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THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011
From small screen to silver screen with Segel
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Jason Segel tells Metro about working with Diaz, Muppets This actor, musician, writer isn’t slowing down anytime soon NED EHRBAR
SCENE@METRONEWS.CA METRO WORLD NEWS IN HOLLYWOOD
Jason Segel isn’t one for summer vacation. While on break from How I Met Your Mother, the actor, writer and musician is beyond busy promoting his latest film, Bad Teacher, opposite Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake, and putting the finishing touches on his passion project, The Muppets. Segel found a free moment to chat with Metro about working with Diaz, not slowing down and making his own Muppet. Bad Teacher is a great example of raunchy comedy done well. What do you think made it work?
I think one of the things that makes the movie work is that Cameron is so intrinsically likeable and is known for having such a bright personality that there’s a lot of fun to be had in seeing her kind of off the rails with that character. Was there a lot of improvisation for your scenes with her?
There was quite a bit of adlibbing. You know, Jake comes from the same school of comedy that we were kind of mentored by with Judd Apatow. I think part of our process in general is that a lot of the hard work is done in casting, and once you’ve done that and you’ve hired people that you’re confident know their parts even bet-
ter than you do as the writer or director, and so you trust in them to do their thing, and it usually pays off. Between TV, film and promotional duties, how hectic is your schedule these days?
I was in Michigan a couple of hours ago filming, and then flew into New York. I’m here for about three hours, and then back home. So pretty busy. Right now I’m filming a movie called The Five-Year Engagement that I wrote with my writing partner, Nick Stoller, which is another romantic comedy under the Judd umbrella. And we’ve got Muppets coming out. With the first official trailer
Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz in a still from their film Bad Teacher.
for The Muppets out now, you must be pretty stoked.
I couldn’t be more excited. That’s been a real labour of love. Nick Stoller and I started writing it almost five years ago now — four years ago. Seeing it come to fruition is really, really exciting. I’ve seen cuts of it, and I think we’re just inches away from some real magic. So we’re very, very ex-
cited for our Thanksgiving release.
Can you tell us anything about the Muppet you created?
You’ve been doing some great parody trailers for it up until now.
Yeah, his name is Walter. He’s an adorable little guy who is sort of the eyes and ears of the audience, just a giant Muppet fan, and his goal is to reunite the Muppets, remind them of what they used to be. It was really an honour to have my own Muppet made.
I thought the very first parody trailer, where it seemed like a mediocre romantic comedy, was really funny. I was watching people kind of sigh in relief that Amy Adams and I hadn’t made a terrible movie.