"I Love You Man" Review
Barstool Sports recently caught up with A-listers Paul Rudd ("Knocked Up", "40 Year Old Virgin", "Role Models"), Jason Segel ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall", the one season cult fave "Freaks and Geeks", "How I Met Your Mother"), and writer/director John Hamburg at Fenway Park's Bleacher Bar for a quick chat about their hysterical new flick, "I Love You, Man", which opens Friday, March 20th.
The two stars are as affable in person as they come across in their guy-friendly films---just a couple of regular guys---and the director was as friendly as the stars. The film centers around Rudd's character, Peter Klaven, a real estate agent who wants to lock up "The Office"'s Rashida Jones (Zooey) for a lifetime contract (i.e. he pops the question). In the midst of wedding plans, however, Klaven realizes he doesn't have a Best Man-caliber male friend so he sets about finding one, thus setting up the premise of the film---one man's quest to find a worthy 'bro' to stand in at his nuptials. And Segel's Sydney Fife becomes the #1 prospect.
Despite the recent dopey pop culture fad of "bromances" and "bro"-related jargon, the notion of a "bromance" is neither embraced nor mocked in "I Love You, Man". As director Hamburg noted, the screenplay was conceptualized well before the foolishness of Brody Jenner and MTV's capitalization of the term made it part of our short-attention-span lexicon. "We took the idea of a traditional romantic comedy and turned it on its ear," Hamburg said. "Instead of having a guy go out on blind dates with girls, we had a guy go on blind dates with guys." If nothing else, the timing of the movie dovetails nicely with the nation's soon-to-die hankering for all things 'bro', which can only hope the movie's box office total.
"There was nothing sarcastic about it", Segel said of the script. "The first draft was based in truth and reality...it was honest and true." As for the actual word itself---'bromance'---Segel said that "the three of us (Segel, Rudd, and Hamburg) find that word gross". Upon hearing this, Rudd chimed in, "You mean br-oss?", as he immediately hung his head in mock shame for the easy pun while cracking up the table.
Additionally, Rudd acknowledged the genuine aspects of his and Segel's characters in their recent films, in that they look and talk like 'regular' guys. "They're more like guys I know", he said, instead of prefab caricatures. "We're not Alpha males or even Beta males, we're...Delta males."
Rudd said the he and Segel got to know each other well while improvising lines for the Hawaii-set "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" to help set the table for much of their give-and-go on the "I Love You, Man" set. "We like playing off each other", he said.
Asked if this was his first time at Fenway Park, Segel told the Stool that he has been there a shitload of times because he actually has Boston roots; his paternal grandfather is the proprietor of Mr. Sid fine clothing store in Newton. However, he has nothing in the pipeline as far as making a movie in the area soon, despite the proliferation of Boston-set flicks. "I'd love to do a movie here", he said, but there just "isn't anything" in the chamber right now for him.
In the movie, Rudd's Klaven, in an attempt to make conversation with strangers at a poker game, asks his table-mates the age old question: "Stones or Beatles?". The set-up in the movie makes for a riotous scene immediately after the question. But in real life, both stars prefer the mop-tops to rock 'n roll's bad bys? "Beatles all they way," said Rudd. Segel concurred with, "Best band ever."
The Stool was able to stump both stars with one question, however: Why do so many good actors do shitty Boston accents? "That's a good question...I don't know", said Rudd. "I don't know", Segel chimed in. "But I could do it---I got family here".