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We talk to Emily Blunt (‘Violet’) and Jason Segel (‘Tom’ & co-writer) about The Five Year Engagement, which is on DVD.

Q: What kind of deleted scenes can we look forward to?

EB: There was a storyline with an ex-boyfriend of mine, which was very funny, named Gideon.

JS: There was also that beautiful sequence where you loaned me money.

EB: Oh yeah.

JS: And we dance. We have a whole romantic dance number.

EB: I’m so sad that’s not in it. We go to this dance club and he finally admits that he’s broke and all this stuff, but it’s stuff that we just couldn’t fit in.

JS: Yeah, the movie’s already two hours long. We had to – they use the expression, “sacrifice your babies,” and it was stuff that we truly loved but we had to leave some of it out.

EB: Yeah.

Q: That’s good because that means that it’s good babies that are extras.

JS: Absolutely.

EB: Yes. Yes.

Q: I really love that this film is about post-proposal, about what a real relationship is about, is that what drew you to it? Or what you wanted to get out of it?

EB: It’s definitely what drew me to it because it just seemed a very fresh premise for a romantic comedy in that the couple actually starts off in love, and I thought that would be interesting, to see the plight that they have to go through now.

JS: Yeah. I think we just wanted to explore how relationships change over that amount of time.

Q: Is there a message in there that if you find someone who is right, or nearly right, then you should just get on with it?

EB: I think it has to be what you feel – it has to be totally gut instinct. I think and I believe that when you know, you know, like it’s very, very instant.

JS: I agree. I completely agree.

EB: Stop waiting for perfection, just let yourself fall in love and go from there. Right?

JS: Yeah.

EB: I wasn’t saying it to you.

JS: Oh.

Q: Is there also a message that if your guy gets a bit beardy and feral, that it’s not possibly very attractive?

EB: Very beardy?

JS: Yeah, I’m getting beardy now, but it is attractive, but I do know what you mean.

EB: It’s patchy at the moment, but it will be.

JS: It is patchy, but it will be beardy. Yeah. What is unattractive, I think, is the loss of identity. He has forgotten who he is and has basically just become an assistant to her in a lot of ways, versus a partner. I think that is what is unattractive.

Q: It’s not attractive in a guy if he just gives up.

EB: Yeah, or just enables her or lives vicariously through her, probably.

Q: Tell me about working together, I am sure it was a lot of fun.

EB: It was crazy!

JS: It was the best! We had a really good time.

EB: It was really good fun.

JS: We’ve done three movies together.

EB: It’s almost nauseating now.

JS: Yeah.

EB: I mean amazing. No, it was great. It was easy-going and fun, and I think it helps the relationship on-screen because we have this natural rapport and ease with each other off-set.

JS: We know each other so well we can finish each other’s

EB: sentences. Wow!

JS: Woah.

EB: Shit, that was good.

Q: Did you rehearse that?

EB: No. Improv.

JS: Amazingly no, we didn’t rehearse that.

EB: Because it was so funny.

Q: Finally, how was it working with Nick Stoller (director)?

EB: I love him. I love him. You’ve had more experience than me.

JS: He’s one of my best friends in the world, and we’ve done quite a bit together, and it’s always fresh and new with us, but it was really nice to have a new partner in crime [indicates Emily].

EB: The best thing about Nick is that he has

JS: The laugh.

JS: The laugh of the century.

EB: You feel so supported because after each take you hear this screeching laugh and you’re like, “Oh,” and you probably think it’s funnier than it actually was because he is so incredibly supportive.

JS: It’s really high-pitched.

EB: Really high-pitched. Have you heard him laugh? It’s amazing. Ask him.

JS: That always works, when you ask someone to laugh.

EB: Every actor who has worked with Nick always says, “Oh, the laugh.”

JS: Yeah, it’s amazing.

EB: He’s just awesome.

Thanks to Sophie.

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.