If you are going to change so many details of their lives, why use their real names?
I love films that play with or switch the versions of real events and real people. In this case it’s probably just simplicity of continuing what we’ve done before. It just felt like it kind of came out of their conversations. They had conversations about their career, about families, about their different views of the world and it just felt like it would be much richer and simpler if they were expressing those as themselves rather than trying to create a kind of character that explains who they are. We thought that it would be much freer, and funnier and actually engaging as well, playing the variations of themselves. I think it’s what a lot of comedians do anyway. With stand-up comedians there’s a big overlap between who they are really and the character they portray onstage. They’re talking and being funny and exaggerating but it overlaps very closely who they are.
Brydon and Coogan are very funny, as always, but there is a melancholy overlay to the film. Why do you include some sad and scary scenes in what is essentially a comedy?
The melancholy is just coming from two people at 50 who’re suddenly talking about 50 being a prime year but aware of getting older. I think they are talking quite honestly about their careers, their family and their hopes and in a way that hopefully people can recognize there’s always a slight melancholy to that once you get beyond a certain point.
That may be why they seem to be more comfortable in this one.
[Laughs] I’m not sure that it shows on screen but definitely making it was probably the most enjoyable in terms of their relationship. It is so tricky. The idea in the fiction that they have these different views of the world and that can be a conflict. In the real world they genuinely have their different views of the world but they’re not really in conflict. They recognize that both perspectives are necessary. Because what they’re saying actually overlaps quite closely to what they believe, that can be quite an interesting area when they move away from the lunch table then what bits hang over. It was definitely enjoyable to make so I hope it’s enjoyable to watch.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmoqakmr%2B3tcSwqmismJp6tbTIq5tmm5%2Bqv7SxjKagnKCRmrluw8inq56qkqTBtbvMZqanZaSdsm7A0aKnZqyfYsCxrcin