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Paul

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : Two sci-fi comic geeks embark upon a pilgrimage in a RV to the center of America's UFO heartland: Nevada's infamous Area 51. While in the middle of the desert, the two friends encounter a fugitive alien by the name of Paul. Somewhat reluctantly , they embark upon an adventure that will change not just their lives, but also the lives of the friends and enemies they encounter along the way.

Opens Friday, March 18, 2011

Runtime:1 hr. 44 min.

Q&A with Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jason Bateman, Greg Mottola

(Q): I heard you guys, Simon and Nick, watched some movies to get psyched for making “Paul.” Is that true, and what films did you watch?
 
(Nick Frost) : We watched “Close Encounters” and “E.T.” and that was it; we took the rest of the day off.
 
(Simon Pegg): When we made “Hot Fuzz” me and Edgar watched a lot of action films, but I think Nick and me felt fairly qualified when we started writing “Paul.” We’d spent our life watching these movies, and it was more a question of learning about America. So what we did to prepare for “Paul” was we took the rode trip that Graeme and Clive take in the movie and we went from California to Colorado in an RV. And that was the best thing we could have ever done to learn about what it’s like to travel across land. We’ve been airport to airport but it’s such a huge place, America, it’s shocking, it’s amazing.
 
(Q): What were some of your favorite stops along the way?
 
(Nick Frost): Utah, we liked Utah very much. There was a lot of snow. We stopped at a lot of barbeques kind of everywhere we went, didn’t we?
 
(Simon Pegg): Canyon of Fire.
 
(Nick Frost) : Canyon of Fire, that was very nice. It wasn’t on fire when we were there.
 
(Simon Pegg) : What about Casper, Wyoming?
 
(Nick Frost) : Very nice. We stopped there and had a shower in an 8 motel.
 
(Simon Pegg) : Not together.
 
(Q): Is it true that this movie has been in your head since the “Shaun of the Dead” era?
 
(Simon Pegg) : Yeah, it came out of a conversation we had in the garden. We were throwing records at zombies in “Shaun of the Dead” and we were having trouble with the weather, and Nira Park, our producer of all since “Spaced,” she said “Why can’t we shoot something somewhere warm where it doesn’t rain?” And we kind of thought a desert and then that wasn’t a huge lead to an alien in Area 51, and we thought there’s got to be two British tourists and an alien, and that was the kernel of the idea for “Paul,” and it just stayed with us for seven years. And when Edgar went off to do “Scott Pilgrim” and Nira said “Should we make a movie as well?” we thought “Okay, we’ll do ‘Paul,’” because we had that idea, and that was how it happened.

(Q): Greg, what is it like working with these guys?
 
(Greg Mottola) : I was quite intimidated because they’ve had this incredible collaboration with Edgar Wright and I think Edgar’s an amazing filmmaker. But they made me feel really welcome immediately, they made me feel like I could make it my own film, that we could do something different, and you guys supported me throughout this whole process. We had way too much fun making this film.
 
 (Q): You were influenced by Spielberg as you were making this?
 
(Greg Mottola) : Well the script is such a love letter to Spielberg’s films and science-fiction particularly from the ‘70s and ‘80s. I could never be a savant filmmaker like Spielberg but I did try to get little pieces of it. Hopefully there’s a little bit of the magic in it toward the end of the film. The movie slowly turns into a Hollywood movie. It starts kind of as an indie road trip, and this is something Simon said to me early on when we first met about it, that it should be “’Little Miss Sunshine,’” and instead of Alan Arkin we have an alien.” And since I’m from the indie film world I was very excited to try and take the handheld techniques of indie filmmaking and try and mix an incredibly expensive CGI special effect into that.
 
(Q) : What was it like working with that CGI alien?
 
(Simon Pegg) : We got a real one in the end, fortunately. It worked out cheaper to actually pay for an alien to come to Earth. It’s cheaper than making a CGI. It was actually a very complex process that we had to figure out on the way. Because we said to Greg earlier on look, we want it to be kind of handheld, so you’re seeing this incredible creation. It’s like seeing Gollum in Fandango; it’s like a really weird juxtaposition of seeing a very sophisticated effect in quite a low-fi environment.

