Close-Up: Jonah Hill
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 29-Oct-07 @ 06:34 PM
Superbad to the bone.JONAH HILL might not be your typical leading man, but the 24-year-old has already stolen screen time from some comedy heavyweights with memorable cameos in films like I TM Huckabees, Evan Almighty and Knocked Up. This month, Hill once again teams with co-writer Seth Rogen and producer Judd Apatow for his first full-fledged starring role in Superbad, where he and his co-dependent best friend Michael Cera (best known as George-Michael from TV's Arrested Development) desperately attempt to get laid before they graduate from high school. Not that any of us can relate. INTERVIEW: Jonah Bayer PHOTO: Neil Visel You went to school for writing. How did you make the transition to acting? While I was going to college at the New School in New York, I started doing these weird performance things at a bar in the East Village called Black & White. It was this open mic thing where people told stories and it was really serious, so I decided I should write a fake story and perform it, but not tell anybody it was fake. They were all really fucked-up and crazy, but no one knows they weren't real except a couple of my friends. What were they about? The first one was about how my dad had an affair with his Native American secretary and I was the only one in the family who knew, and it made me harbor all these ill feelings toward Native Americans. There was also another one about how I spent a lot of time at the Neverland Ranch growing up because my dad worked there, stuff like that. So you landed a role in I TM Huckabees through that? Yeah, eventually I became friends with Dustin Hoffman's kids and when their dad was in town we'd all hang out and go to dinner. It was really weird and surreal. That summer I went back to L.A. and one day Dustin called me and told me to come to a house in Brentwood. No one answered the door, so I just walked in. And in the living room were Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin, Jason Schwartzman and some other people, and they were reading the script for I TM Huckabees and listening to this prank call CD I'd made for Dustin. The next day I auditioned and [got] my first movie. You star alongside Michael Cera in Superbad. Were you a big Arrested Development fan before you started working with him? Oh, yeah, man. I am a massive fan, so for the first two weeks it was really hard not to call him George-Michael just because that's what I knew him as. It was intimidating because that guy was 17 or 18 when were shooting and he's so fucking funny. He's intimidatingly funny. There are definitely parts in the film where you can just look at his face and start laughing. Yeah, he's one of those guys who can totally express how uncomfortable it is to be in life sometimes. [Laughs.] Even on the set sometimes I'd see him and be like, "Are you okay? You look so uncomfortable right now." You just want to give him a hug and tell him it's going to be all right. Speaking of uncomfortable, you guys share a pretty intimate scene in the movie. Which one? The "I love you" scene? Right. In print this is going to sound so lame, but while we were shooting that I turned to Michael and said, "This is going to be the funniest scene in the movie," which I agree with. I think that scene to me is what that movie is all about; it's about two best friends who really love each other-and that's why the movie works, because you believe we really care about each other. That's a sentiment you don't really see in guy films, but you see it in chick flicks all the time. Totally. I mean the movie is about two friends who spent their whole high school and childhood years being inseparable because they were the only two people who made each other feel normal. Even though it's a really filthy movie, at the core of it these guys are really bummed that their relationship is going to change. Was there any added pressure knowing this was your first starring role or that Seth Rogen spent 10 years writing the script? I really tried not to think about that stuff while I was making the movie because I was so nervous. It's the only movie I've ever been in where if you hate me, you'll hate the movie. I've never really felt that pressure because normally I'm just a funny guy in the movie who comes in and makes a joke or two. And, yeah, dude, Seth is one of my best friends. I just didn't want to fuck up his movie. ALT CHEAT SHEET: Although he was only supposed to have one line as the eBay customer in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Hill's improv skills led to roles in Accepted and Knocked Up; this month he reunites with producer Judd Apatow for his first starring role in Superbad. THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE When asked what he's been rocking on his iPod, Hill, a self-proclaimed "music fanatic," becomes so palpably excited that he can barely contain himself. "When I was in Austin, Texas, I heard about this band called Rock Plaza Central," he says. "I don't know if you've heard of them, but they're fucking awesome. That would be my recommendation for a band that probably no one has heard of that I find to be amazing." Additionally, Hill is a huge Queens Of The Stone Age fan and is anxiously awaiting their next album, but in the meantime he's been listening to new discs by Beirut, Mando Diao and Albert Hammond Jr. When the subject of the Strokes guitarist comes up, Hill adds that living in New York during his college years definitely opened his eyes to a lot of new music. "While I was there, I got totally brainwashed by the hipster community. I used to be into the Rent soundtrack-and then all the sudden everything changed and I was in a blissful place." [JB] |
