The comedy The House – written by Andrew Jay Cohen (making his feature film directorial debut) and Brendan O’Brien, who previously collaborated on Neighbors and Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising – shows the lengths that any parents will go to, in order to ensure the dreams of their child. Desperate to ensure that their daughter can pursue her goal of attending a university, Scott and Kate Johansen (Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler) decide to open an illegal casino inside of their neighbor Frank’s (Jason Mantzoukas) house, in order to earn back the money they lost from their daughter’s college fund, and there’s no way that that won’t be a bumpy but hilarious ride.

Back in November of 2015, Collider was invited out to the set, on Stage 23 at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, Calif. to check out some filming and chat with the stars and filmmakers. On a break from shooting, we got a few minutes each with Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler, who were not only excited about the opportunity to get to work as a team, but who were clearly also having a great time doing so. During small group interviews, the two talked about what makes these characters different, why a casino seems like a good way to solve their problem, how this family gets caught up in all of the craziness, having fun improvising, and what they most enjoy about working together.

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Question: Will, what makes this character different from other characters you’ve played?

WILL FERRELL: I don’t know if it’s radically different. I think it’s in the same family as a lot of the things that I’ve done. If anything, the one thing that’s different is that Amy [Poehler] and I establish ourselves as the suburban family that’s so proud of their relationship with each other and their relationship with their daughter. She’s going off to college and life is great, and then, as we explore this premise and we get deeper and deeper into the lie of what we’re doing, the dark side of both of us gets to come out. That’s the fun turn. We dissolve into DeNiro and Sharon Stone from Casino. That’s probably the different part.

Amy, who is your character in this?

AMY POEHLER: I play Kate Johansen, and Will [Ferrell] and I are a couple who are dealing with the fact that we thought we provided enough of a nest egg to send our daughter to college, and then that gets taken way. So, the movie is about a couple who decide to turn their house into a casino, in the hopes that they can send their daughter to college. 

Is that something you’d ever consider doing?

POEHLER: In real life? I don’t know. It’s that fun structure of a couple putting themselves in harm’s way and challenging themselves to see what kind of lengths they would go to for their kid. So, maybe. 

How does Kate feel about the idea of this casino?

POEHLER: She’s into it. What I like about the movie is that my character is not the one who’s stopping the fun. Will and I just jump in pretty fast, as a couple. The characters actually really like each other, which is also nice to see. It’s a marriage that’s working and it’s a team where they embolden each other, along the way. They both lose their minds, together and separately. It’s a good example that it’s never too late to make a bad decision with someone you love. 

How would you describe the dynamic between Scott and Kate?

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Image via Warner Bros.

POEHLER: We both get to be crazy, but the partnership in the movie is really sweet. I like that they are on each other’s side. They are members of the same team. That’s what you need sometimes, in life and in comedy. You have to take big risks and big chances, and they both act like maniacs. It’s really fun to be that way with Will. I will never be taller or louder, and that’s my cross to bear, but I can hide in more places and jump out and surprise him. 

What can you say about the relationship between your characters and Jason Mantzoukas’ character?

FERRELL: He’s our friend, but since his wife has left, Amy’s character is not so much his friend. We were more friends, as a couple, and I’m still his buddy, but Amy is like, “Really? That guy?!” Our relationship with Frank is such that we feel a little sorry for him. We’re worried about him living alone, in this empty house, as a professional gambler. And yet, he’s the lightning rod to get us to go all-in on this idea of helping raise money for our daughter’s college education. He’s the crazy friend where, when we see him apply himself, we’re like, “All right, Frank, this is totally illegal, but you’re doing such great work. We’re so proud of you!”

POEHLER: Frank is an enabler. It depends on whose ear he’s whispering in.

A lot of times in comedy, you have the straight character to the ultra funny characters. Does this film have that?