And we wanted that to come across, so first of all, we worked with Seth Rogan, who voices Paul in LA. We filmed the entire film on video with Seth wearing a performance capture suit, and then after that we went and filmed the movie in Santa Fe, and Joe Lo Truglio, who plays Agent O’Reilly in the movie, he played Paul on set so we had an actor to work with so we could get a conversation or rhythm going and it wouldn’t sound like we were just leaving a space for the script supervisor to read the lines in.

We actually improvised with Joe and had then Seth listen to what Joe had done on set and then re-voice the part again. And then Double Negative came in and created this extraordinary character, who after a minute of being on screen you just buy that he’s there. I take my hat off to Double Negative; they made everything that we wanted and more in Paul. He’s such an amazing little character.
 
(Q): I love to imagine Seth Rogan in a motion capture suite.
 
(Greg Mottola) : He looks like a bike messenger from space. He wears this camera on the end of his face strapped to his head so you can get just a wide angle shot of his face and all the brow movements, mouth movements. It’s very helpful for lip synching, but it kind of looked like he was a folk singer with a harmonica on all the time, like he was just going to break into “Mr. Tambourine Man” while wearing a bike messenger costume.
 
(Simon Pegg): He was in good shape because he was just about to go and shoot “Green Hornet,” so he actually looked pretty good in his onesie. Believe me.
 
(Q) : Jason, hello. Why don’t you tell us the name of your character, first of all?
 
(Jason Bateman) : My character’s name is Agent Zoil.
 
(Q) : What’s his full name?
 
(Jason Bateman) : First name is Lorenzo. And he is in hot pursuit of Paul. He is a government agent and Paul has escaped from Area 51 where we, the government, have been working with him for years. He’s tired of that and wants to go home, and it’s my job to get him back. Unfortunately for me, I got to every set that these guys were at like a day later, so it was me in a Crown Victoria for a few months out there in New Mexico. We did have some overlap and then at the end of the movie we have a nice scene together. For the most part I didn’t get to play with the cool kids.

 
(Nick Frost): We used to come on set and watch you though, because that was always a joy to watch you on the monitor.
 
(Jason Bateman) : Is that what it was?
 
(Nick Frost): Yeah. I’d sit and just stare at you on the monitor for hours.
 
(Q) : Your character is kind of a nasty little man.
 
(Jason Bateman) : How dare you.
 
(Q) : You’re usually such a lovable guy on screen.
 
(Jason Bateman) : Everybody get that? He is a very severe, humorless, government agent. He’s Tommy Lee Jones in “Men in Black,” He’s Yaphet Kotto in “Midnight Run.” Two of my favorite movies and two of my favorite characters, and so I got to rip all that off and do next to nothing. Combine that with Joe Lo Truglio and Bill Hader being more than funny you really don’t have to do much of anything except try not to screw up every take by laughing, which I only had like a 50% success ratio at.
 
(Q) : There are so many pop culture references in this movie. That’s expected I guess, coming from you, but it’s like one after the other. Was that one of your goals, to have more pop culture references than anything ever created?
 
(Simon Pegg): Yes. I don’t think we set out to do that. The thing is this film is in the tradition of lots of other films and we wanted to embrace that. We know we’ve seen Paul before. Part of the joke of the film is that Paul has had a huge influence on science-fiction cinema over the years because he’s been telling people what to do. He gave Spielberg the idea for E.T.’s healing ability; he gave the “Predator” people the camouflage thing. Mr. Miyagi’s clap.

He’s the cultural overlord of the world, and in that respect the film had to look back to other films as if Paul has influenced them, because it was a way for us to retroactively rip off everything ever and claim that it was our idea, or Paul’s at least. You can’t not acknowledge the cinema that’s gone before with a film like this. This is a comedy, it’s not original in its subject matter, so we wanted to accept that and say Paul is the child of many other aliens that have all had a big orgy and now here he is.
 
