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Everything Must Go

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : Everything Must Go tells the story of NICK HALSEY (WILL FERRELL) a career salesman whose days of being on top are long gone. The same day Nick gets fired, for falling off the wagon one last time, he returns home to discover his wife has left him , changed the locks on their suburban home and dumped all his possessions out on the front yard.

Opens tomorrow, May 13, 2011 (Limited 5/13)

Runtime:1 hr. 36 min.

 

Interview with Actor Will Farrell

 

(Q) : Did you wake up and go I want to play something serious, get my Dan Rush’s script?

(Will Farrell) : No, Dan Rush’s script just came to me. They didn’t not give it to me. They were like, you know what, we just read this really great script that was kind of in the vein of “Stranger Than Fiction” and back to something like that. Because that experience was so great we’ve been looking to do something like that again. And I read it and I thought it was great. And I met Dan and he seemed like a good guy. The only bad news for Dan was, I said I’d love to do this but I can’t do it for another year and half. 

(Q) : Had you read any Raymond Carver before this?

(Will Farrell) : No, I haven’t. I’ve never come across him before. We read the original story. Dan sent me his short stories which made me like the script even more because I thought Dan’s script really captured the essence of Carver and kind of the bleak stark quality he has in a lot of his writing.

(Q) : Did you find it easy to do this? Was it a simply role to slip into?

(Will Farrell) : Don’t know if I found it easy. It was definitely challenging and at the same time, I think, because we talked about it so much, we talked about what the tone would be, every discussion from is this guy a hard alcohol drinker, is he a beer drinker. Every sort of detail that we really discuss and had a game plan going in to where I felt as secure as I could feel going into something like this. And I’ve always felt that even in the comedies that I’ve done, I’ve always tried to approach it – regardless of how outlandish my character might be, you still play it very real. So that isn’t any different from how I approached this movie.

(Q) : If you had this giant garage sale, which items would you want to keep, which ones would be embarrassing?

(Will Farrell) : I would definitely keep my helicopters, most of my helicopters. (LOL)

(Q) : Do you have a helicopter?

(Will Farrell) : I have six helicopters, yes. I’ve never had a yard sale, ever, in my life. I don’t know if I ever thought about stuff I would get rid of.

(Q) : You’ve never done a complete purging?

(Will Farrell) : I’ve done one complete purging when I gave up my New York apartment after I did Saturday Night Live and I started to ship my stuff back to my apartment in Los Angeles. And then I just called the moving company and was like, “Do you want the futon or the IKEA dresser? Is there anything you can do with it?” And they were like, “If you give us $50 more we can do something with it.”

(Q) : What would you say to your fans to prepare them for this movie?

(Will Farrell) : I think it’s an opportunity to obviously see me in a different type of film. It’s a pretty unique performance. I don’t know if I’ve been able to express myself in a way that I get to in this movie. So if you like me, it’s just a fun thing to see me to.

(Q) : What are you looking for in a director?

(Will Farrell) : When you hear that you’re going to be working with a first time director, that can be a concern to people. That was one of the reasons why Dan and I met a bunch because I wanted to see what his thoughts were on the script and what his plan of attack was. And in talking to Dan, he didn’t talk like a first time Director, he was someone who really knew what he wanted to do and had specific ideas.

And at the same time was willing to be flexible and work with all of the department heads and actors and that sort of thing. So on the one hand you have to be this dictator and on the other hand you have to be able to scrap it and that kind of versatility was something that I was really impressed with. 

(Q) : Did you have some freedom to your shtick?

(Will Farrell) : Dan was a task master, he would not allow me to stray. We improvised a little, you have to keep in mind it was a 23 day shooting schedule and so much of the movie was a day time exterior and we were keeping track of our film stock.  Three or four takes was all we got, so that didn’t really lend itself to improvising. But I felt the material was so strong it didn’t really call for it in a way.

(Q) : Did you give Christopher Jordan(Kid Actor)any advice? 

(Will Farrell) : I don’t know if we had to, he’s so gifted and natural in his delivery. We talked about, because of the constraints we just talked about, we really needed a young actor who could like hit the ground running and there wasn’t going to be a lot of time for hand holding or extra rehearsal and he was on top of it from the first go.
I remember the first take he did of some scene he did on the front lawn and he gave this first take on the first scene on his first day of work and it was so good. Dan came over to give a note to him and then we both looked at each other like, “He’s so good!” And he’s sweet and thoughtful and well prepared. He was great.

(Q) : On Broadway you were a natural, do you see yourself doing plays instead though?

(Will Farrell) : I would love to if the opportunity presented itself in a way that was a nice fit for me. 

(Q) : With the Office and this movie, are you consciously trying to shake things up in your career?

(Will Farrell) : It was more like the perfect storm to do some different things. I thought it would be fun to do some different things. I was inspired by James Franco being on a soap opera (LOL). But that’s literally one of those things that you read and go, “That’s so funny, such a cool move!” So in the vein of that, I think it’s fun to always keep people guessing.  

 

End.