“Paul” is such a plain kind of name, but what if it was the name of an alien who came to Earth? That’s the case with Greg Mottola’s “Paul,” the story of two comic book nerds, Clive (Nick Frost) and Graeme (Simon Pegg), who stumble across a gray alien when they pass the outskirts of Area 51.
With an off-beat science fiction comedy of this magnitude, it’s not only the director and main guys who hold together the film. A lot of it also has to do with the supporting cast. That’s where the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Jeffrey Tambor, Joe Lo Truglio and Bill Hader come in — each bringing in their own acting spice to sprinkle onto the production, attracting even more movie-goers to the project.
We got to sit down with the four actors and they spilled on their Comic-Con experiences, director Greg Mottola and how much is too much for movie trailers nowadays.
The Playlist: So you haven’t been exposed to the Comic-Con crowd yet. Are you nervous, excited?
Bill Hader: We have been exposed to the Comic-Con crowd. Leaving the hotel was great.
Joe Lo Truglio: This is my first Comic-Con, but I love going through it with very funny people.
BH: This is my first time…. I went in the early oughts. 2000, 2002. It was crazy then, even as a fan. I just hung out.
What were you dressed as?
BH: I was dressed as myself. I was dressed as a loser. It was my best looking nerd. I remember going to panels. It was the same stuff. They did a ‘Lord of the Rings‘ thing, and I remember being like, “Elijah Wood!”
Are you guys surprised by how quote unquote nerd culture has become more popular in films?
BH: Yeah, the nerds now aren’t like they were back in the ’80s and stuff.
Sigourney Weaver: They’ve had their revenge.
JLT: Well, it’s nice to know that there seems to be a smarter audience that you’re playing to, which I guess you can call nerds. But that’s nice. Fans that really know the material and know a lot about movies.
SW: Yeah, people are a lot more savvy and stuff. The sci-fi and fantasy nerds were always like that. They were always really smart people who didn’t feel comfortable with mainstream society, now mainstream society doesn’t feel comfortable with anything. This society is, as you say, having a lot of influence. And they should. All this stuff is invented by nerds. It’s the century of the nerd.
BH: Everything you’re holding was invented by a nerd.
Who’s the biggest nerd among you then?
SW: It depends on what age you’re talking about.
BH: We’re all pretty nerdy.
JLT: Yeah. I was obsessed with Mad Magazine.
SW: Me too.
JLT: Drew a lot of cartoons. I loved horror comics and Stephen King. When I was young I had a box that I kept all of Stephen King’s hardcover books in under my bed. In the event that there was a fire, I would have just grabbed that and gone. A Stephen King emergency store.
Jeffrey Tambor: Who cares about the family?
SW: I had a Medal of Dishonor for valor in the war against clean living from Jay Ward. He created ‘Bullwinkle.’
What did you do to win that award?
SW: I didn’t do anything, I was 11. I was thrilled. Jeffrey, what was your first Comic-Con?
JT: I think I did “Max Headroom.” And I remember the big one back then was “Star Wars.” And there were people dressed exactly. But these people are ardent fans and our film sort of pays homage to that. We don’t take a derisory tone to that at all. I play this science fiction writer who kind of sends these guys on their way. And I shot in Comic-Con, in a faux set in Albuquerque. These guys got it absolutely right. But these are wonderful fans. They’re not only thinking outside the box. There’s no box. They’re free, much freer than we were. These guys are happy, not angst-ridden, really ardent fans.
Just curious about the characters in the movie, because I’ve actually been to the set and they’re very secretive about who you’re playing. I saw your books. I was curious about the others.
BH: Me and Joe, we’re these agents, along with Jason Bateman, who are after Paul. We’re the Peter Coyote and E.T. kind of thing. But you see our face, you just don’t see our crotch.
JLT: We’re kind of Keystone Cop-ish.
BH: Yeah, we’re not totally bright.
JLT: We might have a local office and we’re very excited that there’s something to do.
