John C. Reilly: “I try to just be really committed to what I’m doing. If I’m committed to something really stupid, then I’m in a comedy”

“Academy Award Nominee John C. Reilly.” 

Don’t forget that accolade next time you watch Reilly goofing off with Will Ferrell in a Funny or Die video.  Since Reilly is better known these days for his hysterical roles in comedies it’s often easy easy to forget that he’s earned critical success as a dramatic actor — in fact, of the four films Reilly appeared in that were released in 2011, three of them are dramas. 

One of them is Carnage, the Roman Polanski-directed adaptation of the play God of Carnage.  Reilly tells Interview magazine that even though it’s a little uncomfortable to get acclimated with a dramatic director and cast, his commitment to his roles never wavers.

Reilly didn’t need much convincing to work with Polanski, though Reilly recalls that he didn’t hear directly from the fugitive director, saying, “I got a call, ‘Roman Polanski wants you to come to Paris for eight weeks and make a movie.’ [laughs] It was pretty shocking. I didn’t even know it was in the works—I was the last one called. I felt like the kid in Willy Wonka—”I have the last golden ticket!”—I got the shot.”  Read more

John C. Reilly on How to Impress Your Co-Stars: “Just pretend like you belong there and maybe you’ll rise to the occasion”

John C. Reilly is one of those rare comedians that can pull off drama very well — in fact, before Reilly became known as one of Will Ferrell‘s favorite co-stars, he was nominated for an Oscar for Chicago and won acclaim for his supporting roles in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Gangs of New York. Reilly has certainly proven that he can hold his own.

But that doesn’t mean Reilly doesn’t get intimidated when he’s cast in a film with an all-star cast. As one of the leads in Roman Polanski‘s latest film, Carnage (an adaptation of the award-winning 2006 Yasmina Reza play God of Carnage), Reilly spoke to Moviefone about being in such an acclaimed production.  “That’s one of the difficult things of being an actor that I’m still not used to. You have to go, you have to show up at these places where you know nobody, and sometimes with really impressive, high stakes people like Roman Polanski. You just have to be confident enough in yourself, ‘I belong here! I belong in this room, little John Reilly from the southside of Chicago belongs in a room with Jodi Foster and Kate Winslet and Roman Polanski.’ A friend of mine in acting school said, ‘Fake it ’til you make it.’”  He adds a summary of that good advice: “Just pretend like you belong there and maybe you’ll rise to the occasion.”   Read more

Trailer: ‘Carnage’ starring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly

Carnage: After two boys duke it out on a playground, the parents of the “victim” invite the parents of the “bully” over to work out their issues. A polite discussion of child rearing soon escalates into verbal warfare, with all four parents revealing their true colors. None of them will escape the carnage.

Starring: Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, John C. Reilly
Directed by: Roman Polanski

This film is based on the play God of Carnage that ran on Broadway (and LA) in 2009 and starred Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden. I love John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster and the rest of the cast but I just wish that they used the original Broadway cast. Everyone was nominated for a Tony and Harden brought home a trophy.

In Theaters: December 16, 2011
Read more

John C. Reilly Speaks About What He Looks For In a Script

It’s difficult to find many acting stars with a resume as varied as John C. Reilly.

Though most recognizable by the average moviegoer for his comedic appearances in the Will Ferrell comedies Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Step Brothers, and numerous Funny Or Die clips, Reilly has received most of his praise for his more serious roles in films like Boogie Nights, Hard Eight, Cyrus, and Terri, the latter of which recently opened on July 1.

With such a broad range of films Reilly has to have a unique selection process, which he spoke about in a recent interview about Terri with Gothamist.

“You pretty much go by instinct when you’re reading a script, whether it grabs you or not,” Reilly explains about choosing his next role. “If it seems like the dialogue is written in such a way that it sounds like people actually talking as opposed to screenwriters doing exposition about what’s supposed to happen in the story. It’s a knack not everyone has, but it’s the first thing you look for. That the dialogue seems believable, if it seems like something that will be a challenge, if it’s something different than what I’ve done before. Just trying to keep mixing it up so that people don’t see it coming, you know?”
Read more

Trailer: ‘Terri’ starring John C. Reilly and Jacob Wysocki

Terri: A moving and often funny film about the relationship between Terri (Jacob Wysocki), an oversized teen misfit, and the garrulous but well-meaning vice principal (John C. Reilly) who takes an interest in him.

Director: Azazel Jacobs
Cast: Jacob Wysocki, John C. Reilly, Creed Bratton, Olivia Crocicchia, Bridger Zadina

Read more

SXSW Interview: Director Azazel Jacobs on his film, ‘Terri’

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:22 — 9.3MB)

I’ve become one of Azazel Jacobs biggest fans.

First of all, he’s got a great movie called Terri, about an overweight teen (Jacob Wysocki) who lives with his uncle (Creed Bratton). Having pretty much given up on anything involving a social life, Terri soon forms a surprising friendship with his high school vice-principal (John C. Reilly).

And second, when I talked to him at SXSW, each question he answered was extremely honest and heartfelt. I could have talked with him for hours.

This is Azazel’s 4^th film – his 3^rd, Momma’s Man, was a Sundance hit – and it’s a touching, extremely funny piece of work.

