By Gill Pringle
After the eventually settled frat house turf war of Bad Neighbours, Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne) have a second baby on the way, and they’re ready to make the final move into adulthood by shifting to the suburbs. But just as they thought they’d reclaimed the neighbourhood and were safe to sell, they learn that the new occupants next door are a sorority even more out of control than Teddy (Efron) and his frat house brothers ever dreamed of being. Tired of their school’s sexist, restrictive system, the unorthodox ladies of Kappa Nu have decided to start a house where they can do whatever the hell they want. When Shelby (Moretz) and her sorority sisters, Beth (Kiersey Clemons) and Nora (Beanie Feldstein), find the perfect place just off campus, they won’t let the fact that it’s located on a quiet street stand in their way of parties as epic as the guys throw. Forced to turn to the one ex-neighbour with the skills to bring down the new party animals next door, the Radners – alongside best friends, Jimmy (Ike Barinholtz) and Paula (Carla Gallo) – bring in charismatic Teddy as their secret weapon.
How do you channel your college years? You’re married, and you have two kids. What is the experience for you going back into something like this?
“It’s becoming increasingly more difficult because I’m getting farther away from that time in my life. My way in with this movie is really Seth and Rose and the issues that they’re going through. They’re scared that they’re going to be bad parents. That’s their story in the movie. They’re scared that their daughter is growing up too quickly and all that, which is all stuff that I’m dealing with right now. And the quarter-life crisis stuff that Zac’s going through, I feel like that was yesterday. With the girls, the story that we were telling was about arriving at school as a freshman with no friends and wanting to reinvent yourself. And that was something that I could really remember. With both the first movie and this movie, the emotional stories are pretty much gender neutral. It doesn’t matter. And that was something that I could remember. I hated high school, and when I got to college, it felt like, ‘Finally, my life is going to start!’ I didn’t have a sexist system telling me that I couldn’t party. But if I had, I would have tried to start my own thing.”
The thrust with the first one, and again with the second one, is that it’s impossible to be cool once you’re over a certain age, certainly with children. Is this absolutely true? Can you be cool?
“The only way that you can be cool is if you don’t care about being cool. Everyone who I know who is a parent who is trying to be cool is just a nightmare. That’s really part of the first one. In this one, Seth and Rose don’t really care. They’re done with that part of their life. They’re trying to move so they can raise their daughter in a different place.”
Could we talk a little bit about Rose Byrne and her comedy style? You worked with her on Get Him To The Greek before this…
“She’s just brilliant. She really is just like one of those rare actors. She can do anything. Before Get Him To The Greek, I just knew her on [the TV legal drama] Damages, and I didn’t know that she was funny. She played a very dramatic role in that. I cast her in her first comedy, and then [director] Paul Feig ended up casting her in Bridesmaids off Get Him To The Greek. When she came in, I was like, ‘Why is Rose Byrne here? She’s such a serious actor.’ And then she was just absolutely hysterical, and we were like, ‘Well, we’re casting her!’ And that was it. She brought the entire character there. She’s just really funny. She has the face of a silent film actor, if you like. Her eyes are really big and expressive and she’s always reacting and doing something funny. She’s pretty quiet on set, but when you talk to her, she knows exactly what the deal is with everyone. She can do an impression of everyone. She’s just an hysterical, awesome person. She reads every book and she’s really smart. This is the third movie that I’ve worked with her on, and I would work with her on a hundred more. She’s just the best.”
And Zac Efron? You’ve said that he is taking a while to grow into doing action roles, and it’s almost like he’s hiding something, like he’s hiding in comedy…
“I think that Baywatch is more of an action comedy, and that could be a bridge. Bad Neighbours 2 has a fair amount of action in it, and you’ll see his skills. I’ve seen it with a lot of actors. Especially action actors. Take Chris Pratt, for instance. He was very boyish, and I think that he needed to grow a little bit. You need to get to your early thirties, and audiences are like, ‘Oh, you can be an action hero now.’ There are just certain people like that. And I think people want their action heroes a little bit older and slightly more grizzled. I don’t know if that’s true. But I think that’s what’s going on with Zac. The minute that he decides that he wants to do action, he’ll be able to do it. He has the whole thing. I mean, he runs as intensely as Tom Cruise! But he has this vulnerability that makes him really funny and really awesome in comedies.”
Can you tell me a little bit more about your background? I always see “English-American director” applied to you. How long were you in England?
“I was born in England. My parents are American, but I was born there. I lived there until I was four. I have a dual citizenship. But I’m American, basically. I grew up here. But, you know, I went to England all the time. I thought of it as a second home. And as a comedy nerd, I was obsessed with Monty Python and all the Terry Gilliam movies, though he’s American too, of course. But all comedy nerds were obsessed with Monty Python, not just me! But I do tend to gravitate to having casts that have English people in them or Australian people. I like having a big, sprawling, really funny cast, and the more kinds of comedy that you can have in there – whether it be an English or Australian person – it allows you to make a whole other kind of joke in your movie.”
Who has been the biggest career mentor for you?
“Judd Apatow. Without him, I would not have had a TV career. I would have maybe written screenplays, but I don’t know if I would have been able to make the jump to directing. He was just instrumental. He taught me a lot about writing. He’s just an awesome, awesome mentor.”
Do you remember that first time of meeting Judd?
“Yeah! I met him and Paul Feig, because at the time, they were going to do Undeclared together, which was the show that Judd did and Paul decided not to do it. It was the college show, after Freaks And Geeks, that I interviewed for. Judd was already a legend at the time because of Freaks And Geeks, and everyone just knew about him. I had been obsessed with Freaks And Geeks. They basically wanted us for the interview to talk about our college experience. I told Judd a college story that he thought was really funny and sweet and I got the job. That’s how it happened. I was 23, and I had recently graduated.”
A lot of comedy sequels don’t work. The Hangover Part II and Part III are probably the big ones. Zoolander 2 was another one…what do you think went wrong with that?
“I don’t want to talk about that…I actually love that movie. I don’t want to talk about it, just because Ben’s such a huge person. I actually love it; I think it’s really funny. There were a few things happening. It also opened against Deadpool, which I don’t think anyone saw as a giant thing. Zoolander 2 is so bonkers and crazy, and you can only do that stuff in a Zoolander movie. I personally love that movie. The ending with all of the fashion icons showing up is just so crazy. I think it had to do with the release.”
And finally, the upcoming animated kids’ film, Storks. That seems like a big departure. Is this because you’re a family man and you wanted to do something to reflect that?
“I’ve written animation before, and I’m really excited about Storks. It’s really good. I’m excited to get it out there. Warners was trying to start this Warner Animation group off of The Lego Movie, and Greg Silverman at Warners called me about it. He said, ‘Do you have any movie ideas?’ I had this idea about how storks used to deliver babies but now deliver for, basically, Amazon. All of the things that I’ve directed have come from an emotional thing that I’ve gone through. With Storks, my wife and I had our first daughter and it was really easy to have her, but our second one was really hard and required a lot of science and IVF. It really made me appreciate my first daughter in a way that I didn’t think about before. Bad Neighbors was the story of me being mad that we had a baby and wanting to party still, and as we faced the reality that we might not have a second kid, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is a true blessing.’ So that’s what the movie is about.”
Bad Neighbours 2 is released in cinemas on May 5.