FERRELL: Not really. Probably the straightest character is Ryan [Simpkins], who plays Alex, our daughter. She represents the audience, a little bit, in the sense of trying to figure out what we’re up to and why we’re behaving so strangely. And yet, even she gets to have fun by exploring, “If my parents are disappearing late at night and not explaining their actions, than I’m gonna do the same thing.” There was a moment, in doing some scene, where I was like, “Oh, my gosh, everyone in our town is crazy!” This cast has brought such funny twists to each person. It’s nice to have such a big ensemble, with everyone getting to be funny. It’s a very idiosyncratic town of Fox Meadow, with how weird everyone is. Everyone gets to be funny, in certain moments.

How has it been to work with this cast?

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Image via Warner Bros.

POEHLER: Jason and I have known each other for 15 years or longer. We used to work together at UCB. The cast assembled on this film, there’s a lot of UCB performers, like Jason Mantzoukas, Lennon Parham, Nick Kroll and Rob Huebel. There are so many, and we speak a similar comedy language, so there’s a lot of improvising. It’s a really incredibly funny cast. That feels like home. It feels familiar. It’s nice. That kind of chemistry, you either have it or you don’t, right away. Will and I definitely think the same things are funny and we really enjoy each other. Part of the process, when you’re making a big comedy like this, is that you have to enjoy it and each other, or you’re doing it wrong. 

What’s your favorite part of changing things up and improvising?

FERRELL: It just keeps it fresh, and it’s fun for the crew to not know what we’re going to come up with next. It’s also hard for the crew because, doing it on digital, we’ve done 20-minute takes and I can see the camera guys going, “Please!” That’s the thing we have to keep an eye on because we can go and go and go. If we don’t hear, “Cut!,” everyone is just going to keep trying to top each other. It’s always just a fun way to work, especially with [Jason] Mantzoukas, [Nick] Kroll, Rob Huebel and all of these guys. It’s been such a fun cast to play around with.

Is there any competition, on set, for who’s funniest?

POEHLER: Yeah. Will and I are both alphas, and I think we like that about each other. In any good comedy, it’s about what the best idea is. If you do it with really collaborative people, you don’t feel any fear. You’re just running with really good horses. They make you look good. We’re giving them a lot of options with this movie. There could be three different movies cut from this one movie. 

As this couple goes further and further down the rabbit hole, does the look of the casino reflect that?

POEHLER: Oh, for sure! There are a lot of illegal things that happen. There’s a lot of illegal activity, a lot of violence, and a lot of dark times. From what I can tell, with how it’s being shot, it looks that way, too. It’s a fun progression. And we’re shooting a couple of nights in Las Vegas, so we’re all going to go down the rabbit hole, literally. 

Does your history with each other really help your chemistry together, especially playing a married couple?

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Image via Warner Bros.

FERRELL: Without a doubt! Everyone just assumes that we’ve worked together before, and we overlapped a little bit on the show. I think we were on Saturday Night Live for two years together, but it wasn’t until the second half of my last season that we realized we’d never written a sketch together, so we finally wrote a sketch, and we only wrote that one sketch together. I think because everyone wanted to cast Amy in their thing, and I got cast a lot, we were always separate. And then, we did Blades of Glory, but we had two different storylines. We didn’t really do scenes together, so much. This has really been the first time we’ve gotten to be one-on-one and be a team together. It’s been great. Just knowing that we’d immediately have a shorthand, from day one of filming, and being comfortable being around each other, leads you to believe that we really are a couple and that we have each other’s back. One of the fun things about this movie, despite the high concept and the funny premise, is that it’s really about this couple that’s going on this misguided adventure together. Despite how it may be the totally wrong decision, they have each other’s back. It’s really about them rediscovering why they like each other so much. So, to get to that place on screen, it was totally beneficial that we knew each other, that way, and have wanted to work together for a long time.

POEHLER: We’ve been friends for a very long time, and when I started on SNL, Will was the retiring captain and I watched him very closely. I love how he works. I like how he treats people. He’s the king. He’s the funniest. So, I enjoy being next to the king. It’s nice. 

The House opens in theaters on June 30th.