Jonah Hill stars in The Sitter, an R-Rated romp that takes all the babysitting films of the past (we’re talking to you Adventures in Babysitting!) and puts them to shame. Hill sat down to talk about The Sitter and his experiences filming the outrageous comedy. The actor plays Noah, a twenty-something guy who’s a little more lost than found. “He just got kicked out of college. His girlfriend treats him awfully. He’s kind of in a rut,” Hill said.
But, Noah has a heart and takes the babysitting gig to help his mom meet the man of her dreams. “His mom hasn’t had a date in a long time, so he agrees to babysit these kids so she can go out on this date. Then, all hell breaks loose,” Hill said and smiled wryly.
Hill also reported that he, producers and The Sitter director David Gordon Green wanted to set their film apart from the other babysitting movie kin in Hollywood’s past. “There are all these movies that were made where it comes down to: You don’t want this guy watching your kids. Those can be kind of cheesy movies. The point of us making this movie is you really, really don’t want this guy watching your kids. They might die or worse,” Hill said with a laugh.
The Sitter doesn’t work without a stellar group of child actors working alongside Hill -- after all, they spend the entire movie together. “Max (Records), Kevin (Hernandez) and Landry (Bender) were so cool and fun to work with. I like improvising a lot, and kids are unexpected in their choices and comments. So the director kind of let them run loose and I would just react. It adds a whole nother level of spontaneity because their brains are so ADD and crazy. They go to strange places that are cool for me to act with them,” Hill said. “I would work with kids again if they were like Max, Kevin and Landry. They would come up with fresh and new things for their characters that none of us expected.”
So, is Hill happy with his final result? “I think we made the punk rock, crazy insane version of the babysitter movie,” Hill said. “It’s me with a bunch of kids. It’s as hardcore as you would want, and expect that to be.”
Sam Rockwell also stars in The Sitter and the traditionally trained actor brought his A-game to the comedy. In fact, one could argue that Rockwell steals the movie from his more trained comedy co-stars. “Sam Rockwell is legitimately one of our generation’s great actors. He’s really well regarded,” Hill said. “Obviously it’s a silly comedy and not Shakespeare or anything, but Sam really got into it and made it a real guy. It’s so funny and it adds so much to the film.”