Paul Rudd and Jason Segel: The _Heeb_ Interview

Paul Rudd and Jason Segel chilled with some journalists last week to talk up their bro-romance, I Love You, Man. If you’ve missed the countless ads, it’s about a sensitive realtor named Peter Klaven (Rudd) who tries with varying and hilarious results to make a dudefriend in time for his wedding. Klaven eventually finds the yin to his yang in Sydney Fife (Segel), an UGGs-wearing, Venice Beach-dwelling guy’s guy who, on a quest for lonely divorcees and delicious snacks, crashes Peter’s open house at Lou Ferrigno’s sweet mansion. As in the movie, the two had a hilarious rapport in real life. And for extra Heeb points, the story was initially pitched as a Seinfeld episode, according to writer Larry Levin.

So Paul, when are you going to be on the cover of Heeb?

Jason Segel: I was on the cover of Heeb. My family’s never been happier.

Paul Rudd: Honestly, I thought I was going to be on it for this one, but apparently [turns to publicist]…

You guys were totally Rush-ified in I Love You, Man.

Segel: Our characters really bond over the band Rush. I love Rush, but I was a little too young to experience them in their prime. But I learned about them during Freaks and Geeks, because my character was a big Rush fan, I had to drum ‘Spirit of the Radio.’ Paul is a huge Rush fan, as is [director and screenwriter] John Hamburg.

Rudd: Rush scared me when I was a little kid. I saw the ‘Tom Sawyer’ video and I thought it was scary as hell. [Lead singer] Geddy Lee can be a really intense figure to a 6-year-old. But then I got into some of their songs, and was excited to meet them. I was really nervous actually.

Segel: They are scary. Because lyrically they’re like the J.R.R. Tolkien of bands. They’re talking about wizards and warlocks –

Rudd: And a 15-minute drum solo is scary as hell. But they’re reclusive, there’s a mystery about Rush. They couldn’t have been nicer, or funnier – and really, really cool. Do you like them, do you like Rush?

Rudd: John [Hamburg] wanted Rush because it seemed like that’s the kind of band that two guys like us would have bonded over, and they do seem to have a primarily male fan base. And when we were shooting, I was so hypersensitive that they would have a good time, that they wouldn’t feel that we were mocking them in any way – because that’s the furthest thing – we weren’t doing that at all. But in the scene, we’re dancing around like crazy, and Rashida is acting bored. So I was telling Geddy Lee, ‘It’s part of the story, we’re going to be dancing around and she’s going to be standing there acting not that into it,’ and he said ‘Oh, you mean it will be like every one of our concerts?’

So for the Vanity Fair shoot, why didn’t you guys go for the full monty?

Segel: Vanity Fair wanted to still be able to sell magazines. And there’s nothing particularly appealing about me, Jonah [Hill], and Seth [Rogen] naked in a magazine. Paul Rudd, in that photo, has never looked better, and my question is if that is a result of the context. Anyone would look good next to me, Jonah and Seth in our silk stockings. Have you seen that picture? Paul Rudd is dashing.

Rudd: They should call it Vanity Hair. Judged by how far down my shirt goes, and I look, uh — I could have constructed that joke better. Let me go back and rewind that [starts unbuttoning his shirt].

Segel: You don’t have to take off your shirt.

Rudd: You can see what I’m saying.

Segel: Wow.

Rudd: I did draw the long straw in that photoshoot, didn’t I? With the tux?

Segel: To draw a comparison to this movie, people often ask if it’s a romantic comedy. And I like to say it’s like When Hairy Met Hairier.

Which is which?

Segel: I’m hairless, here. I’m like a smooth baby.

Rudd: Ew. You might want to rethink the way you said that.

Segel: I’m smooth like a baby’s head. Smooth as a baby’s bottom! That’s the expression, right?

Rudd: I’m not touching that. That came out wrong too.

How much did you guys improvise on the set? Because there was a lot of friendship and chemistry evident.

Segel: The script was really tightly honed, so we didn’t have to. There were a few scenes, like the first man-date scene, where there were no scripted lines. John set up simultaneous [cameras overhead], so he was shooting both of us at the same time, and he said, ‘All right, your job is to look like you get along.’ And for four hours, it was just like, our job to make each other laugh and have a good time.

Rudd: But we would do things here and there, but like you said, the script was really solid.

Segel: A lot of the Paul awkwardness was [improvised]. It’s impossible to write how awkward Paul can actually be.

