My last interview of the Sundance Film Festival could not have been more memorable. The morning after the new David Wain comedy They Came Together premiered, I got to sit down with seven of the key talent from the film, around a table full of appetizers which come into play midway through the interview. Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler star as the mismatched couple of a romantic comedy, with Cobie Smulders as Rudd’s ex, Max Greenfield as his brother and Jason Mantzoukas as his boss. “The State” colleagues Wain and Michael Showalter wrote the script skewering all the cliches of romantic comedies, beginning with the idea of New York City being a character in the film.
I’m a bit proud of myself for holding my own with these seven comedians, keeping the New York bit going for a full five minutes but also cutting in to keep things moving along. Poehler seemed particularly receptive to my line of questioning which gives me a small case of animated hearts shooting out my ears. I suppose a few spoilers follow, because big surprise, there is a wardrobe montage in a rom-com and there are sex scenes, but we’re not so much spoiling them as we are teasing them. You’ll hear more about They Came Together when Lionsgate releases it June 27.
David Wain: Have you ever thought about calling the website Cray Vonline?
CraveOnline: I’ve suggested calling it Cray Cray Online but it didn’t go over well. So is the city being a character as big a pet peeve of yours as it is of mine when every actor in a movie says, “Well, the city is really another character?”
Cobie Smulders: It made me feel like a dumbass because I just did a movie and I was like, “I mean, it feels like New York City, I was so glad we shot there, because it’s like its own character in the film.” I saw that and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m such an asshole.”
David Wain: You’re not an asshole. I was just talking to somebody who was making a TV pilot and they were telling me about it, like, “Yeah, we’re shooting in New York and really, for us, New York’s another character in it.”
Michael Showalter: Fred, do you live in New York?
No.
Michael Showalter: Well, if you’ve lived in New York for a long time as I have, the city does have its own identity that’s uniquely its own.
So maybe I’m being an asshole when I say it’s not a character, it’s a setting.
Michael Showalter: It’s a setting with a very strong identity. New York City has a beating heart inside of it that beats so loud sometimes that you can hear it.
David Wain: I know that a lot of movies it is the setting. This movie’s a little different because this story could not possibly have happened anywhere else, and therefore New York is like another character.
Michael Showalter: I think you’re joking but I actually want to bring it down to a serious place. This is serious. In so many ways, with this movie specifically, New York City is woven into the DNA of the story. It’s intricately woven in to the DNA of the story.
David Wain: It’s almost like a loom.
Michael Showalter: I was going to say a quilt.
Amy Poehler: Can I just say that on the call sheet, number one was New York.
David Wain: And then Paul and Amy.
Amy Poehler: Yeah, which is weird.
Jason Mantzoukas: Although I do think a lot of times you were just reading the location.
But that’s because the movies you’re spoofing claim New York City is a character too.
David Wain: I’m going to give you the answer you’re asking for which is for me, yes, it is a longtime huge, horrible pet peeve. Not only that people say in interviews that New York is a character in the movie, which I agree, it’s not a character, it’s a setting. But also, that they say it as if they’re the first one that’s ever said that. That’s the other part that kills me, like they came up with that.
Paul Rudd: I will say, I’m sorry I don’t mean to interrupt, but to counter that however, there is something about New York City. There’s an energy you’re talking about that’s almost like it’s in the marrow of its own bones. It can almost seem, because it’s so distinct and specific in its energy and everything else that it could almost appear to be like another character.
Michael Showalter: Look, it’s woven into the DNA of the characters.
David Wain: Look, Radio City Music Hall, right? The Rockettes.
Max Greenfield: Even the subway system.
David Wain: 30 Rock.
Paul Rudd: Harlem. Harlem and the Statue of Liberty. Katz’s Delicatessen.
Michael Showalter: The Lower East Side.
Max Greenfield: Just the rhythm of the streets.
Paul Rudd: Nobody Beats the Wiz. Modell’s. Guys, guys, guys, Yankees/Mets. Yankees/Mets. Giants/Jets.