(Q) : How did you decide when to draw the line between what alien powers he has and what human qualities?
 
(Nick Frost) : I think it was just what we needed to fill in the script.
 
(Simon Pegg) : And what we’d seen before. Like the idea that he can revive a dead bird, he can camouflage himself, it was important that these talents that he had we had seen before. He had suggested them to various filmmakers. The mind-meld, he gave Gene Roddenberry the idea for Spock’s mind-meld.
 
(Q) : Before we see one more final clip I have two observations. One is you recreated Comic-Con in this film, right? You had to recreate the whole thing, and I thought, as somebody who goes every year, you did an amazing job of doing that.
 
(Greg Mottlola) : We were shooting right after Comic-Con happened, so a lot of the people who had booths there were very kind to come actually bring their stuff to Albuquerque and we filled up a section of a convention center. We weren’t such a big budget film that we could actually have the number of extras that you would see at a real day at Comic-Con, so we had to kind of shoot in a way that you weren’t aware of the fact that it’s just not the giant crush of people you see at Comic-Con.

When we looked around for extras that were willing to come in costume we found out people come from all over the United States in their Princess Leia slave outfits, and a lot of them happen to live in the Southwest and they were quite willing to drive themselves to Albuquerque to help us out, which was really sweet. We had a lot of slave Leia’s. And there’s a slave master; they come with a slave mater. It’s really weird.

 
(Nick Frost) : I think because it’s quite hot in the Southwest I think probably the best thing to wear is a gold bikini.
 
(Simon Pegg) : Yeah there are a lot less Chewbacca’s in the Southwest.
 
(Jason Bateman) : And when you’re tweaking you build up a real big sweat.
(Q) : Your t-shirts in the film are awesome. Did you have any input on your wardrobe?

(Simon Pegg) : That’s Nancy Steiner. We’ve got to give credit to our costume designer, Nancy, who is extraordinary and sourced all these amazing t-shirts for us. Then we had to clear them as well, so we had to phone up Lucasfilm and Marvel. There were a lot of no’s actually. A few people didn’t like the idea of their properties being associated with a dope smoking alien. I’m not sure who they thing reads their comics. Dan Clowes is a friend a friend of Greg, who draws for “Eightball,” and he did us a special cover for one of the comics in the film, and also I wear a t-shirt with one of his characters on it.
 
(Q) : What was it like doing this kind of humor, this kind of pop culture, comic book, geek humor, under an American lens instead of more of a British lens?
 
(Nick Frost) : For me it was exactly the same, but we got to play with some of America’s finest comedy talent.
 
(Simon Pegg) : Jason as well, which is great.
 
(Nick Frost) : It was a wonderful dream that because of “Spaced,” “Hot Fuzz,” and “Shaun of the Dead,” that kind of enables us to give a script to someone and it potentially gets read by the person you’d like it to be read by, as opposed to shredded. So we put it out there and we’re glad that everyone we wanted said yes so we got to play in New Mexico for three and a half months.
 
(Simon Pegg) : It was important for this film that it had an American lens because it’s about America, it’s about two aliens in America which is not Paul at all, it’s me and Nick. As a fan of Greg’s and having seen him do a great road pic in “Daytrippers,” but also treat a kind of screwball comedy with great sensitivity in “Superbad,” it seemed to us that he was the perfect person for the job, and we were right.
 
(Q) : Is this a lot different from anything else you guys have worked on before? And what things did you like about it and what did you like better about other projects you’ve worked on?
 
(Nick Frost) : The food was really nice, which it’s not like that on British films. They come round with a tray of sandwiches, but here it’s very nice. There’s a barbeque every day. It’s very civilized.
 
(Simon Pegg) : Hot and cold running Cheetos.
 
(Nick Frost) : Yes, that’s right. Slim Jim’s whenever you want. It’s amazing.
 
(Simon Pegg) : It is remarkable how similar the film industry is. Wherever you work, making a film is basically the same production structure, but for us it was the environment that was really different. Not least getting to work with some of our favorite actors and directors, but being in New Mexico and that setting and that enormous vista we were in a lot of the time was just mind blowing. It was exciting to be making a film in this sort of real heartland.

