Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade have gathered at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills to talk to Movie Fanatic about their new comedy, The Watch. The trio are joined on the big screen by their Neighborhood Watch leader Ben Stiller, who told us in our The Watch interview that “I love working with these guys!”
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It’s easy to see why as the comic actors have a rapport that is hilarious, even when the camera is not shooting. It is painfully clear as Vaughn, Ayoade and Hill sit in front of us, cracking each other up.
Movie Fanatic: Vince, your character is quite the protective father of a teenage girl. Is that something you will have an art-imitate-life moment later with your daughter?
Vince Vaughn: My daughter is just nineteen, twenty months now, so I’m a long way from that.
Jonah Hill: What do you do when a guy rings a doorbell for prom?
Vince Vaughn: That happened the other day. She’s too young to make her own decision. They have to walk before they fly. But for the character, he clearly has a real friendship with his daughter. The other fun part was he's a guy who takes being a father very seriously, but he is really doing The Watch because he wants some guys to hang out with. Thankfully I’m a long, long way from answering any of those questions as far as being protective. But I have encouraged her to get on some motorized vehicles, that kind of stuff. I threw her in the pool, but she swam, so it’s fine.
Movie Fanatic: [Laughs] We never see the alien ship in The Watch trailer or in the film. Do you think it was important to keep the special effects to a minimum to emphasize the comedy? You never had to use tennis balls taped to a stick for an alien…
Richard Ayoade: I did still use tennis balls in my process, though.
Jonah Hill: Even when I acted with Richard he would tape a tennis ball to my forehead -- even though I was an actual person.
Richard Ayoade: Yeah, I find it weird to not look at people if they don’t have tennis balls attached to them in some way. I just… it didn’t feel true.
Movie Fanatic: Richard was the only one who stuck around for the orgy in The Watch…
Jonah Hill: You were throwing orgies through that whole time of shooting?
Richard Ayoade: Yeah. It was method.
Vince Vaughn: You go to Richard’s house and it’s just a ton of tennis balls and then a lot of noise.
Richard Ayoade: Yeah. That’s a passion throughout my life and that’s why I love Wimbledon so much [laughs].
Movie Fanatic: What do you want audiences to take away most from The Watch?
Vince Vaughn: I think the fun of it is that all the characters are kind of unique in their own ways, struggling with their own things, and this kind of larger circumstance will kind of bring them all together. Ultimately, I think you see a friendship or an understanding between the characters. It’s more about them being faced with something extraordinary.
Movie Fanatic: Jonah, you have done well lately doing both comedy and drama. Is that something you hope to keep doing?
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Jonah Hill: I really like doing dramas. I really like doing comedies, and they are both really different. This was, I can say, the hardest I’ve ever laughed just being around the group of people while you are making a movie. On a drama set that generally is not the case. These guys are people who have made me laugh for a long time, people who I’ve learned a lot from watching their movies before I was ever in movies. I honestly… could not have had a better time making this movie with this group of guys.
Richard Ayoade: I’ve never been in a film before, so I feel uniquely unqualified to add to this…
Jonah Hill: Is this your first movie ever, really?
Richard Ayoade: Yeah, I’ve never been in a film. Not really. I think maybe for a day. There were several days when I was like, “Why are Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill looking at me? Oh! I’m in a scene with them. I ought to start trying to act back.” But yeah, that didn’t happen until late in the film. Until then it’s just a record of my bewildered face [laughs].
Vince Vaughn: Richard is so funny. It was so fun. He brought such an original voice and great ideas and is just funny in the movie. That’s the thing in life that we all remember. Sometimes it’s really good to go and not take things seriously and get a chance to laugh. This movie does that really well. You get a bunch of guys together from different walks of life and at the end of the day there’s a lot of laughter and a lot of camaraderie. For me, what I love about comedies is that it helps us laugh and brings us all closer together.
Jonah Hill: Are you crying?
Vince Vaughn: [Pretending to] No!