BH: Yeah, we’re so stoked to be on the case that we don’t know exactly what we’re looking for.
SW: I play a pivotal role. You could say I’m an authority figure with an appreciation for the pain. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to say exactly.
BH: She’s not a dominatrix. Make sure you get that out of your head.
SW: As far as we know, she’s not.
Schoolteacher?
SW: I can’t tell you. I’d ruin it for you.
BH: That’s the hard thing. Today’s the first day anyone’s going to see any footage.
JLT: I think the big difference is that they used to be outside. The Comic-Con people. I think all of us as actors can relate to being outsiders and nerds, spending our time in the theaters. Now these guys are on the inside and they’re calling the shots, and it’s whatever they want. And in terms of justice, that’s the way it should be. It’s quite an honor for us to be here. These guys are calling the shots in terms of taste and invention. I’m the father of young kids and I’m glad to be here in this venture. Let’s all sing kumbaya.
BH: Everybody kiss.
SW: And I think the movie is a very smart, witty, funny ode to Comic-Con and the Comic-Con fan. I find it very original and moving actually, even though it’s very funny. Such a sweet movie.
Are you looking forward to seeing Paul? He’s not finished, but…
BH: The actual alien? I’ve seen him.
JLT: No big whoop.
SW: I’m sorry he’s not here with us. Such a snob. In an ideal world, wouldn’t it be better going into every film knowing nothing about it?
JT: I went into a film like that once. “Lawrence of Arabia.” I went, how good could this be. It’s not an interesting story, but I wanted to share it. I agree with it, sometimes that’s terrific. There’s nothing like word of mouth.
JLT: It is weird talking about it and at the same time trying to pull stuff back. Thinking, I don’t know what I can tell you. But what people like about other Simon and Nick movies, it’s that in a great way. And what Mottola brings to that, in a very gentle way, is great.
JT: And having these two guys at the center of the film is very important, because they don’t wink. They’re like all of us who dream and have a vision, and then these wonderful satellite characters can be very weird and very funny. But these guys are great. The first time I saw them, I kind of knew of them, but I thought they were the real deal, because there were a bunch of extras in front of me waiting for my character to sign the autograph, and there were these two guys, two of the most unpretentious geniuses you’ll find.
JLT: They’re very sweet. Very collaborative.
JT: I think the audience in America’s just going to fall in love with them.
BH: Yeah, that’s the cool thing hooking up with the nerd culture. We shot in Las Vegas, New Mexico, we stayed in the motel that’s in “No Country for Old Men” where the cat ball thing where Javier Bardem meets Woody Harrelson. My room was at the top of that staircase. I opened the door and thought, ahhhhh! We were just geeking out. We sat there one night until four in the morning talking about movies in general. Talking about “The Black Hole.” That is so infused in the movie.
Do you guys as actors hate how everything in the movie is shown in trailers now? Every plot twist, everything is shown to get people into the movie.
SW: But that’s because they don’t have anything else to show, don’t you think. It’s usually the not very good movies that show everything in the trailer. Then you don’t have to see it. You’ve seen it. I appreciate it, it saves my time.
BH: There you go. I always wait for that to happen in a trailer, for the announcer to go, at the end: “He’s Keyser Soze.”
Sigourney, how’s your own fan base changed since “Avatar?” The letters you receive must be very different now.
SW: Gosh, I guess so. It seems like in an odd way, because “Avatar” was such a planetary phenomenon, and because now the older movies I’ve made are so well known around the world, it’s sort of very joining. It feels like “Avatar” helped bring multi generations back into the theater together, which it should. That’s where generations should come together, that’s what’s cool about it. So these sort of separate generational ghettos are blasted away, and I hope that works for a lot of movies in the future. I think we found a global market in a different way. What am I trying to say? A kind of connection that audiences felt with each other through “Avatar.”