I literally was taken from the airport one night by Billy the Kid’s great, great, great, grandson, I shit you not. I’m sure he’s got lots and lots of grandchildren because he was a bit of a player, Billy, but this guy was absolutely, bona fide, related to Billy the Kid, and it was like how more authentic could this part of America be? And that was great fun.
 
(Nick Frost) : It’s nice to shoot a film in a place where you know any time of the day and night you can step out your front door and buy a dream catcher. That’s something you can do in New Mexico.
 
(Simon Pegg) : Or some meth as well.
 
(Q) : I saw a screening of “Paul” last month and it’s fabulous. Simon and Nick, can you tell us anything on the third installment of the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy?
 
(Simon Pegg) : Well I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Edgar Wright and myself have been emailing each other quite fervently over the last couple of weeks, and I think we’re going to try and write it this summer. So fingers crossed that we can get it done.
 
(Gregg Mottola) : And if Edgar falls sick somehow.
 
(Nick Frost) : Or dies in a crash or something.
 
(Simon Pegg) : Greg is insistent on stirring Edgar’s tea with a matchstick every day for the last two years. I don’t know what he’s trying to do. It’s a way of poisoning someone.
 
(Q) : What’s your favorite scene both filming the movie and watching the movie?
 
(Jason Bateman) : My favorite scene actually was that one because they cut out this little part in it that Joe Lo Truglio says a line that I could not stop laughing on. We were there quite a while, we were losing the light as I remember. I think it’s on the dvd extra. See the way I get that in there so that they buy the dvd? But that was my favorite to shoot.
 
(Nick Frost) : Have you seen it?
 
(Jason Bateman) : No, not yet. But from the trailer it seems that the chase sequence there and the house blowing up, it’s like a really cool sequence that took a long time to shoot and is very well done, Gregory.
 
(Nick Frost) : For me doing anything with Sigourney Weaver was amazing. Just having her on set everyday and getting to act with her was pretty cool.

 
(Gregg Mottola) : Nick bit her.
 
(Nick Frost) : I did bite her, which was great.
 
(Simon Pegg) : You were meant to, though, to be fair. It was in the script.
 
(Nick Frost) : I was hungry. I kind of tentatively nibbled at her and then she said “No, really bit me,” and when Sigourney Weaver says “bite me” you bite her. So biting Sigourney, and then there’s a kind of big homage to Steven Spielberg at the end of the film. There’s a bit that kind of really lifts my spirits and hopefully you’ll enjoy that too.
 
(Simon Pegg) : I liked blowing up the house, that was good fun. We all stood about a quarter of a mile away from this building and then we blew it up. It was such a massive explosion; I’ve never seen anything like it. We saw it, heard it, then felt it, all in the space of a second. So we saw the flash and then there was a boom, and then we all went oh and we all shouted the F word really loudly.

We were just jumping up and down and screaming at each other, it was a lot of fun. Some of my favorite scenes to film were I get to play a very tentative romance with the fantastic Kristen Wiig, who is probably one of the funniest human beings we’ve ever met and we had great fun with her on set because we spent a lot of time with her. So smooching with Kristen was a bit of a treat for me.
 
(Gregg Mottola) : I think my favorite scene in a way is the first time you see Paul in the film, because that was the first one the animators really tackled to try and make Paul look right and just figure out what he should look like, how he should be rendered, what his eyes look like. For six months I was cutting this movie with just pasting Seth Rogan in a box floating around on the scene in his bike messenger suite, and I thought this is a disaster, I will never work again. And the first time I saw the scene with this amazing animation in it I felt a little bit like wow, I made this, I can’t believe that it actually exists. And when Paul steps out of the darkness the first time I thought that’s what I saw in my head, and it actually is pretty cool. I get tingly, but that’s because of my circulation.
 
(Q) : The question basically is living up to standards and expectations. You guys have all been part of or created huge projects. Is there ever a time when you’re on set or looking or writing a project and just thinking to yourself “I really have to live up to such high standards”? Do you ever compete with yourself, whether it be acting or writing or anything like that?
 
