Caffeinated Clint
From "Mr and Mrs Smith" to "Wedding Crashers", Vince Vaughan is everywhere and having quite the time of his life. He’s come a long way since "Swingers", and it seems he can do just about anything, and will do just about anything for his art, including be prepared to be tied to a bed, as he finds himself wooing a very strange politician’s daughter in "Wedding Crashers". Talking perpetually fast, the very tall Mr Vaughan spoke to Paul Fischer.
Q: It seems that the character from Wedding Crashers could be your Swingers character later on in his life…
Vince: Well, no. He was very different. I mean there are similarities, but the Swingers character is kind of a cooler guy, while I think this guy’s more manic, going through more manic situations. But I saw this more as kinda like, you know, he loves to eat and he loves life. He’s kind of like the big loveable friend, you know, where Trent’s more of kind of the smoother kinda more ladies man type than this character is.
Q: What was the attraction of doing this?
Vince: Well, I just heard the title originally and it really made me laugh. Wedding Crashers I thought was funny and, I’ve always liked Owen since Bottle Rocket and I liked it. Not only was he funny but I always thought of him as a really good actor too. And, David I had a great experience doing Clay Pigeons, so, I was really excited about getting a chance to take this concept and work with those guys on it.
Q: How much room is there for improvisation in this, because it seems to me that… because your speech pattern is so, ah, so fast…
Vince: Not as much as people think, although there was a lot – meaning, we would take the scenes and work on them prior to getting there. I think sometimes people that are very good at improvisation in life, meaning like stage improvisation, aren’t good in films because you have to ultimately take a scene where it needs to go. It’s not about just saying something that’s funny. You can say something funny but if it’s not on story or driving the scene to its end it’s really not very helpful at all. So we would really sit, you know, and plan out stuff that was said to make sure that not only was it funny but it kind of got across the point. So we would write sometimes that day or the night before, but most of the lines were written down in a form that we liked prior to shooting. And then of course that’s not much different than method acting… the main thing about improvising is listening so if something happens that wasn’t expected and you know your character, you know what has to happen in this scene, you can react to that in a way that’s honest and it might take you in a different direction to go to the same place. But it’s not like you go to scenes and just say, oh, let me think of crazy things to say. There is kind of a method to all of the kind of madness of talking, you know.
Q: Your character does some not so nice things in the movie, such as lying through his teeth— Are there any parallels between you and this character?
Vince: Yeah, sure. I think we all have a bunch of different people inside of us, and then for a particular role you bring a certain side of that self of yourself forward to sort of play, but it’s always really dimensionalised. You know, he’s sort of the comic relief so it’s not really his story so he’s there to represent a certain note or certain colour in the painting. It’s not kind of a full journey for him. But, yeah, there’s that side definitely that wants to go out and have fun and have this kind of friendship and then also have the ability to sort of fall in love with someone and kind of get caught up in that.
Q: This film has three main comedic geniuses, I’d say you and Owen, and, ah, Will Ferrell. Is there anyone else that you would have liked to have…
Vince: I would say that you are right on the first one, but I don’t want to get into semantics with you… keep going. Laughter)
Q: Who would you have liked to have seen be added to the cast for more humour, if possible?
Vince: I think that we, we… sometimes you can overdo it with stuff. It just seemed really perfect that this guy… for Will to come in and play this particular part made a lot of sense, and he was gracious enough to do it for us and very funny with it. But sometimes you can get taken out of the movie, I feel, if there’s too many of ‘em. It’s like, what’s going on, and what’s that dude doing in the movie. Do you know what I mean? But this was kind of an iconic type character who we talked about earlier in the movie and made out to be kind of a big deal, so it made sense for him to come in. But I think that sometimes you can, you can overkill.
Q: What’s the best date you’ve ever been on?
Vince: The best date? I don’t like dates, kind of like my character in the movie. If you meet someone that you like then meet them out somewhere. That’s good because that’s comfortable. I don’t like the feeling of going to pick someone up that I don’t know that well at their house and then take them to kind of a formal restaurant.
Q: Did you have a bad date experience?
Vince: Never bad, it’s just that feeling that you get like when you’re younger and your mom makes you dress up and go to some formal function, you just don’t feel comfortable. I never did anyway. You don’t feel honest, I guess. You don’t really get to learn about anyone. You’re kind of being polite and you can ask the questions, it’s just not a great time for me. But I like to go somewhere that people can feel comfortable to joke around and have a sense of humour and you can really get to know each other.
