Aziz Ansari took a break from being Kanye West’s BFF to film a movie with Jesse Eisenberg called 30 Minutes Or Less. The movie is about two fledgling criminals who kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else. Kaboom!
The movie opens in theaters everywhere this Friday August 12, 2011, and Aziz and Jesse took the time to talk to GlobalGrind to discuss their hilarious new movie.
Check it out below!
You guys play two best friends in this film with a very tumultuous kind of relationship. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Aziz: Yeah, so in the film we play best friends and early in the movie, I find out that he slept with my twin sister and this kind of leads to us having this huge fight. We break off our friendship and then soon afterwards, these bad guys force him to rob a bank and he has nowhere else to turn to but me. So it kind of becomes the way we reconcile our friendship, as we have to go on this crazy adventure. It’s really a fun movie because it’s like, what would the two regular guys do if they had to rob a bank?
One of our favorite scenes with the two of you is your fight. Can you tell us about shooting that scene and what that was like?
Aziz Ansari: Wait, what was the fight?
The physical fight, y’all kicking each other’s butts!
Aziz Ansari: Is that when the two talking monkeys were…
No, that would be you and Jesse on the floor kicking each other’s butts.
Aziz Ansari: I didn’t see this movie, I only saw The Zookeeper. I didn’t see 30 Minutes.
So we guess you can’t comment.
Aziz Ansari: There are no talking animals in that movie?
No, no talking animals.
Aziz Ansari: I thought there were going to be gorillas.
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There were a couple of gorillas, but it was more a mask.
Aziz Ansari: I thought … what was that I was shooting then? I was like talking to nothing and they were like, oh there’s going to be a gorilla C.G.I-ed in here later and I was like OK, then I was like, alright we gotta rob that bank.
Oh ok, wait I remember this. We did have a fight scene. I just thought there were going to be talking animals C.G.I-ed in later so that’s why I was confused. That was really fun because you know the idea of that is that we’re two guys that have never been in a fight before and what would two guys like that do if they got in a fight? It would probably be very awkward and weird.
Jesse, what was your favorite scene in this movie?
Jesse Eisenberg: I think our characters in the movie kind of gear up for this bank robbery and I think we did too as actors, because in the movie the characters do these very boring but realistic things to get ready for the robbery, like buy ski masks and figure out what toy gun looks the best and looks the most scary for the bank. We spent the whole movie gearing up for this robbery and we kind of spent the whole time shooting, gearing up for this scene.
Aziz: Yeah, that was a really fun scene to shoot because there were so many great bank robbery scenes in movies and it was really fun to do one ourselves.
The comedy in this was kind of offbeat, did that draw you guys to this? Did you love that or was that a challenge for you in terms of dialogue and script and jokes and things?
Jesse Eisenberg: I thought it was really funny.
Aziz Ansari: There’s not many funny comedy scripts, so when you read one that’s really funny and has a good story you’re definitely like, oh wow, this could be good. I think what’s cool about this movie is the director did such a great job getting a great cast with really unique specific voices, with us and Danny McBride, Nick Swardson. I think each of us brought so much to our character and really made it our own, that it really made a really special movie.
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What’s up with the Skittles? We heard that really put it over the top for you.
Aziz Ansari: Whenever you do a movie they have a table with candies and you can just eat it whenever you’re hungry and there’s like Skittles, M&Ms, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, anything you want and I was like, oh wow that sounds like a good deal.
The Women’s World Cup, we’re in the finals losing to Japan. It was the first time since 1999 that the women’s U.S. team has been in the World Cup finals. Were you paying attention? Did you guys tune in?
Jesse Eisenberg: That’s the first time I’ve heard of that sport.
Aziz Ansari: This is soccer right?
