by Gill Pringle
When we were given an exclusive interview with Kristen Wiig to discuss her reprisal of the love interest role in Despicable Me 3, the first question off the blocks was whether the US adaptation of Toni Erdmann was actually happening? “So far, yes,” Wiig answered, going on to admit that she’s never even met with announced co-star Jack Nicholson. “I fell in love with the original version and my really good friend [Jessica Elbaum] is a producer, and we just really really loved the film and Paramount got it and it went from there.”
Three hour German film Toni Erdmann was unanimously acclaimed and Oscar nominated, following a retiree dad who creatively stalks his corporate daughter in an effort to break through her ice-cold exterior. Wiig and Nicholson would be perfect for it, as would one of the remake’s producers Adam McKay (The Big Short) to direct.
“I loved every part of it,” says Wiig of the original. “I loved that it wasn’t trying to be a movie we have seen before. I loved the fact that there’s no music – I listen to music so much in film, where it is and how much there is, for some reason, that is where my ear always goes and I just really loved that there is no music in this movie! It didn’t need it and it just was this beautiful story. The acting was incredible, didn’t hit you over the head, it just didn’t seem to conform to all of those movie math equations, where it’s like, ‘you have to have this by this time, it has to be this’. I don’t like that sort of thinking when I’m either watching a movie or writing something, because it’s art. Things can play out and you don’t have to shoot something the way that everyone else shoots it. This movie, I just thought was so different and there are scenes that are just really long and things that are really short and just acting choices and shooting choices and it just reminded me of how much I loved storytelling rather than it being like a business.”
But business first in this instance. What does she like about playing Lucy, her love interest character in the franchise that famously displaced Pixar’s Monsters University, Despicable Me 3? “It’s really fun to play. I know that sounds simple but it’s really fun to play a happy character because you just have to get in that mindset and she is a very exaggerated version of me in the sense that I have to find broader and bigger ways to do things or say things or what sort of sound would she make when she does a karate chop. I just love the story and I think the movies are really funny.”
And when is she looking to create her own work again, as she did by co-writing the mega-hit Bridesmaids with Annie Mumolo? “It’s written, it’s done, we are both working on other things now and because I am directing it, it has to be a big chunk of time so it’s in the future but it’s happening.
“But it’s so different it’s got a different tone, it’s a different kind of comedy, and not for a reason where we didn’t want to be compared, it’s very much our sense of humour but it’s a very different film.”
Despicable Me 3 is in cinemas from June 15, 2017.
