AVC: Like Judd Apatow's shows Freaks And Geeks and Undeclared, it's like these shows are too good to last.
MC: Yeah, Freaks And Geeks is like one of the best shows ever.
CMP: It really is.
JH: That, to me, has been one of the biggest creative inspirations ever. The Larry Sanders Show lasted, that's a brilliant show.
MC: That was HBO, though.
JH: How many years?
MC: Six seasons, I think.
AVC: Christopher, how did you end up in this film?
CMP: It's pretty boring, actually.
JH: [Bad British accent.] "I was a waiter…" [Laughs.]
MC: "I was working at Musso & Frank's and…"
CMP: I guess they were looking for somebody to play the part of Fogel for like three months, that's what Evan told me. They had open casting calls, and my two friends were going to audition for it, and they told me that I fit the description of the part, so I should go audition with them. So I said, "All right, why not? It'll be fun." And I went and auditioned and got called back twice, and they liked me. And that was that, and I got in Superbad. [Laughs.] Really lucky story.
AVC: Do you think Christopher steals the film?
MC: Yeah. [Laughs.]
JH: I'd say yeah. Also, Michael and I have to carry the emotional weight of the movie, you know what I mean? What was so different for me was, I've never been the lead of a movie before. I've always been in movies where, like, I come in, say a couple of funny things, and leave. Rip a few scenes, or whatever. The hardest thing for me to do, and the best thing I've done and learned as an actor so far, is to sacrifice being funny in certain circumstances in order to do something that makes sense for the story or the character, or emotionally. There were scenes that I watched that don't kill, because the rest of the movie is so funny.
While doing the scene where I cry, Greg and I were talking a lot about how I have to cry every take. That's hard for me, because when you come from a comedy background, your natural inclination is to make them laugh at all costs, and that's usually what I do in other movies. What I'm learning now is to play these different kind of parts, more leading parts, and how you have to sacrifice laughs for other things that help the movie out. But Chris, when he's on, you're smiling the whole time. I mean, McLovin, it's like an iconic name—people are gonna get, like, McLovin tattoos. And then in 10 years, the movie will be not-loved anymore and there will be faded tattoos on college guys turning into fat old men with saggy, gross tattoos.
MC: People go crazy when they see Chris onscreen. People have been showing up to the screenings wearing McLovin T-shirts and, like, the movie hasn't even come out yet.
CMP: I'm just an icon. [Laughs.]
AVC: Chris, are you prepared for years and years of people knowing you as McLovin?
CMP: I mean, I don't know what I'm gonna think in the future, but right now—
MC: That's a common question, I'm finding out, a lot of people are asking that.
CMP: Right now, I'm loving the McLovin thing, but who knows? I find that as a compliment, when people come up to me and say, "Hey, it's McLovin," cause that means they loved me in the movie.
JH: You brought up a great point today, though, that made me laugh so hard. It's a difference between McLovin and Screech, because Screech, you almost say with disdain, like mocking him—
MC: "Fuck you, Screech!"
JH: Yeah, like you're angry with him or something.
MC: But McLovin's the hero.
JH: It's like you love him, like you love McLovin.
MC: You go through such a transformation in the movie.
JH: I feel like they say it with such love, like it makes them so happy to say it.
MC: Whenever Bill [Hader] says "McLovin," especially when he's driving, doing donuts in the car, he's like, "McLovin!" He screams it like that. Ah, it's great.
JH: And when they're like, "Fuck that, we're calling you McLovin," the whole crowd goes crazy. It's just great, man, and I remember specific conversations, like way before we shot the movie, with Seth and Evan, like, "Does McLovin work? Is the name too cheesy?" You conceptualize this stuff a lot, like, "Will this work, will people get sick of this joke?"
MC: Especially since you audition so many times. So we said it, heard it, so many times, you get sick of it. There's one joke that's in the movie—
JH: The Irish R&B singer one?
MC: It was in the original script, like, "McLovin? What are you, an Irish R&B singer?" I said that line a million times in the audition, and every time I had to say it, nobody laughed. And it's in the movie still, and when people hear it for the first time and haven't heard it a million times, it's different, you have to get past that, get past how sick of the thing you are.
JH: I think that's part of the reason why we improvise so much, is because otherwise, the job would be so monotonous. Imagine saying the same thing over and over for a whole day, not bad in the sense that I'm bitching about the job, whatever, it's, like, amazing, but there's such an excitement to hearing Michael say something new, or him hearing me saying something we haven't heard before that makes us laugh, that makes the day exciting. And it also gives Greg and Judd a ton of options to choose from. Cause we test-screen it so much that if this joke doesn't work, let's put in this joke, let's test this. The audience can decide whether they like something, you can tell, if you listen to the audiotapes. That joke was so unfunny to us by the time we shot the movie, the Irish R&B singer bit. I was just like, "I can't even—" But then when you hear the crowd, you're like, "Holy shit, man!"
MC: "These people haven't heard this a million times!"
JH: [Laughs.] Yeah. "These people are only going to see this once, maybe twice. Or not at all."
MC: "They'll never get sick of it!" [Laughs.]
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