Actor Jason Segel (“The Muppets”) got to sit back, relax and act with a relatable character in his new film, “Jeff Who Lives at Home.”
He and writer-director Mark Duplass (“Cyrus”) shared their thoughts on making their new film over the phone with over 20 college media outlets across the nation.
Written and directed by Duplass and his brother Jay, the movie is a dramedy about a 30-year-old slacker named Jeff who lives in his mother’s basement and is obsessed with finding his own destiny. Segel could relate well to Jeff’s predicament.
“I had a really unpleasant out-of-work period from like 22 to 25 where I was just waiting around,” Segel said. “As opposed to Jeff where he was waiting for a sign, I was waiting to be cast. I guess now there is a parallel to that because you’re considering someone casting you as a sign that you’re worthy and all that.”
Though he could relate to his character, Segel got to have fun with costar Ed Helms (“The Hangover”), occasionally improvising during filming. Duplass shared how he dealt with improvisation on set.
“I said I have a basic rule of thumb,” Duplass said. “If you’re ever asking yourself the question, ‘Do we have it?’ you definitely don’t have it. So as soon as you stop drilling that question, you usually feel like you’ve got a sense of it. But when you’re using improvisation, you do have to keep a little bit of a tally in your head about what you’ve gotten so far and what you think you need. But at the end of the day, a lot of it’s just about trusting your gut.”
Filmmaking always has its challenges, and, as an actor, Segel shared his most difficult challenge during filming.
“Mine is that we shot as much chronologically as we could, and I gained 25 pounds during the shooting of this movie,” Segel said. “So to me, in addition to all of the complicated themes, it’s also the very subtle story of a man who gains 25 pounds over one day.”
Duplass also shared what he thought was most challenging to him.
“The one obvious one being that you know when you shoot a movie over 30 days that takes over one in the story, the skies and the backgrounds tend to change a lot and you have to deal with those logistical nightmares,” Duplass said. “But to me, the value in staying in that inherent frenetic pacing of that day and also from a practical level … It’s actually a blessing to me to kind of keep the story pretty finite in that way.”
With the success of his TV show “How I Met Your Mother,” several successful comedic films he wrote (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Get Him to the Greek”) and his Oscar-winning movie “The Muppets,” Segel doesn’t have to worry about proving himself anymore.
“On this one, I got to just be invited to the party without having to prepare all the food and decorations and all that stuff,” Segel said. “My job was just to show up and have a good time at the party.”
