These roles are so much closer to who I am in my real life—but it makes you feel really vulnerable. I was exposing my secrets in a way I’ve never felt before. In MacGruber, I run around naked with a piece of celery up my butt. [Laughs.] That’s the easy stuff. That’s just fun and stupid and easy. It’s just so much scarier, for some reason, to act like a normal person. In other things, you’d feel like you get to hide behind the character. There is nothing that makes me feel more secure than having a mustache. [Laughs.] It feels like a mustache is a security blanket covering my whole body, and when I don’t have a mustache it’s like, “Oh my gosh—I’m naked.” A nicely manicured mustache is a really nice thing.
AVC: Bob Odenkirk plays your brother in Nebraska. Did you and he compare your experiences in transitioning from comedy to drama?
WF: We didn’t really talk about it. He directed The Brothers Solomon, so we’ve known each other since that experience. So it was really fun to get to work with him like this. [On The Brothers Solomon], he was directing, he was in charge of the whole set, and you don’t get as much chance to spend as much time together as you like. On this, it was so much fun because Alexander had to do all that stuff, so Bob and I got a chance to hang out.
AVC: Did anyone ask Bob for Breaking Bad spoilers during production?
WF: Well, back then, I can’t remember where we were in Breaking Bad—I don’t think the first part of the final season had come out. And why would anybody want spoilers? That’d be crazy. I just finally saw the last couple episodes. I was behind, so I didn’t get to watch it the night that everybody watched it—I watched it about two weeks later. And what an amazing ending. That whole show was my favorite show of all time, but those last three episodes were so amazing.
AVC So you’re satisfied with the way Walter White went out?
WF: I am so satisfied. I don’t think I have ever been so satisfied with a series finale. It gave me exactly what I wanted as a viewer. I don’t know how everybody else felt—it’s generally been well received, right? I don’t see what else you could want out of an ending.
AVC: In other interviews, you’ve mentioned that you went into Nebraska as an Alexander Payne fan. What about his movies made you want to work with him?
WF: He’s got such a unique point of view on stuff. I saw Election and just loved it. That was such a funny movie. That was the first time I had ever heard of him—I never saw Citizen Ruth. Every movie that he’s made is so different it’s hard to put them in categories—they’ve got so much stuff going on. I’ve just always had so much respect for him because his comedy in his movies comes from such an interesting place—a grounded, realistic place. I’m used to doing such bonkers, absurd stuff that I’ve always respected the type of humor that he’s able to find in situations where you wouldn’t expect to find humor. I just never thought I’d get the chance to be in one of his movies. It’s been the most unexpected, delightful situation.
AVC: And the experience of working on Nebraska matched up with your expectations?
WF: Oh yeah. I had read the script and loved the script and knew that Alexander Payne was directing. I loved the character and felt this weird connection to him—I just never thought I’d have any chance at getting the part. But I said, “What the heck, I’ll put myself on tape.” I didn’t hear anything for four and a half months, which didn’t surprise me. I sent this tape off and immediately forgot about it because I thought, “This is not going to happen.” And then I got this call, out of nowhere, that [Payne] had liked the tape and wanted me to read the scenes with him in person. That blew me away. Just getting to that point was a major career highlight. So when I went in and did the scenes and he seemed to react positively there, it was another incredibly exciting thing. But I still didn’t think it would go any further than that. A month later I found out I got the job.
After getting the job, that’s when all the self-doubt set in. There was this period—it must’ve been four months—between when I got cast and when we started production, and I got really nervous about everything and overthought everything. I felt like every aspect was coming together in such a wonderful way—the script is so great, Bruce Dern is going to play my dad—that I had this real fear I would come in and disappoint everybody. I just didn’t want to screw up their movie. That was four months of internal brain warfare.
AVC: How did you get over those nerves?
