Paul Rudd and Jason Segel had brief moments of screen time in "Knocked Up" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" but in their new film "I Love You, Man" opening this weekend, the two comedy stars share quite a bit of "bromance" on screen. Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a man who has gone most of his life focused on his romantic relationships rather than his guy friendships. So when he proposes to his girlfriend Zooey (Rashida Jones), he's left with a dilemma that few men have: Who will be his best man? He meets a man named Sydney (Segel) in the quest to find a best male friend and while the two seem to hit it off, they find that perhaps they were meant for each other...er, in terms of being friends.
We talked to both Paul and Jason recently at a New York City press day.
Q: Did you two hit it off while working on ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall?’
JASON: It started a little bit during "Knocked Up," and we didn’t have very much screen time but we were on the set together a lot. And then "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" it was cool, it was an insulated environment and we were shooting at the same hotel we stayed at so after shooting every day we’d go hang out at the pool bar and we’d really start to get to know each other better then, but I think that’s where we got a real chance to improvv together a lot and I think we both felt like we were good foils for each other.
I think that we’re complementary as actors and then once you know someone’s rhythms like that it’s sort of like a basketball team that’s played together for five years. I know where Paul’s gonna be when I need to do a no-look pass and he knows I’ll catch the lob and dunk it home.
PAUL: For what it's worth I'm horrible at basketball.
JASON: He doesn’t even understand my analogy.
Q: Your characters are hardcore Rush fans and you two bond over them. Were you both Rush fans growing up?
PAUL: I was.
JASON: I was as well. I got to know Rush during "Freaks and Geeks." I’m a little too young to have known Rush in their prime so I learned about them in "Freaks and Geeks."
PAUL: Growing up I was actually kind of into new wave music. Rush was the kind of band that guys in my school that scared me and could easily kick my ass would listen to. I remember being a little kid and seeing Geddy Lee on the 'Tom Sawyer' video and I found him to be particularly terrifying. But as I got older I started to appreciate the musicianship. I started to kind of getting into them. I remember listening to them and being like, "Dude, ‘Red Barchetta’." So when I heard that they were going to be in this film I was super excited and really nervous to meet them, not because I was scared of them because I'm not scared of them anymore, but I was really psyched. They were great, great guys and it was so cool that they said yes.
JASON: They are the perfect band for two guys to bond over and alienate a woman. How many girls like Rush?
Q: Has this film changed the way that you feel about man love? Do you find yourselves more affectionate to your other guy friends?
JASON: Paul and I have never had an issue like that. I don’t know. We’re not alpha male type guys.
PAUL: I think that most of my friends for my entire life, we've been able to wear our hearts on our sleeves a little bit and might not be considered macho bullshit alpha male stuff.
JASON: When Jon Favreau was doing the movie we had an interviewer come to set and Paul and I were there and Jon Favreau is being interviewed and she asked him, "So do you consider yourself a guy’s guy" and he looked at Paul and I and said, "In this group I do."
Q: Who cracked who up the most?
JASON: We certainly cracked each other up a lot. I actually also would crack up at how much Paul would crack up at these references he would think of.
PAUL: I think that Paul cracked up at Paul the most. There are many, many things. I cracked up at everybody. Hugo killed me with the whole pissing on my face with the urinal cake. Jason kept doing the toast and would introduce it differently every time. He'd say, "Lets give the food a round of applause –" and I'd lose it. I found on this movie more than anything that if I started to laugh I just couldn't stop.
JASON: The one I remember the most is the breakup scene between Paul and I, which I just thought was a brilliant scene by the way separately from that, to have a proper breakup scene between two male friends I thought was just really funny and when it got to the part about give the [Lost: Season 2] DVDs back. It took 45 minutes for Paul to be able to do it without laughing.
PAUL: But this is why: It's the seriousness and earnestness and saying "that hatch." It's a simple thing. It wouldn't be as funny if it was "the hatch." It's so ludicrous that we're breaking up and she's just curious about what's going on in that hatch.
JASON: What made me laugh is I haven't even seen "Lost."
PAUL: I have and I know what that means. For what it's worth, plenty other people in the crew had seen "Lost" and knew what I was talking about and still didn't find it funny.
Q: Are there things that went through as a child that made it easier for you to identify with this character on?
PAUL: Oh, yeah. I think that a lot of that moving around to different cities for me, both of my parents are British and I'm Jewish and I grew up in the Midwest. So it's like you have to adapt. My dad is hilarious and my mom, too. I had a sister who was born two and a half years after me and I knew that I had to do something to take all of the attention and that was probably when I started doing that, like, 'Maybe if I do this silly dance my parents will laugh.'
JASON: I got lucky because I joined the basketball team when I was 15 years old because I was so wildly tall. There is sort of a built in group of friends, which is sort of, relating it back to the movie, if you don’t have that thing where are you going to make the friends? It was a built in group of friends; we were together for four hours a day after school. You become friends.
Q: At what point in your life did you know comedy was for you?
JASON: I’ve been 6’4 since I was 12. You have two choices. When you’re 12 years old kids would stand around me in a circle and one would jump on my back and chant "Ride the oaf! Ride the oaf!" Those are the moments in life where you either go two ways. You become a real jerk or you become funny. My choice was funny.
PAUL: I moved around a lot as a kid and I wanted to make friends and anything kind of traumatic, I'd always deal with those traumas through humors. I was always drawn to comics and funny stuff. I liked watching comedies and comedians and things like that. I was not tough in any way or edgy. I wanted to play football but my mother told me that my bones were growing. You better be funny if that's case.
JASON: I also wore a Superman cape under my clothes until I was 12 years old.
Q: You guys just did the Vanity Fair shoot and people are labeling you guys as the new legends of comedy. How does that feel?
JASON: I feel like it’s a gross overstatement. I’ve done one and a half successful movies [laughs]. That doesn’t a legend make. It’s a great headline and very flattering..
PAUL: I think we were all honored they would ask us to be in the magazine, let alone on the cover.
JASON: The thing that’s most exciting for us is that we’ve known each other for a long, long time and a lot of us have struggled together. I met Seth [Rogen] the day he got off the plane from Canada. Jonah [Hill] and I basically went to high school together; we went to different high schools but we were only a year apart in the same city. The fact that we made it through what were some tough times for all of us, that was the thing that got me most when I saw the cover, [the feeling of] ‘Wow. Wow. We did it a little bit.’
There’s never a feeling, I don’t think as an actor or as a human being, I don’t think you ever have the feeling of I’ve arrived. I don’t buy into all that. I think no matter how well you’re doing there’s always the people you still admire. Like I very much admire Paul Rudd, and want to get the parts that he gets. And I’m coming for you [laughs].
"I Love You, Man" opens in theaters this weekend.