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Cop Chemistry
With the release of The Other Guys on DVD and Blu-ray this week, director Adam McKay spills a few secrets about this uproarious action comedy.
Where did the inspiration for the story come from?
This one came from Mark (Wahlberg) and Will (Ferrell) and having dinner with both of them. I walked away saying, ‘That is a strange funny chemistry you both have.' And I told Will, ‘You have to do a movie with him.' We started looking for something, I was sniffing around and finally I wrote an email to one of our producers, Kevin Messick, and I said ‘It should be a movie about the fact that they're the guys in the desks next to the superstars.' And he said - ‘There's the movie, we should do it.'
It sounds like you got your dream cast...
Certainly we wrote the hot wife role with Eva Mendes in mind - we said that he [Ferrell] should have a wife like Eva Mendes and the fact that she was game was amazing. When we talked about the two big stars, the cops, we were saying names like Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson. This was one of those freaky times when it was actually better than we ever imagined.
Was the studio always on board with the decision to kill off two of the main characters early on?
We were giddy with that. We were just really excited because we always wanted to do it and I always get upset that they don't do that more, because it makes other films more boring if you always know the stars are going to be alive. I wish more stars would go in the first reel; people could get killed or leave - it just makes things more unpredictable. Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson got that, got the joke and couldn't have been cooler about it. And that sequence - I just get so much joy watching an audience get surprised by it!
Were there any difficult moments while shooting when you thought you might not get a shot during one of the more elaborate set pieces?
Sure, we had a couple of those. We shot this massive shoot-out scene in a glass conference room and we were basically told - you're blowing up these glass windows and using squibs - if you do this again it's going to cost half a million dollars and you're going to go over budget. So we had to rehearse it and rehearse it and rehearse it and storyboard it. We did four technical walk-throughs and then when we shot it, it was nerve-wracking but we got it and it was like ‘Phew!' But I was proud on this movie because we came in under budget. And for a big action movie that was a surprise. We were thrifty and clever!
Do you still get nervous when going on set as you're the big boss and everyone is looking to you?
The first two movies I certainly did. On Anchorman and Talladega Nights I remember getting a little jittery when first going on set. But by the time Step Brothers and this came around I was working with a lot of the same people so if anything, now I get more excited. And the real truth is you don't think of yourself as the big cheese. Anyone who knows me or works with me knows we would laugh at that. It's such a collaborative experience.
Comedy is a genre that really seems to lend itself to DVDs with good behind the scenes stuff....What have you got in store for The Other Guys?
A good one for this will be the Pimps Don't Cry video with Cee-Lo From Gnarls Barkley singing with Eva Mendes - they shot this incredible video for it. Will did a hilarious video for ‘Funny Or Die' - a promotional video for the police - and I think we may put that on it, too. There's so much.
The Other Guys is available on DVD and Blu-ray on January 13.
Picture caption: Adam McKay (far right) with The Other Guys cast at the film's New York premiere last year, courtesy of Getty Images. Taken by Andrew H. Walker.
