Wolf Pack forever!
We sat down for a round table interview with your favorite Hangover stars, Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, to get the scoop on all things Hangover 3. Check it out for yourselves and be sure to check out The Hangover 3, in theatres now.
Don’t worry, no spoilers here! And don’t forget to check out our interview with Mr. Chow here.
Do you think this movie helped revive Mike Tyson’s career?
Bradley Cooper: He’s an unbelievable person that just keeps growing. But Mike, like us, went through a tremendous amount of changes from the first to the second movie, as we all did. He kind of grew with us. He was a big part of the first and the second one, even though he wasn’t in it for very long, and I love him. He’s fantastic.
Zach Galifianakis: I went to the Beacon Theatre last week where his show was and I asked the usher if it was Mike’s show, but it wasn’t. I was going to go by and say hi, if he remembered me. About the third one, we tried to change up stuff as much as we possibly could and I having Mike back would seem like that’s not changing things up. But I think Bradley’s right, he is an interesting dude and he’s had a hard past. I think the way he’s redeeming his life is just spectacular – beautiful!
You talked about changing things up for three, there’s definitely a more hardboiled tone to a lot of the film. Can you talk about how director Todd Phillips brought that to you guys?
Galifianakis: Some people think 2 is darker.
Ed Helms: I don’t even know if we have clarity. The big change for 3 was going from these guys finding out what happened and being very reactive, whereas 3 is this very proactive story. It’s a quest. And that changed everything. I do think that in the spirit of heightening things comedically, thematically, it was a natural direction to take things into a more intense place. Hopefully the juxtaposition of intensity and levity gave us some even brighter comedy moments if we did our jobs right. I’m so proud of the comedy in Hangover 3, I think there’s so many great chuckles. Whereas in Hangover 2 there’s longer stretches of intensity punctuated by comedy. There’s a lot more consistent chuckles in Hangover 3.
Galifianakis: Now that I think about it, the third one does have a body count, but I think it’s balanced with this emotional thing too where you kind of see some heartstrings pulled, so I think maybe that equals it out a little bit more. The second one doesn’t have that. It’s just kind of jokes, high intensity, perversion, danger. Here there’s a little bit of softness to it, along with a body count.
Helms: I will say this, the first time I saw Hangover 3 I thought it was really silly. I think maybe because I lived with the intensity of it and read past it, but when someone gets shot, it cuts right to Zach peeing himself!
Galifianakis: But I think Todd probably thought this out like, 4 seconds is not enough time to cut to the peeing, I need seven seconds. The way he cut to it, the timing seemed perfect. It’s hard to do shooting someone and then go to a joke. It’s difficult. Who knows if the audience will like it, hopefully they do.
The action in this movie is good because it really keeps you going – there’s not a whole lot of time to think about what just happened. Take us to the roof of Caesar’s Palace; did you guys really repel down there?
Cooper: We repel down a fabrication in a studio lot in a studio hangar. They rebuilt the facade of Caesar’s Palace – like seven floors, so it was still very high. It’s the highest stage they had at Warner Brothers. But we didn’t really repel from Caesar’s Palace.
Galifianakis: We were dangling from a wire on stage. I’m afraid of heights and it was not…I’ve never bought adult diapers, but I thought, this might be a time to do it. I was very frightened.
Did anyone object to the giraffe thing?
Galifianakis I think it looks just enough fake that nobody cares. You know what I mean? If it looks more cartoonish people feel like there’s a separation. It’s nothing they talk about, but I think psychologically it looks not real enough for it to be a concern because there was no giraffe there.
Helms: I just hope no giraffes see it!
When you guys filmed the first one, you all flew under the radar because obviously you weren’t the stars you are today. How much more difficult was it to maneuver around this time?
Cooper: Not at all. That was the incredible thing about it. This city is just indifferent to anything other than what it’s doing. It didn’t matter. We were surprised how indifferent it was. I mean, in the first one we would walk into the elevator with tiger scratches on our neck and no one would even blink, and even though The Hangover has had such a huge impact, especially in Caesar’s Palace, still we could maneuver not with any real issue.
Ed, you’ve had two big endings, with The Hangover coming to an end and the end of The Office. Which one was more difficult for you?
It’s been a rough couple of months. These two big careers entities winding down. I feel like both of them are ending in a great way and the timing is right for both of them. It’s a crazy coincidence that they are ending simultaneously.
Have we peaked your interest? Hope so! To find out who gets shot and just what exactly “the giraffe thing” is, check out The Hangover 3 in theatres now!