Q: Are you a romantic?
Vince: Um, yeah, I think I’m romantic to some degree, if I really like somebody. Not… I’m not romantic, ah… I’m more romantic if there’s someone that I like than I am a romantic just for romantics sake. You know, I’m romantic like, um, you’re allowed to sleep over. (Laughter)
Vince: Very old-fashioned that way. No, I’m kidding. (Laughter)
Vince: Yes, you can say hi to me in public. Um… I’m a real soft heart.(Laughter)
Q: Nice guy.
Vince: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just to get out my softer sides. Go ahead.
Q: Can you talk about what they’re calling the frat pack. I guess it’s the five or six of you guys who are popping up in each other’s movies and… you know, like with Ben and you, in fact, and Will – your careers, at least are all going through the roof together…
Vince: Yeah.
Q: Is it… but is this frat pack thing, is it more of a media construction or do you guys…
Vince: I would say it’s a whole media construction, but someone came up with this and I think it is a little bit of a reach. But like anything, once you establish it then it kind of does become a reality too, then it is kind of real. But it was kind of a little far-reaching at first, I think, in that the real common denominator is, is Ben Stiller, meaning that Stiller did Zoolander and Owen had a big part in that, Will had a part in that, I just had a cameo, I didn’t speak, I didn’t have scenes with either of them. The first time I ever did a movie with Will was Old School, then he asked me to do something in Anchorman, I did and then he did something in this. It’s not like we have this long kind of thing. I’ve never even been in a scene with Jack Black. I think we’ve done cameos in the same movies but we’ve never done a scene together, and Owen, the only time we’ve ever worked together was Starsky, and we barely had anything to do together. This was the first real movie that we had a lot to do together. And so I think the real common denominator is Ben Stiller. You know, Ben Stiller, um, ah, you know, really wanted me in Dodgeball, asked me to be in Zoolander, asked Will and Owen to be in Zoolander – had a lot of movies he did with Owen. I think he kind of developed Starsky and Hutch and asked me to be in that and asked Will to be in that and that’s it. So Stiller’s really the guy who’s been very supportive of people’s careers and really championed a lot of careers in a lot of ways. and kind of very selflessly, like not making a big deal out of it, but he really has been giving a lot of opportunities to people: Will off of Saturday Night Live, me off of Swingers and Owen off of Bottle Rocket. So he’s kind of the real common denominator if there’s anything going on.
Q:Are you and Favreau working together again?
Vince: Yes, I will work with… Favreau is going to be in the new movie I’m doing called The Break Up. It’s a romantic comedy and Favreau is going to play my best friend in that. It starts filming a week from Monday with Jennifer Aniston. Vincent D’Onofrio plays my older brother, Cole Hauser plays my younger brother, John Michael Higgins is in the movie, Justin Long from Dodgeball is in the movie.
Q: Is it a romantic comedy?
Vince: Romantic comedy, yeah.
Q: A different kind of comedy than something like this… is it…
Vince: Vince: Yeah, it’s different… it is kind of an anti-romantic comedy because all the scripts that I would get for romantic comedies always have some really stupid concept like, ah, if you marry her you get the million dollars, if you don’t you don’t… or, hey, I’m gonna write an article on how to meet someone and then break up with them. It’s like… relationships are crazy enough I always felt, like this is insane, like why… this doesn’t happen. so, I kind of always like the movie The Odd Couple where you had the friends that were stuck in the place together. So The Break Up is about a young couple, not so young really…(Laughter)
Vince: …who buy a condo together… the movie starts and they’ve already bought it… and it takes both of their salaries to kind of upkeep it and that, and to pay the mortgage, and they really have a bad thing and break up, and so they’re kind of stuck living under this roof together figuring out their lives but they really have just broken up with each other. So, it’s not like… boy, like, they break up right away, it’s not like, you know, down the road. I think it’s really fun.
Q: What else have you finished?
Vince: Vince: I have a small movie I did that was at Sundance that I had a good time called Thumbsucker…I thought they did a really good job with it – Mike Mills – and that was fun to get the chance to go do that. So I did Thumbsucker, that’s come out, and I did a small little cameo in this Mr and Mrs Smith thing, although if you look at the trailers, you’d think I was in the movie a lot more. I just did a cameo in that. And, um, this is it. And then this Wedding Crashers and then I’ll go film The Break Up.