WF: When we finally got out to Nebraska, we had a week before we started production. I think we called it a “rehearsal week,” but we didn’t rehearse—we just drove around to the different places that we would be working in and got to know each other as people. So by the time we started filming, it was so comfortable and fun. I’ll find something to get nervous about in any situation, so there were still nerves from time to time. But they were so good at relaxing me and making me feel like I was part of the gang. After that, it was just so fun to watch [Payne] work. He knows exactly what he wants, but I don’t know how to describe his directing style. It’s one of complete confidence, a relaxed confidence. He’s so relaxed that the rest of the crew just follows suit. It’s this wonderful set of really nice, super-mellow people who are really, really good at what they do.
AVC: Can you articulate what it was about David that made you connect with the character?
WF: I think it’s a bunch of stuff. I felt like the character is an overthinker himself. He’s certainly stuck in his life a little bit. Another thing was that I just had this relationship with my grandpa—my mother’s father—who was this wonderful man, and we loved each other very much, but he was a man of few words. So I was used to that kind of communication. That felt very familiar to me.
The family in this movie is nothing like my family, but there’s something so relatable about all of these characters. I feel like when people come out of this movie, there will be characters that they’ve seen in different parts of their lives. But mainly there was something about this guy that I can’t put my finger on. I just really felt like I knew who he was, and I don’t get that feeling very often when I read a script. If I do, nobody lets me play that part.
AVC: Bruce Dern and June Squibb get a lot of the big laughs in Nebraska. How did that square with your impulses as a comedian?
WF: It was my pleasure. I get to be a nutball all the time, so it was fun to see if I could be a realistic straight man. And not just a comedy straight man—I get to do drama stuff in this and it was terrifying and thrilling to try it out. And Bruce made it so easy, because he’s so good. When somebody really inhabits their character, it makes it so much easier to act off them. I don’t know if he knew how intimidated I was at the prospect of working with him, but he was so good to me—always supporting me and encouraging me. He’s just an awesome guy. He’s very talkative and vibrant—he’s the exact opposite of the person you see in the movie. The cameras would roll, and he would transform into this man of few words. There’s no trace of Bruce Dern in this character. It’s amazing.
AVC: Do you view Bruce and your fellow Nebraska co-star Stacy Keach as guys whose career paths you could base your own on?
WF: I would be the luckiest person in the world if I could have a career like those two guys. I have this picture that I took of the three of us—I think Stacy was wearing the sweat suit that he wears in the movie. Or maybe that was just his personal sweat suit. He is the epitome of cool to me. He’s like a jazzman. I don’t know if he’s into jazz at all or anything, but he’s just really cool and mellow and I loved the chance to even be around those guys. Listen to them talk and tell old stories—they worked together before a long time ago.
And June Squibb? She’s so great in this—and she’s the exact opposite of her character, too. A very sweet, wonderful woman who plays this crazy, acerbic person. They were just so wonderful to me, in being teachers and buddies.
AVC: Can you walk us through the process of punching the epitome of cool?
WF: It was nerve-racking. I am a peaceful person so I have never been motivated to punch anybody, because nobody’s ever done anything to my family. To punch somebody, I would need that “mom lifting the car from her baby” situation or something.
So there’s this stuntman who tried to teach me how to throw a realistic-looking punch—to make it look like someone would punch and make it look like it’s connecting with Stacy Keach’s face. We choreographed this whole punch, and it’s maybe from a distance of four feet? Something pretty far away, but with the camera it’s supposed to look realistic. But when we got in there to film the scene, the distance was half that. So I had worked out this arm motion, but now I was supposed to do that at half the distance. I was so nervous, because I had to turnaround and then turn back around and basically go right into the punch. I was nervous that I was going to hit him. I kept throwing the punch wrong because I was so nervous about it that I didn’t want to get anywhere near his face.
And he would keep taking this punch—he was perfect every time. Everything looked perfect on his end. We just had to keep doing it because I couldn’t throw a punch that connected with him. So finally, we got one. But it was something that was on my mind the entire time. “Do not punch Stacy Keach in the face.” But if I did connect with his face, something tells me that he would not even get a scratch on him—and my hand would break. He is a hunk of man.