David Wain: I have been to Rio, I’ve been to Paris. [Choking up] Excuse me if I get emotional here, but I have been to Chicago, I have been to St. Louis and I get off and I travel around and I have a great time in all these places, and then I fly back in to LaGuardia airport or sometimes Tereboro.
Amy Poehler: Oh, on a private plane?
David Wain: Well, sometimes if I go private…
Michael Showalter: But can I just say something, to go back to the question, it is annoying when people say that. It is annoying when people say, “Oh, New York City is almost like another…” because we’ve heard that a thousand times.
David Wain: I’m glad I didn’t have to finish my emotions.
Should I just interrupt with another question now?
David Wain: Yeah.
Do you think Nora Ephron would be touched or offended by your take on the rom-com genre?
Amy Poehler: Hopefully touched, right?
Michael Showalter: I would hope that she would be thoroughly entertained. That’s what I would hope.
Max Greenfield: As a true New Yorker.
[David Wain kneels on the floor to eat an artichoke.]
Paul Rudd: Jesus, David. God, it’s like a caveman over there.
Jason Mantzoukas: Please put that after a very long bit about New York as a character, David attacked an artichoke like he never had food in his life. He fell to the ground and started aggressively attacking an artichoke as if it was the only thing.
Paul Rudd: There was like liquid pouring out of it like blood from a squirrel. It was like he attacked it.
David Wain: This poor guy probably has a number of questions that he wanted to ask.
How about the sheet staying on after the sex scene?
Cobie Smulders: Wonderful. Michael was my righthand man.
Michael Showalter: Cobie has very sticky boobs. From a casting standpoint we couldn’t have lucked out more.
David Wain: We also aided it a little bit on set with maple syrup.
We know the comedy rule of threes. How do you explain when it’s four, five, six and on and on?
David Wain: Just like three is good, four is probably better.
Amy Poehler: Well, the millennials these days, they need more and more and more.
Michael Showalter: Well, it used to be 12. Do people know that?
Amy Poehler: I didn’t know that.
Michael Showalter: That was like 18th century.
Amy Poehler: And then it went to three?
Michael Showalter: Then it went to seven. It was the rule of 12s. 12s was funny a long time ago but then it went to seven and now it’s three.
David Wain: Well, today with rave culture, video games, kids are desensitized. There’s no there there.
Paul Rudd: They’re all texting.
Michael Showalter: It’s like they should call it “The Me Generation.”
Amy Poehler: Oh, I think they have.
Michael Showalter: Well, that’s good because that’s what it seems like. It’s all about what can I get and how fast can I get it and what’s the next thing.
David Wain: I said to a colleague of mine, “Hey, do you want to send me over those figures?” He’s like, “No, I’ll fax it over.”
Jason Mantzoukas: It makes everything a lot easier because Dave could print out scripts on his dot matrix printer in like no time at all and we can have them all in hand so easily.
David Wain: Yeah, but I still mimeograph just because I like the look.
Do you think romantic comedies confuse us, because a lot of people may actually hook up with terrible matches because movies tell us that’s really the right person for you all along?
Amy Poehler: Well, there’s all different stages of love and romantic love is one of them, but then you have to go into negotiation and intimacy. Romantic love is the one you see in films a lot but everyday…
Michael Showalter: Falling in love is easy.
David Wain: It’s getting through the long haul, that’s where the work comes in.
Michael Showalter: Try it’s eight o’clock in the morning and I don’t feel good. Let’s see how the relationship goes right there?
David Wain: Or like sometimes I wake up with crocodile breath.
Amy, did you love doing the wardrobe montage?
Amy Poehler: Yeah, we shot that really, really fast and we did fast changes in the bathroom like “SNL” style.
