hella old
Meet the Superbad Guys
posted on Thursday October 18, 2007
Named by Premiere.com as two of the 20 hottest new faces of comedy today, young actors Jonah Hill and Michael Cera get catapulted from obscurity to instant stardom as their U.S. No. 1 hit “Superbad” continues to lord it over the American box-office, amassing an incredible $120-million gross and still rising.
The hilarious movie is a coming-of-age cautionary tale about two socially inept teenage boys about to graduate high school. Theirs is a ridiculously dependent friendship - but now, they've gotten into different colleges and are forced to contemplate life apart. Evan (Cera) is sweet, smart, and generally terrified. Seth (Hill) is foul-mouthed, volatile, and all-consumed with the opposite sex. This is the story of their misguided attempts to approach the objects of their affections in one panic-driven night... that awful, humiliating night you cherish for the rest of your life.
“The minute Jonah Hill opened his mouth on his audition tape for the role of Seth, I knew we had the guy,” says “Superbad” director Greg Mottola. “I felt really lucky, because I knew I didn’t really have to work that hard - Jonah would make me look good, no matter what.”
“It’s one of those crazy Hollywood stories that you hear sometimes,” says Hill who was previously seen in “Click” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” “You think stuff like that just doesn’t happen and then it happens. I’m lucky.”
Casting Evan was a much easier task. “I’d directed a couple of episodes of ‘Arrested Development,’ and was a big fan of Michael Cera,” says Mottola. “I’d seen what he was capable of. That show was filled with a lot of funny, talented people, and Michael completely held his own - sometimes, he was the best in the room.”
Mottola adds that Cera and Hill make a perfect combination: “Michael makes being sweet and dorky incredibly hilarious. Jonah makes being a vulgar loudmouth into something really kind of sweet.” Cera was the first actor cast and when Jonah fell into the mix, the filmmakers, unaware that the two already knew each other socially, and wanting to make sure they had chemistry, came up with a brilliant idea. “We wanted to force them to spend as much time as possible together,” recalls producer Shauna Robertson. “Judd said to me very early on, ‘Maybe we should make them live in the same apartment together!’” After all, this is a group that is well known for working with their own friends. Robertson explains, “We mostly make these movies to put our friends in awkward situations.”
“We did a lot of rehearsals and read-throughs before shooting,” says Cera. “Me and Jonah hung out a lot. It’s kind of funny the way they were trying to plan these hang-out dates for me and Jonah, when we were already hanging out.”
“There’s something just naturally funny about Michael and I together,” says Hill. “I think they put us together because there’s something weird about it - I’m brash and angry, while Michael is quieter, softer.”
Opening soon across the Philippines, “Superbad” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.
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