After gaining the public's attention with his comedic role in "Superbad" (2007), Jonah Hill is once again in the spotlight with baseball drama "Moneyball." With self-deprecating humor and bluntness, Hill spilled to the Daily about everything from golf-cart pranks to typecasting.
Question: You once said in an interview, "It's harder to be funny if you're handsome than if you're normal-looking. You don't buy that Brad Pitt's characters are struggling." How does that change now?
Answer: Are you saying I look like Brad Pitt? Because if that's what you're saying, I'm gonna forget about the stupid question and go celebrate. Well, I came into the public eye at a very young age, so often I eat my idiotic words from when I was 21 or 22 years old. That quote's a perfect example. When I was that young, there was no part of me that could have imagined co-starring with Brad Pitt. And as for Brad, his attractiveness has nothing to do with his character [Billy Beane]. His performance is funny and raw and heartbreaking.
Q: How did you and Brad build a relationship and create that chemistry?
A: Well, we just spent a lot of time together, which for me was awesome and for him was probably just whatever. We rehearsed a lot. We knew that our characters had to get along, so we bonded and hung out a lot. Brad and I would throw a football around, which is something the real Billy Beane would do with people in his office.
Q: I heard there was an intense prank war between the two of you.
A:It was pretty one-sided, actually. Brad Pitt is the Bobby Fischer of pranks. I mean, I consider myself a funny guy, but I'm not good at pranks. They take a lot of time and effort, especially at his level.
Q: What sort of pranks did he pull?
A:He decided I was obsessed with the band Wham! He decided this for me — I wasn't too familiar with their music. He put a framed poster of Wham! on my character's desk. Then he started messing with my golf cart. We each had our own golf cart, and we would race each other around the Sony lot and crash into each other.
He knew how much I loved my golf cart. No one was allowed to use it except for me. Now Brad, he's had his fair share of private golf carts in his day, but for me this was a big sign of respect. So I was very proud of my golf cart. So sometimes I would come out and there would be no wheels on it. I walked outside once to find it completely upside down. One time there were fake genitalia hanging from my golf cart and my actual car. And then he made my golf cart bright pink and put a Photoshopped a picture of me with George Michael on the hood. My car said "Wham!-mobile: Jonah Hill is the #1 Wham! Fan." And the icing on the cake was… engineered so that every time I turned on the golf cart, it blasted "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (1984). Whenever I had to go to a meeting on the Sony lot, I felt like I was driving an ice cream truck. But instead of ice cream, it was Wham!
Q: The movie's characters challenge the notion that baseball is a popularity contest. Do you think that Hollywood has the same problem?
A: No. I think that the group that I came up with, the Judd Apatow guys, defy that. The great thing about comedy is that it doesn't work that way. But at the end of the day, the studios will cast the actors who will sell the most tickets. These studios will look at a receipt and see how much money you're worth. In that sense, "Moneyball" is lot like Hollywood… unfortunately, it's about making the most profitable movie for the cheapest price. It's like being a mathematician, in a lot of ways.
Q: What directors would you kill to work with?
A: Paul Thomas Anderson. Wes Anderson. Martin Scorsese. Robert Zemeckis. JJ Abrams.
Q: Do you want to stick to the studio game, or would you prefer independent films?
A: I never think about that. I don't give a s--t if it's made for two million dollars or one dollar, as long as it has a shot of being great.
I feel right now the way I felt when "Superbad" came out, because with "Superbad" I was the underdog. I was on a movie poster, and nobody knew who I was. Now, it's not unexpected for me to do a comedy. I'm no longer an underdog in the world of comedies. With this film, I'm the underdog again. I was unlikely to be cast in this movie with Brad Pitt and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. This movie's a chance for me to say, "Hey, I'm Jonah. I'm in this totally different movie. I hope you accept me." I just wanna make cool movies, whether they're comedies or dramas.
