Special Coverage Comic-Con 2008Pop Culture Classics (The EW 1000)Sound BitesBox Office Game

The A-List

The best from Hollywood: the recent movies, DVDs, CDs, and books that earned raves from EW's critics

Page 2 of 4

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Michael, was it intimidating for you to come in and have to work that way, with so much improv?
MICHAEL CERA: Definitely. But we did rehearsals for a month beforehand where we'd hang out at Seth's house and we did a bunch of table reads. I felt like I knew it really well, and we were so comfortable around each other.
SETH ROGEN: We set a precedent pretty early. One of the first things we did when they were all cast was we had them over to my apartment and we went through the script line by line and just said, ''How would you say this line? What would you say there?'' We made it clear, ''We don't give a s---. Say whatever the hell you want.'' Why hire Michael Cera if you're not going to let him do that s---?
JUDD APATOW: You can't really fight over the specific syntax and language of a d--- joke. You can't be that proud of it.

Obviously, the advantage of having people improvise is that it gives you things you can't come up with in advance. But at the same time, doesn't it make it harder to cut the film together at the end?
APATOW: That's why I wanted Greg to direct Superbad. He's just a fantastic writer, and I knew in the final polish stages of the script, he would make sure the emotional aspects of the movie worked really well and he would find that balance. That's why he so outclasses us in his abilities. He took something that could have been very base and awful and made it...I mean, it's funny and filthy but it's also a beautiful movie about friendship and people cry at the end of the movie when these guys have to part. It gets me every time.
JONAH HILL: What always pisses me off is when you'll hear, like, five dudes laughing at the ending. It makes them too uncomfortable, so they go ''huh-huh.''
CERA: It's too real.
APATOW: ''Feelings! Emotions! Must shut them down! Punch someone!'' Well, the movie always was about guys who are afraid of intimacy covering it up with this incredible bravado and talking about what they're going to do to women, and it's all bulls---.
ROGEN: The joke to me and Evan was always, like, in the first five minutes of the movie they could have walked up to these women and asked them on dates and the movie would have ended right there. The whole movie takes place as an excuse for them not to actually talk to these girls.
APATOW: Because there is nothing scarier than that. I've never walked up to a girl in a bar once in my entire life. I've never had the courage to see someone and talk to them. So I always relate to that story.

Are there clichés or setups in studio comedies that you feel like are just so played out, you can't stand them anymore?
ROGEN: I like it all. If Knocked Up taught us anything, it's that you can take an idea that's very sitcomy and clichéd and if you approach it from an original standpoint it won't be.

I have to say, the logline on Superbad: two geeky guys trying to buy beer —
HILL: It sounds like the worst movie ever.
ROGEN: It doesn't just sound like the worst movie. It sounds like a million other movies.
HILL: Seth and I were talking about making a grindhouse double-feature: Boner Party and Boobie School. [Laughs]

NEXT PAGE: ''I remember being booed off the stage at UC Santa Barbara. I was opening up for Marc ''Skippy'' Price from Family Ties. I was terrible. I had a lot of jokes about condoms.''


Page 2 of 4