Judd Apatow's feature directorial debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, propelled Steve Carell to movie stardom. His follow-up, this year's smash hit Knocked Up, accomplished the same feat for Virgin scene-stealer Seth Rogen. Now the Apatow-produced, Rogen-co-written (with partner Evan Goldberg) teen comedy Superbad looks like it's ready to do the same for stars Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
Cera is already known to discriminating comedy fans as the charmingly guileless, lovelorn son of Jason Bateman on Arrested Development, while Hill was a major component of Knocked Up's crackerjack supporting cast, as one of Rogen's hard-partying roommates. Mintz-Plasse is more of an unknown quantity, but his star-making turn as an über-geek with a fake I.D. reading "McLovin" looks primed to make him an instant cult icon on college campuses. The A.V. Club recently caught up with Superbad's stars to discuss alienating Peter Bogdanovich, the sad demise of Arrested Development, working with Apatow and Rogen, Superbad's killer buzz, and getting upstaged by a newcomer.
The A.V. Club: How does it feel to be on the precipice of movie stardom?
Jonah Hill: I don't know, man, I think we'll just have to wait to see if people go to see the movie.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse: Yeah, we'll see what happens when it comes out.
Michael Cera: We could be on the precipice of failure. [Laughs.] Unspeakable failure.
JH: I think it's kind of strange when people talk about how hyped-up the movie is. It almost sets you up for a bigger fall.
MC: Totally, it's a big jinxing.
JH: I assume everything I do in life is gonna be a failure, and then if it turns up roses, then I'm psyched. [Laughs.]
MC: Or you can tell everyone, "See, I was right."
JH: If I start dating a girl, I go, "Oh, she's just gonna break up with me tomorrow." And when she doesn't, I'm like, "Fuck, what a great day I'm having today, I'm still in a relationship."
AVC: You don't think it's a sure thing at this point?
JH: No, I think nothing is a sure thing.
MC: But the tracking numbers are up, through the roof! Have you seen these numbers?
JH: Have you seen this? It's the number five, it's a 6.4! [Laughs.] The one thing I could say about it is that we completely made this movie on our own. Us, and Seth [Rogen] and Evan [Goldberg], and [director] Greg [Mottola] and Judd [Apatow]. Judd's success from Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin allowed us to completely go off and make our own movie the way we wanted to do it. And if we fail, we fail on our own terms, 'cause we made a movie that we love. You can't control if people go see it. We try and do these things to get people to go see it, but we love it, so we're proud of it. And that's all that counts.
MC: You gotta make stuff that you enjoy doing.
JH: This is, like, the first time me and Mike, our faces are up on billboards everywhere. Imagine if the movie sucked. I would be so pissed-off, I would just be so embarrassed, but I'm willing to say that I think it's awesome.
AVC: Have you watched it with audiences?
All: Yeah.
AVC: It's just nonstop laughter. It's hard to see how something like that could go wrong.
JH: Office Space. [Laughs.] Seth and I always say—
MC: Every time I watch Office Space—
JH: Yeah, I go, "Office Space, hilarious movie—wasn't a big hit." But you know, we just really hope people go see it.
MC: And like it.
AVC: It kind of seems like Judd Apatow can do no wrong at this point.
MC: True.
AVC: Has he gone mad with power?
JH: No.
MC: Drunk with power. [Laughs.]
JH: He's gone completely awesome with power. 'Cause it allows for people like me to write movies and act in movies. Talk about a loyal guy, what does he have to gain from putting us in movies? He just thinks we're talented and is just nice enough to keep giving us opportunities.
MC: Yeah, he doesn't need us to be in movies, he's done fine without us. It's not for his sake. We know that much.
JH: You know, he gave us every opportunity in the world to succeed, and I'll always thank him for that.
CMP: Yeah, he's given me my only opportunity, so I definitely have to thank him for that. [Laughs.]
JH: Every time Chris has sex, he has to send Judd a check.
MC: "Thank you, Judd."
AVC: So he's not like Peter Bogdanovich, directing on horseback at the height of his power?
JH: Dude, I have the funniest picture from the Knocked Up première. My friend who does music supervision for Wes Anderson, he's a great guy, he knows Peter Bogdanovich, and at the Knocked Up première, I'm really drunk. It's a picture of me talking to Peter Bogdanovich, and my friend was lucky enough to snap it. I'm drunk and talking his head off, and he's so deeply uninterested, and wants to leave the conversation. I remember saying to him, "What was up with the mesh water-bottle sleeve from The Sopranos?" That's what I kept asking him.
MC: What does that even mean?
JH: Cause he's one of the psychiatrists on The Sopranos, and on one of the last episodes, there was this big mesh holster for his water bottle. I remember thinking "What a strange, interesting choice he's made."
MC: What did he say?
JH: He said "I brought it from home." But this picture is so great, because obviously all my friends got drunk that night after the Knocked Up première, and you see me so obviously being annoying talking to him, and taking the boundaries of being nice way too far, and him really wanting to get out of there. He was wearing that thing, you know. When you see the ascot, you know you're in for a party.
AVC: How involved was Judd Apatow in the making of the film?
JH: Judd spent so much time working on the script and casting, he's like super-producer, and he's also making a bunch of movies at the same time. I don't know how he multitasks the way he does. He was there often, not every day, but he's so involved in casting and the script. It was Greg Mottola and Seth and Evan, they really had a grasp on how they were gonna do things. They also involved us so much. I think we all got the opportunity to really make this movie awesome, and all because of Judd's success. The reason why it wasn't made earlier was because no one was gonna make it the way it had to be made for it to be good. They probably wanted to tone it down, or create more of a bullshit story that wasn't there. I just feel psyched. It felt like a dream or something—we were off, we stole a bunch of movie cameras and a crew and everything, and how the hell are we making this movie right now? [Laughs.] It felt like a renegade kind of thing, and everyone got along so well, it was sick.
AVC: You're playing characters named Seth and Evan, and the movie was written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. On what level are you playing versions of them?
JH: Seth and I talked about it and we made a conscious decision—the movie is not autobiographical about them. Maybe certain conversations, or their points of view on certain things, were in their writing, I imagine, but I'm definitely not doing a version of Seth, and I don't think you're really doing—
MC: If anything, it was conversations they've had, the dynamic—it wasn't specific incidents from their high schools, maybe the way they interacted with girls might have been based on it, or how they remembered high school and wanted to portray it. But it didn't matter if we were doing impressions of them, because no one was going to watch the movie and say, "That's not a real Evan or Seth."
JH: "That's not a fucking Evan Goldberg impression!"
MC: Or Seth Rogen. No one knows how Seth is in real life.
JH: Also, when we came along, they really tailored it to what they thought our strong suits are, to make it more like how we would do it.
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