Interview

GVS: Right. I saw that onstage. She puts him in the fireplace.

JF: I know some guys who use that one. But I remember reading an interview with Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, and I guess they were all roommates back when they were in acting school, and they were like, "Yeah, we just went for the girls." It seemed every actor said, "Oh, yeah. I just went to acting school to meet girls." Even the greats were doing it. So I was like, "All right, maybe we can write a play about two guys who do that." We made a movie out of that one, too. I directed it, but it was so . . . I don't know. It turned out badly. I'll never show it to anybody.

GVS: You filmed it?

JF: Yeah, we filmed it. It was hard to adapt.

GVS: So I have some questions for you on this piece of paper.

JF: What's my favorite color?

GVS: No. Actually, what I have written down is "Zac-slash-romance."

JF: What?

GVS: And it says "stoner-slash-wind in hair."

JF: Oh, it's wind in your eyes.

GVS: It's wind in your eyes? That's how you made yourself look stoned in Pineapple Express?

JF: [laughs] Because I don't . . . I just played a stoner in Pineapple Express, and I don't really smoke weed anymore, so everyone says, "Oh, you looked really high in the movie. How did you do that?" And I say, "Oh, I just pretend the wind is in my eyes."

GVS: You have to use certain words like dude. You say dude . . .

JF: I don't know how much I say dude in Pineapple Express. I probably say it once or twice. I'm sure I say man. I certainly say bro.

GVS: So the lines that were written in the script for Pineapple Express-were they basically what we were seeing on the screen?

JF: Oh, no.

GVS: So in that movie, you're improvising a stoner as well as just pretending there's wind in your eyes.

JF: Yeah, well, I don't actually use the wind in my eyes-I just rub my eyes a bit and talk slowly or something. When Seth and me were doing interviews for the movie, everybody would ask us if we were smoking real weed when we were filming. And basically we'd say, "Did you ever see Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke? That's what happens if you really smoke weed and make a movie. You get two guys and no plot and it's basically like, ‘Yeah! Let's drive a van made of weed!' " And that's pretty much the movie.

GVS: But when you're working with these guys like Seth and Judd Apatow-some of them do stand-up comedy, right?

JF: I mean, it's in their backgrounds.

GVS: I used to work for a comedian.

JF: You did?

GVS: Yeah. Actually, that's how I got my start. His name is Kenny Shapiro and I was his assistant for about three years. He made The Groove Tube [1974], which later inspired parts of Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels had worked with Ken, and Ken had sort of pitched that same concept of skit humor for this late-night show. Chevy Chase was in The Groove Tube-he was a friend of Shapiro's. So I worked for Ken, but I was not a funny person. I couldn't tell a joke or anything like that-I was just surrounded by these comedians.

JF: Well, I have to say that I think Drugstore Cowboy [1989] is hilarious.

GVS: I mean, there's funniness, but it's not like a showbiz comedy.

JF: No, but Matt Dillon is pretty damn funny in that. Like, the hat on the bed . . .

GVS: But there's an interesting element to the Judd Apatow world in that it's sort of a mixture of comedians and noncomedians in the same films. On Pineapple Express you were working with a lot of the same people you'd worked with on Freaks and Geeks, right? Was the kind of improvisation you did similar?

JF: Yeah, but Freaks and Geeks was TV, so there were lines you had to say. There was a little improvisation, but nothing like what Judd and those guys do in their movies now. I think I would try and improvise more than anybody on that show. When we were doing Freaks and Geeks, I didn't quite understand how movies and TV worked, and I would improvise even if the camera wasn't on me. I thought I was helping the other actors by keeping them on their toes, but nobody appreciated it when I would trip them up. So I was improvising a little bit back then, but not in a productive way. [laughs]

GVS: So we haven't talked about Zac yet.

JF: What is Zac?

GVS: Zac Efron.

JF: Oh. Well, yeah, we can talk about Zac.

GVS: Where did you see him?

JF: I met him for the first time backstage at the MTV Movie Awards. Lucas Grabeel, who is in Milk, is also in High School Musical [2006] with Zac Efron, and so we had been talking about High School Musical a lot. I hadn't seen it, but my girlfriend was a big fan of the movie-I don't know why. She was like, "You've got to watch it." And I was like, "All right, I'll watch it because Lucas is in it." So I watched it, and I guess I could kind of see the appeal. Some of the songs are kind of catchy. There's one where Zac is playing basketball, but it's also like a musical number . . . I don't know. [laughs] I remember we were all sitting around on the set of Milk and I said, "I saw High School Musical." I said it like I had never sounded so interested in anything before. Then I think you said that you had tried to get Zac for a small role in Milk.

GVS: Yeah. The pizza guy. He never had time.

JF: Right. So then when I saw him at the MTV Movie Awards, I was like, "Hey, man. Good to meet you, Zac. I really like the movie, and I just worked with Gus, and he tried to get you in his movie." And Zac was like, "Yeah, yeah. It just didn't work out." And I was like, "Well, you should really do a movie with Gus. I think it would be a good contrast to your other stuff." He's like, "Yeah, maybe." And then I was walking away to go back to my seat, and he tapped me on the shoulder and said, "We should do it together, man." And he, like, gave me a high five. He was really the nicest guy.

GVS: Yeah. He is really nice. We should all do a Judd Apatow movie. You and Zac and me.

JF: Yeah. You should do a movie that Judd produces, and we'll do it with Zac. What do you think?

GVS: Keep your eyes open for it.

JF: What kind of movie do you think it could be?

GVS: I'll have to think about that one.

JF: If you have an idea and it's like me and Zac playing basketball or delivering pizzas or whatever, I'm in.