Video:Director Greg Mottola and Joe Lo Truglio Paul Interviews

SHARE ON                

Transcript:Director Greg Mottola and Joe Lo Truglio Paul Interviews

Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con.

Greg Mottola - Director of Paul

Working off a script that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost wrote, how different is there sensibility, their comedy from yours?

Greg Mottola: "I feel like it's not that different. I mean when I first saw Shaun of the Dead one of the things I loved about it I thought, 'That's like a Mike Leigh film with zombies in it.' It's incredibly funny. The characters are so recognizable and have a real psychology to them. They're, you know, complex. And they're really, really good actors and so it also is just mixing with their deep love of certain kinds of genre movies. And so this script has those things - great characters, a deep and sincere love of a genre, not a cynical, poking fun at it, or, 'Oh, we'll just ride on the coattails,' like a Scary Movie 8 kind of like, 'Oh people like that shit so we'll just make a knock-off.' It's like, no, there's a real love in it and a real care."

How difficult is it to actually direct the writers because it is their passion project?

Greg Mottola: "It can be tricky because we don't always have the same picture of something. Luckily, they're really collaborative and trusting guys. We would sometimes see a completely different version of something and really try and figure it out. I think it's the second time I've done it because Seth [Rogen] was in Superbad and he had written it. It is its own thing because writers tend to not want to change a single thing, but then they're also actors. They get it up on its feet and they see, 'Oh, it could be better in this way or that way.' Or, 'It's changing,' or, 'With this actor it just needs to be shaped a different way. We had way too much fun on this film. It's criminal."

Joe Lo Truglio - Paul

So tell me everything about Paul.

Joe Lo Truglio: "Paul is a very exciting science fiction comedy that revolves around two comic book fans - Simon Pegg and Nick Frost - who take a little road trip and along the way they pick up this alien. And Bill Hader and myself play these two FBI agents that are on his tail, as well as Jason Bateman, our boss. We are all pursuing Paul the alien."

And Paul doesn't want to come back to you?

Joe Lo Truglio: "Paul does not want to come back to us. We're kind of like Bill's been describing it as like the Peter Coyote character in ET, except you see not just our waists. You see the whole two crazy looking people. We're kind of like Keystone Cops. We're very excited to be on the case, but we're not really sure why we're following them because we're being kept out of the loop. But it's a really great film. Greg Mottola did such a great job making this big, epic movie. It's almost like an old Spielberg movie like Close Encounters or Duel or Sugarland Express. It's an adventure."

Bill Hader was saying that you guys didn't do much improv, and we'd expect a lot of improv out of you guys.

Joe Lo Truglio: "Well, we didn't. We did a little bit but like Simon and Nick are fantastic writers but they're also very selfless and certainly let us play a little bit. But it's a much different type of movie than like Superbad where you turn on the camera and you go, make a scene, have fun. So it was just a different kind of movie and very exciting to be a part of. Never been part of a big action movie."

Was it everything you expected it to be?

Joe Lo Truglio: "And more. We shot in New Mexico and that was a great place to shoot. There was just this feeling of fun on the set the entire time. We had little games that we'd play between takes. What were some of the games? One was called 'trumpet face' where you kind of said an exit line, like, 'Well, when you see your mother, you can tell her I said so...' I mean something that people at home are going, 'Hmmm, sounds great.' But to us, it kind of lightened the mood and we were just being very silly."

Who was the best at it?

Joe Lo Truglio: "Oh, I think Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig were the best."

More on Paul:

Paul Interviews, Cast List and News