(Simon Pegg) : I think you have to stay true to the moment and just try and do your best. That’s the only thing you can do. Never sit back on your laurels and think “Oh we’ve got a couple of good films behind us, now maybe people will give us a chance.” This was an interesting experience for us because it’s a bigger film than “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” and we had to be a little bit more open with it. We had to invite more people in really and make it a little broader and try and create a comedy which is more inclusive.

“Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” are both films that appeal to particular kinds of people, and it feels slightly more like you’re in a little gang with those movies, whereas this, because we have to make a film which is going to help us get the money back it took to make Paul, who is an incredible creation, we had to create a different kind of film. And that was a real challenge for us because we had to learn. It was enormous fun and we never lost sight of the fact that we were making something that was very dear to us, and we didn’t want to let people down. I just waffled a lot. I’m going to watch that back on the internet and blush. Nick?
 
(Nick Frost) : Well you know, what he said. I think if you thought like that and you thought about trying to recapture old glories and not take risks to make other potentially, hopefully better things, you’d never made anything. Simon and I have always said that we try to make things that are going to make us laugh and our mates, and if you try and second guess what the audience wants I think 99 times out of a hundred you’re going to fall on your ass. I don’t think about it. Just crack on.
 
(Simon Pegg) : On set daily working with who we were working with we had to make sure we stayed on our A game. We were watching Jason, Bill, and Joe do a scene with John Carroll Lynch on a monitor. We accidentally kidnap Kristen Wiig’s character, and Jason and Bill and Joe go to see her father to find out what happened. And we were watching this scene and we genuinely said “We’ve really got to do our best acting in this film, otherwise we’re going to disappear.”
 
(Nick Frost) :I think I said to Simon, “Come here. I need to talk to you.” We went off behind the trailer and I said “Listen, we’ve got to bring it otherwise we’re in trouble.” But that’s a nice way to work.
 
(Jason Bateman) : Wouldn’t it be great if that really happened?
 
(Nick Frost) : You’ve got to challenge yourself and it’s good to do that. I think it keeps you fresh and sharp.
 
(Q) : Simon, since you’re working with J.J. Abrams again on the sequel to “Star Trek” would you be filming an episode of “Fringe”?
 
(Simon Pegg) : I’m just about to get into “Fringe.” I’ve always missed it. My sister just bought me the box set of the first season. I’ve heard it’s amazing. I keep seeing it on tv but then I think I can’t pick this up in the middle, I must go back to the beginning, which we can do these days. I did that with “Battlestar Galactica,” I watched that from the beginning to end while we were shooting “Paul.” I don’t know about being in it; that would be great. As far as the new “Star Trek” is concerned all I know is the script apparently is very good. I have not seen or heard anything so I can’t tell you any more.
 
(Q) : Jason, I’m a huge fan. I’m wondering if there is a date for the release of the “Arrested Development” movie?
 
(Jason Bateman) : There’s no date and there is no new update, but I can confirm the last update, which Mitch Hurwitz gave out, which was that he was writing it and that he wants to shoot it this year. The reason I can confirm that is that he called me a couple of weeks ago and said “Can we meet? I want to talk to you about everything I’ve got so far on the ‘Arrested Development’ movie.”

I was exactly like you would have been if you got that call, because he hasn’t told us anything. And so I met him and he told me pretty much everything, and he’s got a lot. And so he has been writing, he wasn’t just BSing. So he could be done soon and then that means that we really could shoot it this year, which basic math would put it released probably sometime next year. My fingers are really, really crossed. The original cast. Except for Michael Cera. I can’t work with him anymore.
 
(Gregg Mottola): And if Mitch Hurwitz mysteriously died.
 
(Jason Bateman): You’ve got to get him and Edgar carpooling.
 
(Gregg Mottola) : They could tour with Buddy Holly in an airplane.
 
(Q) : You guys have to go catch a plane right now.
 
(Nick Frost) : What a terrible irony that would be.

End.