By Gill Pringle
In the mid to late 2000’s, British comedian, Russell Brand, was in the process of turning himself into a bona fide Hollywood movie star. Minor roles in the likes of St. Trinians led to bigger parts in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek, with Brand even getting the star vehicle treatment courtesy of the misshapen 2011 remake of Arthur, with the comic slipping into the drunken rich boy role made famous by Dudley Moore. Since then, however, Brand has slowed down, taking on smaller roles in the disastrous Rock Of Ages and Diablo Cody’s little seen Paradise. His dance card is currently pretty bereft, with Brand’s only listed upcoming projects a voice job on DreamWorks’ animated kids’ flick, Trolls, and a cameo (as God, no less!) in Larry Charles’ satirical true story, Army Of One, starring Nicolas Cage.
Now clearly focusing more on his stand-up work and political activism, what has happened to Russell Brand’s on-screen career? We put the question to Nicholas Stoller, the director of this week’s Bad Neighbours 2, and the man who cast the cheeky Brit in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek, kicking off Brand’s brief tilt at US movie stardom. “I think that he is just not interested in acting,” replies the filmmaker. “That’s what it is. He likes doing stand-up, and he likes being a talking head. He’s really into pushing a social agenda, and that’s awesome. That’s where his heart lies. Even at the time when I was working with him, I could tell. He was certainly working really hard on his acting, but I could tell that he was interested in a lot of other stuff besides this.”
Has it become too difficult for audiences to embrace Russell Brand as anyone other than Russell Brand? “When I was working with him, I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is the next Johnny Depp,’” Stoller replies. “That’s what I thought. He has the talent to do that, but he literally doesn’t have the interest. When you’re acting, you’re saying other people’s words. You’re pretending to be in a story that has nothing to do with real life. He’s a human rights advocate, and he’s interested in that way more than he is interested in being a vessel for someone else’s words. That’s what it is about more than anything else. The character that he’s playing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him To The Greek is kind of him; he has some of the philosophies that he has, but the character in those movies is much more standoffish and way more of a jerk than Russell Brand is. I directed him to do that, and it was a specific thing. Because he is very friendly. He’s brilliant and he’s a gentleman. He’s really friendly and really forthcoming. That’s not what he is like in Get Him To The Greek. That was an intentional thing: ‘Be mean to Jonah Hill, and keep him at a remove. You’re on a self-destructive war path!’ He did it amazingly well, but that’s not where his interests lie. I love Russell Brand though. He’s so smart and funny and awesome.”
Bad Neighbours 2 is released in cinemas on May 5. For more on Bad Neighbours 2, check out FilmInk’s interview with Nicholas Stoller.
