THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT CHAT: Nick Stoller

10th November 2012

The Five Year Engagement is out on DVD.

Here is an interview with Nick Stoller (director & co-writer)

Q: Great film, great script, but there also seemed to be a lot of improv, so we’re hoping for lots of outtakes and extras on the DVD?

NS: There will be a lot of stuff on the DVD – like tons. Yeah. A ton of stuff.

Q: It seems like you allow people to run and run with their jokes, so are there extended versions of jokes that you might put on?

NS: There is so much extended stuff. I think almost every scene has extensions on it. We have our Director’s Extended Cut of the movie, which has a bunch of extra scenes in there, and there are also whole set-pieces that we had to cut out of the film that are on the DVD as well.

Q: Can you tease what any of those might be?

NS: Sure. There’s a whole sequence at Rhys Ifans house where Jason (Segel) ends up getting locked out on a balcony and Emily (Blunt) and Mindy Kaling are talking and Jason falls in the background, which is kind of this amazing thing. There’s this whole plot point in the movie where they go out to dinner to apologise after the all-night fight and she apologises to him, they apologise to each other, and then Emily finds out that he only has $350 in his bank account. Then he gets furious that she has saved thirty thousand dollars, and she ends up giving him money to open up a restaurant, which he then opens in Ann Arbor, and it fails and then it explodes. So that’s an entire sequence that is not in the film.

Q: So is the message of the film that if you meet someone right, or maybe nearly right, to get on with it?

NS: Yeah! Yeah, it is. That life is a mess, it’s never going to be perfect but it can get pretty close.

Q: It also feels like a lot of it is based on real life. Is there a lot of you in this?

NS: Yeah. Certainly the tone and stuff. There are no specific stories that are from my life, but there is definitely stuff that is semi-autobiographical in there: the Elmo scene for example. My daughter is four-and-a-half now, but when she was two-and-a-half, she would make my wife and I do voices all the time and if we didn’t do Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo, she would yell at us, and so we would have to talk as Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo about the grocery store, so I would be like, [in Yogi Bear voice], “When do you want to go to Ralph’s?” and my wife would be like [in Boo Boo voice], “How about 3.30?” We had to talk like that for days, so we put that in – I thought that would be funny in the Elmo scene if that was how Alison (Brie) ended up talking, and Jason was like, “Well, if she’s talking like Elmo, Emily should talk like the Cookie Monster.” Then Rodney Rothman (producer) thought of the ‘C is for condoms’ joke, so it was kind of a group effort there.

Q: You also seem to allow people to do their own improv and experiment, so does that make for a lot of more natural comedy?

NS: Yeah, you get more jokes – which is great – but it also makes it more natural. We do improv in the emotional scenes: in the break-up, there’s improv in there. It makes it feel more natural and it keeps the scene fresh for the actors. I really enjoy doing that.

Q: What do you think Emily and Jason both brought to the movie?

NS: You know, they are both so funny and they both come to stuff from a real place. They are never improv-ing to be funny, they are improv-ing or trying to make the scene work dramatically. They are both really awesome, pleasant people to work with, just as a bonus – it was a real pleasure to make this film and that’s testament to them. So there is all of that, and they also are old friends, so their chemistry is palpable on screen.

Q: I have to say that I loved Alison Brie and Chris Pratt; Chris Pratt is crazy and she’s so funny. Can you talk a bit about that relationship and how funny they were?

NS: Yeah, you know Chris and Alison, from the beginning, we wanted there to be a couple that presented the opposite of Jason and Emily, that were just on the fast track, that within a year are married with a kid, and it is just like the complete opposite. I have loved Alison from Mad Men and from Community and she is just so funny, and Chris Pratt, I have loved from Parks and Rec, and since this he has been in Moneyball, but he is so funny and I was really excited to work with both of them. Then at the table read, Alison’s Elmo voice was amazing! I have never heard a better Elmo voice, so that kind of sealed the deal there.

Q: We’re just hoping there’s a lot more Chris Pratt on the DVD.

NS: There’s a lot more Chris Pratt on the DVD, yeah. He is crazy funny and his improvs are just amazing. He’s just awesome.

Thanks to Sophie.

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