JT: Also, young audiences are very versed in the older films. They’re encyclopedic. They can cite you verse and chapter about your role in “The Hangover,” but they can also go to “…And Justice For All.” And they are true appreciators, because some nerd invented this technology. It’s a different world. Some person said to me — who was a nerd, he was into computers — I said, “I’d love for you to come talk to me about thinking outside of the box.” And he said, “what box?” And I went, “that’s where they are.”
BH: It’s like the oracle.
SW: There’s no impossible.
BH: There is no spoon.
SW: But I just feel a continuum of people who love movies now. So many generations have grown up watching great movies, you have to keep making them.
BH: It is true about “Avatar” though. That was the first time I turned to my wife and said, “That was the first time you saw whole families in the movie theater”; an old couple in the movie theater — it’s always a group of people that are being advertised for. It was so great hearing my grandmother in Oklahoma saying, “did you see ‘Avatar?’ I just got back from it!” That was so awesome.
SW: I think “Paul” will reach a really wide audience. It’s got a lovely love story, and it’s about everyone’s fantasy, which is meeting an alien, and having him turn out to be so great. I’m afraid it undoes all of the good work I’ve done with aliens.
BH: You’re coming full circle!
SW: Actually, yes. Anyways.
BH: It’s so smart. That’s what so good about these guys. The alien and they themselves, who are two British guys in America, they’re kind of aliens themselves, relating to it. It has so many different layers. I remember reading the script and then reading it again before shooting and going,”oh.” The stuff they’ve done before is really really smart.
JLT: I guess the scene where they came up with Paul — they were shooting “Shaun of the Dead” and Simon said—
BH: They were shooting the scene where they throw the records.
JLT: That’s right. It’s raining and they say, what’s our next idea, and Simon says, somewhere that it doesn’t rain. And the seed of the idea was Simon drew this sketch of this alien and said, in America, everyone’s an alien, and it kind of began there.
BH: Yeah. And he still had that piece of paper, and showed it to us. There’s the thing that I drew [from]! It inspired us. This is what we’re all here for.
You guys worked with Greg [Mottola] before on different kinds of movies. “Superbad” was very improvised with Seth [Rogen]. How was it different working with Greg when you had Simon and Nick?
BH: The thing that’s so great with Greg is that he morphs to the material. He’s not a director who puts his will in it. He reads the material and says, oh what kind of movie is this, because I like all different kinds of movies, what kind of movie would this be good as? And what he did with this really, stylistically, to me, it’s like early Spielberg. Not
just like ‘Close Encounters’ or ‘E.T.,’ but ‘Sugarland Express.’ There’s some really cool car chasing. I remember we were shooting something and he was explaining the shot to me and I thought, we’re doing ‘Sugarland Express’ right now. There’s a lot of days where it was like, you could shoot it in coverage and get five takes, or we could shoot it in one cool shot and get it done twice. It was a lot of people sitting there and Greg saying, let’s go for the one shot. Let’s try to make it more visceral in that way.
JLT: And it takes a lot of courage and confidence for a director to be that selfless and courageous with the material. Which he is. And collaborative.
BH: Yeah, he’s crazy collaborative.
JLT: It’s nice. And he’s got such a mellow demeanor. The vibe of any movie extends from the director and how he handles the set, and Greg is so open to suggestions and ideas and mellow at all times. It helped us be silly and do good work.
Was there much room for improvisation with the writers on set?
BH: We didn’t really improvise too much. We’d talk to them.
JLT: There was certainly more in “Superbad.”
BH: “Superbad” was like, keep rolling, do whatever you want. But this movie was different.
JLT: Simon and Nick are amazing writers, but they were also selfless enough to have Bill and Kristen and myself who have done a lot of improv work and just say go. Let’s get the script and go.
BH: Yeah, “what do you want to try and do?” You would bounce stuff off on them. Whereas on the other movies we’ve worked with Greg, like in “Superbad,” there was a whole scene at the bar where it literally like, “just start talking.” That script was great too, but it was different. That’s what I mean, Greg is great at just saying, “that isn’t this kind of movie.”
“Paul” arrives in theaters everywhere on March 18th, 2011. – Melissa Molina
