itâs not.
Did you have the snowball scene in âDumb and Dumberâ at that point?
Peter Farrelly: Yeah, but as written, it was very unfunny. The studio was like, âwhatâs that scene?â âUh he throws a snowball at her face.â âWhy?â âWeâre not sure why. Heâs an idiot.â âBut why would a guy throw a snowball at her face?â âBecause heâs a moron.â In fact, the crew the day we shot that, it was late in the day. Weâre tired and itâs starting to get dark. So we said okay letâs do this thing really fast and itâs not funny. He picks up a snowball and throws it. We said, âokay Lauren get down and put some snow on your face.â We were like, âwhat the fuck is this?â Itâs not until you cut it together and get into the editing room and find the perfect sound effect which by the way it wasnât until he hit her in the face we tried like 50 sound effects before we came up with Henry Aaron hitting his 715th homerun. It was the crack of the bat. Someone pulled it in for some reason and boom that was the sound. It sounded hysterical. The funny thing is about that is that when we testing that, and this is the great thing about testing movies, the audience tells us how far we can go. When we were testing it, he threw the snowball, hit her in the face and the audience goes crazy. She goes down and comes up and has blood under her nose. Thatâs how we had it originally. No more laughter. Sheâs hurt. Not funny. Dies, the rest of the scene. We go in and get rid of the blood. We test again and now she comes up with just snow on her face. We had another minute of laughter. So people say, âhow far do you go?â We go as far as the audience lets us go because we test and they say âdonât do that, do this, donât do that, do this.â
Malin can you talk about Watchmen and whatâs your take on Silk Spectre?
Malin Akerman: This is a really cool role. She's sort of the psychology of the film because she's the only woman in the "Watchmen" aside from the previous "Watchmen." She is a femme fatale. She is a kick ass fighter. I think she sort of carries the emotion of the film because she is the only woman amongst all of these men. And they're going through sort of not being the watchmen anymore and dealing with that as well as trying to figure out who is trying to kill them off. It's a really, really, really well written script. It's a really great role that I'm so excited to do because it's so opposite from what I just did. It's a wonderful novel and itâs very true to the novel, so if you're familiar with the novel that's it.
When do you start filming?
Malin Akerman: They've already started this week actually. My character starts October 15th.
How long are you shooting for?
Malin Akerman: Until February. It's a long shoot.
Are you ready for that process withthe green screen and all of that?
Malin Akerman: There's not that much green screen because it's very real. We're not superheroes or anything like that. We just fight. We fight crime. There's only one scene on Mars that I think will be a green screen. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to trying new things.
What's your rehearsal process been like for this? Have you been training for the part?
Malin Akerman: It is not fun. I've been training for a month and a half and I still don't see the results. I have no muscles. I'm starting to get aggravated. It's actually been a lot of fun because we've been doing a lot of fight training so you go in and you have these amazing fighters that are doing this and they show you what to do. You try to do it and you look like a ballerina trying to do karate and it's so hard. It looks a lot easier than it is. Trust me. I've got a few more months of training I think.
Are you prepared for the fans to go crazy over this film and your character?
Malin Akerman: It's exciting. I don't ever feel like you're really ready for it. I just hope we do it justice.
Are fans starting to approach you about the film?
Malin Akerman: Not yet. I haven't been out.