David Wain: That was literally one of the craziest moments of the shoot because it was the end of the day and we had to get out for I forget exactly why. I think we had something like 20 minutes and we were like, “You know what? We just can’t do it.” Amy was incredible. It was like, “Nope, let’s just make it work. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
Amy Poehler: Let’s just fucking do it, so they just put all the clothes in and I was like, “Ready? Ready? Next one!” The wardrobe department’s so great they just put the crazy stuff in there.
Who are the actual acrobats in the Paul and Cobie sex scene?
David Wain: That’s a dance troupe that I’ve always loved called Pilobolus and they specialize in that very acrobatic semi-sexual type of dance. When we had the idea to do it, we just called them up and said, “Would you come down?” Sure enough they had among their troupe a married couple that were rough physical facsimiles of Cobie and Paul.
Amy Poehler: It’s amazing that they were married.
So Chris Pratt got Guardians of the Galaxy and Paul got Ant-Man. Is Amy the magic touch?
Amy Poehler: Thank you. That’s a very good point. I’m working with a lot of future superheroes. Yeah, right? And Cobie’s worked with a lot of superheroes.
David Wain: I could see you playing Medusa.
Amy Poehler: Oh, I would love to. She’s in a comic book, yeah? I think when there’s guys that are being vetted, I say, “Bring ‘em to me. I’ll take a look.”
Paul, of all the superheroes out there, why was Ant-Man the right one for you?
Paul Rudd: Well, it remains to be seen if it was, but I was lucky enough to get cast.
Have you begun FX tests and stuff yet?
Paul Rudd: The whole thing’s just getting started. I haven’t even done much of anything.
Cobie, would you do a cameo on “How I Met Your Father?”
Amy Poehler: Oh, that’s coming out. Emily Spivey.
Cobie Smulders: Oh, you know, I think it’s its own thing. I don’t think it’s going to have any crossover at all. So I don’t know, I don’t think that it would work for their story but we’ll see. I’d do anything for Carter and Craig, the creators. Great guys.
Amy, there is a movie here called Infinitely Polar Bear. Would you be interested in doing Infinitely Poehler Bear?
Amy Poehler: I heard about that, with Mark Ruffalo, right?
But you see what I did there?
Amy Poehler: I did. It’s not going to play as well in print.
No, that’s the only way it will make sense because I’ll spell it differently!
Amy Poehler: [Laughs] That looks like a great film. It looks sad.
When did you guys actually settle on the title They Came Together?
David Wain: Early on. I think it sort of made sense.
Amy Poehler: Did you guys always have that title?
David Wain: Amy, would you say your last name is misspelled a lot?
Amy Poehler: Constantly. My name has, much like Dave Koechner, it has an O-E-H which is confusing. The O-E, it used to be an umlaut.
David Wain: I think we liked the title They Came Together because it was a combination of that sort of innocuous set of words that so man of those rom-coms are and also with a double meaning.
Paul, they went really apeshit for you last night at the screening. How was that experience?
Amy Poehler: Real apeshit for you.
Michael Showalter: They went apeshit for Greenfield too. It was like The Beatles, you getting into the car after the movie, I couldn’t believe it.
Paul Rudd: It was really nice to see the movie in a big theater where people were really responding well to it. That’s certainly what you hope.
Amy Poehler: But when they go apeshit, how does that feel?
Paul Rudd: You mean when they just go apeshit?
Amy Poehler: Like, do they go apeshit for you?
Michael Showalter: I don’t know that they went all the way apeshit for me but they definitely went bananas. They definitely went bananas for me.
Amy Poehler: Well, sometimes bananas leads to apeshit.
Jason Mantzoukas: It always does.
Amy Poehler: And Mantzoukas, what was your response?
Jason Mantzoukas: Well, they threw apeshit at me. I don’t know where they got it? It literally was apeshit. I said, “What is this?” And they said, “It’s apeshit. We don’t care for you.”
David Wain: There’s an Apeshit Lounge on Main Street and Heber.
Jason Mantzoukas: There you go, I guess that’s it.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Best Episode Ever and The Shelf Space Awards. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