Azazel talked to me the casting process, what he thinks kills actors when auditioning and if he ever met a kid like Terri growing up.

For the full interview, click the audio link above or download from iTunes

What’s it like watching the movie with an audience?

Azazel Jacobs: Completely different, we finished a few days before Sundance, and so by that point nothing is funny anymore, nothing is interesting, and everything seems like a disaster.

Does it really?

Azazel Jacobs: Oh absolutely. You can’t feel anything, I mean, so you’re just, you’re hoping, you’re showing it to people that you trust, and they’re telling you that something’s resonating but you’ve just got no idea. During the actual premiere, the screening at Sundance, I’m sitting there, telling my wife, “This is going horrible, I’m gonna go outside and throw up right now.” And she’s like, “You’re crazy, you’re crazy, people are loving it, you’re crazy.” And luckily I was wrong. People really responded well.
Read more

4 Clips from ‘Cedar Rapids’ starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Anne Heche

Here’s four clips from the upcoming film, Cedar Rapids. Starring Ed Helms as Tim, a naïve insurance salesman who is sent to an insurance convention in wonderful, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’s quickly distracted by three convention veterans (John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who show him the ropes of convention life.

Director: Miguel Arteta

Cast: Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, Stephen Root, Kurtwood Smith, Alia Shawkat, Mike O’Malley, Rob Corddry, Seth Morris, Isiah Whitlock Jr.

Read more

John C. Reilly talks about on-set improvisation

John C. Reilly, currently starring in Cyrus, talks about how he developed his character through on-set improvisation with Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei.

He talks about improvising at the 2:30 mark.

Re-Post: Exclusive Interview with John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill

If you have nothing to do this weekend, check out Cyrus!

I saw this back in March at SXSW and it’s one of the funniest movies I’ve seen this year.

I interviewed both John and Jonah for the film (along with the directors, Mark & Jay Duplass).

For the entire interview, click here.

For the Duplass Brothers interview, click here.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

You guys did a lot of – I know that the Duplass Brothers do a lot of improvising in their movies.  How much did you guys stray away from the script?

John:  Dialogue-wise we never really did the script.  There were a few places where we did what was written, but for the most part I mean, I thought that was a really kind of egoless way to direct a movie especially since they wrote it.

Jonah:  And it was a really good script. It was a great script. It was actually one of the better scripts I’ve ever read.

John:  Yeah, you know what needs to happen here.  We don’t have to say this. Just say it as honestly as you can to each other.  It was a lot of fun, very empowering, but also a big responsibility.

Did you ever worry that you were ever going to just like – were there a lot of scenes where it just didn’t work because you didn’t end up in the right place?

Jonah: Only one scene that I think….

John:  A couple places where scenes were…. what we found on the day didn’t exactly jive with what the structure of the movie needed to be in the editing room, so in those places I think they did those more creative voiceover things.  You heard dialogue while people are not saying dialogue.  Where they kind of layered, which I thought – it’s not what they intentionally set out to do.  It’s not that they filmed those scenes so they could do that, it’s that we improvised our way through a scene and they turned it into that.  It’s one of those cool moments where necessity is the mother of invention.  They created this new interested way to move the story along because they needed to because the scene that they shot was different than that.

The Duplass Brothers: “Honest and real and really unpredictable is what we’re really looking for”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:37 — 9.4MB)

Jay and Mark Duplass (The Duplass Brothers) are hot right now. They have Cyrus (starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill & Marisa Tomei) and are currently in pre-production on Jeff Who Lives At Home (with Ed Helms and Jason Segel).

To be honest, I’d never seen one of their films till Cyrus. I’d heard about them, especially once I got to Austin for SXSW, and was excited to see the film. The film is both hilarious and touching and you will love seeing John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill in different roles than you’re familiar seeing them in.

I got a chance to talk with them in a roundtable interview so most of the questions aren’t mine. I did ask some casting questions regarding John and Jonah. And check out the audio (above or on iTunes) portion for the whole discussion.

(For more on Cyrus, click here for my interview with the stars John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill)

How long have you guys been working on this script?

Jay: Good question. You know, we normally write our scripts pretty quickly when we it’s just us producing them because we know we’re gonna improvise the dialogue a bit so once the structure is rock solid we know we’re production-ready. But you know, this was a script where you have to write it well and make it attractive to actors and to the studios so that they want to greenlight it. So we just spent a little time making it look pretty, you know? The bells and whistles. We were, I think we worked on it for like a year or so on and off. We were doing other things at the time. But on and off before we actually got the greenlight.

Do you have any experience as children as of single parents dating again or knowing people in those situations?

Mark: No, none really. We are good little Catholic boys and our Catholic parents have been married for 42 years and are still together.

Jay: What we do have a lot of experience with is desperation (laughter). We have that in spades.

Mark: Inter-personal dysfunction.

Along those lines, when you guys have the photograph of breastfeeding (laughter), it was terribly icky, I was dying laughing. Were there other things like that that you took out because you were like, you know what, that’s just too icky? Or was that about it?

Mark: The level of ickiness was about what we had hoped it would be. There’s an ick-ometer that we have on set.

Jay: We were riding high at about a 3.8 the whole time. If you stay right there, if you go over, people start crying and it gets weird.

Read more

Next Page »