Edited by Gina Catalano
Q: What aspect of your characters do you love the most?
Steve Carell: Boy, I love the innate intelligence of Brick. He’s sort of the counterintuitive quality of his character, I think, is what appeals to me.
Paul Rudd: And as far as Brian goes, I think I like his musky sexualized idiocy.
Q: You are at a point in your career where you can choose what projects you want to work on. What is it about “Anchorman” that made you want to revisit it?
PR: Oh man. For me, mainly it was like working with these guys again who I love. And, you know, it was such a blast doing the first one that I want – I would jump at the chance to come back and beat a dead horse.
SC: I think we all felt exactly that same way. We all just wanted to do it for the sake of doing it, and I think we all would have done it in a vacuum. Even if there was no film and any camera, we would have come back and done it, because it’s so much fun.
Q: Paul, your character uses this cologne cabinet in the first movie and his Jimmy cabinet in the upcoming movie to not-so successfully seduce women. And Steve, your character has trouble putting a sentence together around women. So I’m wondering what advice you guys would give to college guys trying to pick up girls.
SC: If I could be a little more specific, Brick has trouble putting a sentence together around anything, regardless of their sex.
PR: I would say to guys, college guys, drop the cologne. No one likes it. Use your – you know, your own natural…
SC: Musk.
PR: Your own natural musk which will bring the ladies in in busloads.
SC: I would say you have to listen. You have to open your heart and open your ear and you have to listen and appreciate the person that you’re with.
PR: Yes, you’re right, Steve. It’s kind of all about communication.
SC: It’s all about communication, Paul.
Q: There’s a lot of buzz about some big name cameos going down in this movie, such as Kanye, Drake, Sasha Baron Cohen. How do you go about recruiting people for this?
SC: Well, we didn’t because we’re just the actors. All of those people that you said are actually not in the movie.
Q: Are you lying or is that true?
SC: I don’t know. Am I?
PR: Yes, you just have to see it.
SC: You know what? The way Adam and Will, I think – I think people were sort of calling them to get into the movie. I don’t think there was much arm bending to get – to get people in. And I think it was the same on the first one. You know, all those cameos that we had and the big fight scene in the first one, people just wanted to be a part of the silliness. So I think the same holds true for this one.
PR: I also think a lot of people like Adam and Will too and, you know, we’re all – we’re all – I feel lucky enough to be in their orbit.
Q: Originally, “Anchorman” was pitched to be a play on Broadway for the sequel. What would have been the best part about seeing your characters on the stage?
PR: That’s great. Yes, we were going to – it was a musical, right?
SC: Yes. That was the part I was excited about, was the fact that at any given moment, the characters could just break into song. The idea of that happening, just great. I also liked the idea that there were, at that point in time, enough people had been clamoring for an “Anchorman” sequel and the idea of doing it as a musical on Broadway just really, I thought, was funny and annoyed people. Clearly, not enough people felt the same way because it didn’t and will never happen.
Q: What is one song each of your characters would have sung if it made it to Broadway?
SC: I think I would’ve – I would’ve sung a song called Gravy.
PR: And I would have sung 565,600 Minutes.
Q: How are you able to balance between working on different ranges of films, going from an indie film to Hollywood blockbusters and sequels such as “Anchorman”?
PR: Well, this is Paul. It was a blast. It was a blast to kind of come back to this part, these guys and these characters because, one, I mean, they were so – you know, they were so fun to do the first time around and we all had such a great time. But, you know, part of the spirit of what happened on the first “Anchorman” was that it felt like an Indie movie. It just felt like a very small kind of corky comedy that we thought was funny that did not seem particularly commercial. And that was kind of the way it was the first time around. And I think that spirit still existed this time around even though there were more eyes on us.
Q: How many of the jokes and gags are improvised on the set of “Anchorman”?
SC: A lot of the – well, the script was in great shape. We did a table read of the script, obviously, before we shot and it was hilarious. So we had that as a starting point. But on any given day, we or Adam or Will would come up with – I would (inaudible) as much material as was on the page. I mean, there were scenes that were supposed to be about a minute and a half that ended up being 10-minute scenes because people just (inaudible). And Adam Mackay has such a fertile mind. He sits at the monitor in his little tent with a microphone and just throws ideas out. And, you know, you can pick and choose. You don’t have to say what he’s giving you. But invariably you want to because it’s – everything that he says is kind of golden. So, yes, I mean, there were just so many fertile minds working. We ended up with way more material than we needed.
Q: So I feel like we’ve really gotten to know each other over the last seven minutes, so I kind of wanted to kick things up a notch. Say I’m lying on a table naked, covered in sushi. Where do you start eating first and why?
SC: Boxer briefs.
PR: What was the – what was the – wait, repeat the question. And after you repeat it, I’m going to ask you to repeat it again.
Q: OK, are you ready for this?
PR: I’m ready. Hold on, wait. I’ve got my pen. OK.
Q: OK, take note. So say I’m lying on a table naked, covered in sushi. Where do you start eating first and why?
SC: Well, I can – I’ll take a crack at this.
PR: OK.
SC: The place I would start eating first is McDonald’s because I don’t – I don’t eat sushi. Unless you have some tempura like laying on your foot, I might…
PR: And honest to god, I am not kidding here. The reason I asked you to repeat the question is because the first time I heard it, and I don’t know whether or not it was the connection with this phone, I thought you said covered in feces.
Q: The first “Anchorman” came out almost a decade ago. How difficult, as far as like the years have gone by and working on other movies, was it to get back into character for this movie?
PR: At times, it didn’t seem difficult at all, like I feel we know these characters pretty well. But I would say throughout the shoot, there were – there were many moments where I thought, oh god, am I doing this right? Am I – I felt where I – I felt a little off track. But I couldn’t tell whether or not I was in my head and I actually did remember or I was commenting on what I had done the first time.
SC: And the more lost I felt, the better that served me. The more out of sorts I felt, in general, the better I think that played into Brick. I am as a human being no smarter than I was 10 years ago, so that I haven’t improved as a human being. I haven’t evolved in any way. So that really helped me with Brick.
Q: What is your favorite scene that you can’t wait for “Anchorman” fans to see?
SC: Boy, there – I mean, there are a lot of them. There aren’t any specifics that I’d want to get into because, then, they wouldn’t be – you know, trying to explain something always is a little difficult. Like I would come home from a day of shooting and try to explain to my wife something really funny that happened and it definitely loses something in the translation. But, yes, there are – there’s so much more. You know, you look at the trailer and you think, wow, that’s – they put everything in that they could and that’s the entire movie. But there’s so much more than is in the trailer and funnier. So I’m kind of psyched about the whole thing.
Q: This question is for Paul Rudd. I’m wondering if we will see the return of the Sex Panther.
PR: Well, I can’t – you know, I can’t really give it away. I don’t want to say anything whether it does or whether it doesn’t. I want people to have questions going into this. I want – I want people to feel about this the way they feel about Lost in Translation, in a way. It’s like, remember, when Scarlett Johnson whispered into his ear and no one knows what she said. That’s the way I want people – I want that level of frustration.
SC: Well, you know what she did say.
PR: What? Yes, that is sex – is that a Sex Panther in your pocket or are you – yes, there you go. She called him a Sex Panther, did she?
SC: She did.
PR: Oh my god. Now the movie makes sense.
Q: What do you think about portraying the seemingly very serious job of news anchors in such a silly way?
PR: I feel pretty good about it.
SC: I feel good too.
PR: Sometimes I watch news anchors and I think they’re portraying themselves in a very silly way, much sillier than we could ever do.
