Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis star in ‘Due Date’, Todd Phillips’ follow-up to the hit comedy ‘The Hangover’.
Todd Phillips delivered one of the biggest comedy hits of recent times with his 2009 film ‘The Hangover’. Its popularity propelled Zach Galifianakis, who played the film’s most memorable character Alan Garner, from cult stand-up comedian (check his DVD, ‘Live At The Purple Onion’, to see his unconventional style in action) to bona fide movie star.
Phillips and Galifianakis are reunited in ‘Due Date’ and they’re joined by Robert Downey Jr. who plays Peter Highman, a man desperate to get home to witness the birth of his child. Unfortunately, an incident with aspiring actor Ethan Trembley (Galifianakis) sees the pair kicked off their flight, leaving the odd couple with no option but to hit the road together.
Galifianakis will also be seen in Phillips’ sequel to ‘The Hangover’, which is due out in the summer.
Clash met the trio ahead of the movie’s DVD release.
This movie is really about fatherhood – about becoming a father and losing a father.
Todd Phillips: I think that’s exactly right. You know, while it is a road movie and it is a comedy, at its core it’s a movie about Zach’s character, Ethan Tremblay, who’s going through a trauma, having just lost his father, and Robert’s character, Peter Highman, who’s about to become the father for a first time. And about why they needed to meet at this moment, and why Robert needed to travel with this kind of man-child who was going through this traumatic experience but really is a purely loving creature, much like a child would be, who just needs some adjustments, I guess.
Why did that story of fatherhood resonate with you?
Phillips: I think it’s just an interesting take on it. For me, personally, it was an interesting movie to make. I started making movies about college kids. I sort of grow with my movies. They’re always about my age range, it feels. And that’s sort of the next step in life, having a kid or what have you, and fatherhood. So, it just seemed like an interesting thing to mine, both for emotion and for comedy.
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As a follow-up to that, Robert, were you channeling a bit of Todd in this, or the look for your character?
Robert Downey JR.: Oh, well, I’m actually glad you asked that, because I think that every time I feel that I really hit critical mass and I’m in the right place is when I feel like the director and I become a third thing, and that’s the character. And even though the central subject of the movie is Ethan, the person who you’re kind of seeing it through is Peter. And absolutely, particularly when he said, ‘This is just a lot of hostility,’ and there’s a lot of fear. His attitude and his anger are covering that fear. And we like to commiserate. We’re genuinely pretty happy guys, but we love just getting crabby together. He is kind of like a hostage child that we’ve taken, who is watching mom and dad or dad and dad. They just hash it out. But you’re the first person who’s asked that, and I think it’s absolutely true. I always feel like I’m playing an aspect of the director, particularly when he’s an auteur. To me, it’s a way of almost making him a proud parent. I’m a bit of an appendage of some aspect of the director.
Was it refreshing and a pleasure to play a character who had not been watered down but had so many real, yet repellant moments in their arc?
Downey JR.: Absolutely, and I don’t know why, but it was an invitation to me to get in touch with everything that annoys me about everyone, and all the fear I have about everything that everybody can relate to. So, in a way, I felt like I was a conduit to this. I’m not a method guy. I can’t be bothered to have a method. I just want to be part of a good movie, and I can’t stand being surrounded by morons. But we had such a great group of people, and the whole thing, it’s funny, because yeah, you could say this is a two-dimensional commercial comedy. I feel that this is the second greatest story ever told.
The first being?
Downey JR.: Oh, come on! The Bible.
Zach, is this character closer to your stand-up persona than the other film characters you’ve played?
Zach Galifianakis: No, I don’t think that Ethan Tremblay is anything like me. God, I hope not. My stand-up is more like how I am in real life. I don’t really do a character thing in stand-up; it’s just a bunch of sentences that are supposed to be funny. This Ethan guy is a lot more complicated, I think.
Your character makes random statements that end up being funny. What are his reasons for doing that?
Galifianakis: Well, his reasons are not intentional, I think. I mean, when you’re doing stand-up, you’re kind of doing, ‘Hey, I thought of this. This may be funny.’ But Ethan has no idea he’s being funny. And I think people that are not self-aware and kind of a truck with no brakes are really kind of funny. He’s saying things, but he doesn’t understand why they’re funny, which I think is inherently funny.
Can you talk about the opportunities that have been opened up for you with the success of The Hangover and how your character has become something of an icon to the degree that it’s a Halloween costume?
Galifianakis: We were shooting Due Date in Albuquerque last year for Halloween and I went to a Halloween party. I didn’t really know anybody, and I went with a couple people from work. And I was just dressed like this. And there was a guy there dressed as the character from The Hangover, and I thought it would be interesting to walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, you’re dressed as me. I’m the real person.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, right.’ And he just walked away. [Laughs] So that’s a little bit freaky. And, as far as opening opportunities, well, Todd has told me of late that I’ve never thanked him for anything and I’m here just to say that probably he’s not gonna do it today. [Laughs] Todd helped me. He took a chance, I think, and plucked me out of the stand-up scene. Nobody knows a movie’s gonna be so big and we just got lucky. I got lucky and I’m thrilled that it happened.
Due Date is out now on Blu-ray and DVD, courtesy of Warner Home Video.
This interview appears in the latest issue of Clash Magazine out now. Subscribe to Clash magazine.
