At The Movies – August 10th 2005

WEDDING CRASHERS Interviews

Margaret Pomeranz talks to Owen Wilson and Isla Fisher about their latest film the WEDDING CRASHERS.

MARGARET: What’s it like working with Vince? Is he manic?

OWEN WILSON: Yeah, he is manic. A little bit. He can go on these sort of, a little bit like his character. He can start fast-talking you to death.

ISLA FISHER: That’s a nice way of putting it.

MARGARET: What is your take on this?

ISLA FISHER: No, I, I, I found him to be really funny all the time. He’s just constantly improvising and it’s a really fun challenge to keep up with someone like that

MARGARET: It’s sort of like this group of comics that mix and match. How did this come about?

OWEN WILSON: I think the way it came about is that a lot of us had worked with, kind of, Ben Stiller and I’ve worked with him nine times at this point. And Vince and I worked together with him on STARSKY & HUTCH, and Jack Black and Will Ferrell, so, and my brother, Luke. So, there does seem to be some overlap with a lot of the same people working together.

MARGARET: Why, do you think?

OWEN WILSON: I think it’s less of, like, a sinister type of thing to sort of take over the comedy world and more just that when you’re casting a movie you, sort of, you want to cast somebody that you think’s funny. And, ah, somebody that you’re comfortable around.

MARGARET: What did you think about your character in this?

ISLA FISHER: I didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about my character in this. It was, sort of, showing up and OK, this is the stuff we’re going to say today. Or maybe we have something funnier to say. Or maybe we don’t. And, um, yeah, I didn’t put a lot of research or thought into it, I just kind of wing it.

MARGARET: Isla, listen, your character is difficult because she’s such a freak-out character.

ISLA FISHER: I know, and in the end then she sort of falls in love so you have to make her sweet and lovable as well as psychotic

MARGARET: What does it feel like? Was it tough hanging out there doing auditions?

ISLA FISHER: Oh, yeah. You get rejected a lot. Actually, yeah, it was Sacha who said to me, my fiance, he said one day, “Why are you going for dramatic roles?” You know, I kept getting rejected and he said, “I think you should do comedy, you’re funny “and you should go in that direction.” And that kind of gave me the confidence ’cause I was, sort of, you know, I’d never even considered it.

OWEN WILSON: I don’t like getting rejected from stuff. That would be such a drag to have to..

ISLA FISHER: It’s painful.

OWEN WILSON: I remember I worked on ‘As Good As It Gets’, that Jim Brooks movie, and, um, I got to see the auditioning process on that. There were so many, you know, big actors that came in for that. And it kind of gave me confidence ’cause I saw that, “Wow, no-one does that good a job auditioning.”

ISLA FISHER: Oh, that’s good to know.

OWEN WILSON: Yeah, It was like, Well, there was one, Edward Norton’s really good at it. But he ended up not getting the part but he was really good at auditioning. But most people, it’s like, you come into a room and it’s like a very kind of unnatural.

ISLA FISHER: Yeah, but you have to be spiritual about it too. You have to, sort of, take a, you know, my life is as it should be at this moment and you kind of become a bit hippyish in your approach to survive.

OWEN WILSON: It’s very nice. I’m feeling that. I like that.