Rudd: I think all of you will agree with that at this table.

You do have great chemistry. Are you already talking about other projects you might want to do together?

Segel: We’re trying to bring it back to the old-school comedy teams. Next year we’re releasing Paul and Jason Meet Frankenstein.

Rudd: I haven’t read it yet. It’s been really cool in the last few years to get into this group that’s existed for a long time – with Judd, the Freaks and Geeks guys, to kind of feel part of this collective. We’ve worked together on several things. I hope it continues. It’s really fun.

Jason, are you writing anything else now?

Segel: Yeah, I’m writing The Muppet Movie, for Disney, which is my dream come true, it’s like my childhood fantasy. I’m trying to bring them back. I’m writing a movie for Judd called The Five-Year Engagement with Nick Stoller. I’m writing both of them with Nick Stoller, who directed Sarah Marshall. The Five-Year Engagement is another exploration of relationships because I’m the least masculine guy in Hollywood.

Is How I Met Your Mother coming back next season?

Segel: I think so, yeah. I don’t think we’ve officially been picked up, but I’d be incredibly surprised.

Can we retire the word ‘bromance’? What should we use instead?

Rudd: I think bromance just came out a couple months ago. When we were doing the film, none of us had heard of it. But it is annoying, isn’t it? Somebody said, we heard earlier today, ‘man-panions.’ That’s pretty good!

What will be on the DVD?

Segel: I have one regret – something that’s not in the movie that will be on the DVD. Remember when I wrestled Lou Ferrigno? The scene ends with me passing out… The scene continued with Paul coming to get me. We just did the weirdest run where I wake up and I’m really confused and don’t know where I am. And I’m a gigantic guy. We did this whole scene with Paul trying to lift me up and me continuing to fall over. It was such a funny physical comedy bit, but I think it might have been a little self-indulgent. It went on for 15 minutes at a time.

Rudd: Nooo, that’s not self-indulgent! There was lots of stuff that seemed funny at the time.

Segel: [laughing] Remember the chair farting?

Rudd: The chair farting was just – when we were getting to know each other – I moved in the chair, and you know how that happens…

Segel: It makes that fart sound on the rubber?

Rudd: We kept doing it, just kept shifting, so – this is really some sophisticated humor… It’s really a trick about finding the right tone, and that’s left to John and the editor, really. There’s lots of funny sequences that were cut for time, or they just seemed too broad, mostly. We all wanted the movie to be realistic, and not so over-the-top.

Segel: That’s one of the things I love about this movie. It’s not a cynical look at these relationships, and it’s not a wink-wink-nudge-nudge jokey version of them either. We tried to do a really realistic and natural depiction of a guy trying to find a friend, and then layer the funny on top of that, but to not start out with the idea of, ‘Let’s do the funniest version of how difficult it is.’ We wanted to do the realest version and have that be funny.

Do you prefer to be the funny guy or the straight man?

Rudd: I don’t differentiate too much. I like reacting to things. I often don’t think so much in terms of drama or comedy, or straight man or not straight man. Funny guy?

Segel: [laughing] Not straight man?

Rudd: That came out wrong.

Segel: My favorite superhero! Not-straight man! [Laughter] This was the problem on set. One of us would make a joke and we’d laugh for 45 minutes.

Rudd: My favorite element of anything dramatic is the humor that’s brought to it. That’s the way I dealt with anything dramatic in my life, any kind of trauma. I don’t think that I’m necessarily – I’m not funny enough or good enough to be the super-crazy funny guy. I think I’m probably more of the set-up guy. But I also think that you can find lots of humor in the set-up stuff.

Segel: You’re certainly not the set-up guy in Sarah Marshall. I think you’re selling yourself short. He’s the most diverse actor I’ve ever worked with, by far.

Rudd: I don’t have any preference for anything. Thanks. That sounded insincere. Thank you.

Out of all your characters, which one parallels your life?

Segel: I think the one that parallels my life most is the Sarah Marshall character. That’s a pretty accurate depiction of who I was at 25. At 29, I’ve started to gain some self-confidence and come into my own, so maybe I’m more like this [his I Love You, Man character] now. But back then I was a proper mess.

Rudd: I feel pretty connected to the character in I Love You, Man. There are more cynical characters, like in Role Models, that I put a lot of myself into. I think that those two energies coexist, but I tend to think of myself as more of an optimist, a glass half-full kind of person, in the way that Peter, my character, is.

What do you think?