You'll recognize most of the cast of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" from their roles on TV shows like "How I Met Your Mother" and "Freaks and Geeks" (Jason Segel), “Veronica Mars” and "Heroes" (Kristen Bell) and "That '70s Show" (Mila Kunis), but there’s also an English snake in the grass.
Russell Brand is already a household name to anyone living in the U.K. with a television, radio or a copy of the Guardian newspaper, and his antics have been filling British airwaves since the early part of this century. He’s even published a memoir titled “My Booky Wook.”
In “Sarah Marshall” Brand plays Aldous Snow, a Brit rock star (go figure) who takes up with TV star Sarah Marshall (Bell) after she dumps the movie's leading man, Peter (Segel).
Consequently, Snow is the guy you’re supposed to hate. He's overly sexed, self obsessed and perpetually half-clothed. But Brand’s approach recalls a younger version of Bill Nighy’s Billy Mack character from 2003's “Love Actually” and turns Snow into a loveable louse whose kryptonite is alcohol—the polar opposite of a rail-thin Pete Doherty imitator.
Metromix spoke with Brand by phone about improvisation, English bathing peculiarities and the smell of Bell.
Filming "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" must have been quite difficult—laying around Hawaii, constantly making out with a half-naked Kristen Bell…
It’s for
this that you receive the money. You don’t receive the money for acting—that’s a pleasure. They pay you because you
have to kiss Kristen Bell. A woman for whom personal hygiene is an abstract concept.
How so?
That woman has so many aromas, from her mouth to her armpits and down to her nether regions—it’s like Disneyland for someone with no sense of smell.
Producer Judd Apatow's sets have a reputation as playgrounds for improvisation and silliness. Did you find that sort of thing to be a good fit?
It was fantastic. The performance just ends up being much more natural. You can use stuff from your own life. You can take the piss out of a celebrity or two—take the piss out of Liam and Noel Gallagher. It’s quite easy when you’re working with Jason [Segel] and Paul Rudd, who are both terribly good at that sort of thing.
Your hairstyle is both perplexing and nearly gravity-defying. Can you break down its structure?
The infrastructure of my hair is more complex than the Pentagon, but not nearly so vulnerable. A very powerful construction aided by hair spray, static and willpower. In terms of amount of man-hours, it’s nearly comparable to the pyramids.
Most comedians don’t find themselves on the good-looks side of the fence. Why would you choose an occupation as emotionally brutal as comedy?
Comedy chose me, lad. Sorry, I
am good-looking. I won’t inundate you with false modesty. My mom tells me often enough. I wasn’t an attractive child—I was very tubby, so that gave me time to formulate a personality. I still find it very flattering to be referred to as a good-looking person as, on the inside, I’m still a very tubby, neurotic adolescent.
But then you can carry those tubby neuroticisms into your acting and into your comedy routine.
It’s very helpful. The comedian is a risible character—a fool, a clown to be laughed at. Unlike a rock ’n’ roll icon who stands on stage and says, “Look at me, look at me, aren’t I sexy?” the comedian says, “Look at me, look at me, aren’t I foolish?” My life is a relentless embarrassment. I’ve hid it behind some eyeliner and a nice hairdo, [but] I’m still very much a nitwit.
You’ve spent some time being treated for sex addiction and nymphomania. First of all, what is the difference, precisely?
Now, I’ve not researched it; this is not a dictionary definition. But anyone describing themselves as a nymphomaniac is perhaps approaching it as a hobby, rather than a problem. When you use the phrase, “sexual addiction,” there’s the acknowledgment that it’s problematic.
So what sort of treatments did you undergo for this problem? Round-table discussions? Long walks?
[
Laughs] Yes! Long constitutional walks and imprisonment with 15 perverts in Philadelphia. The Keystone Center for sexual addiction is where I found myself for one month. It was a remarkable experience. I managed to meet many of America’s most enjoyable perverts. May I say that my own condition was put into a new and refreshing context as a man who simply enjoys the company of women, rather than someone so addicted to onanism that their skin has changed color.
In your Guardian football column you’ve mentioned that you’ve been back and forth to L.A. quite a bit recently, what have you been working on?
I’m doing a film with Adam Sandler called “Bedtime Stories.” It will be out Christmas. Obviously, Adam is the star of it and I have a lovely role as his best friend. After that, I’m doing another film with Judd Apatow and Jonah Hill. Then, “My Booky Wook” is being turned into a film directed by the English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom [director of "24 Hour Party People" and "A Mighty Heart"]. The title of the film, however, is still under discussion.
It seems like that title has been under discussion since day one. You said that the publishers were doing everything in their power to change the name.
They had incredible resistance to calling it “My Booky Wook.” It took a lot of willpower to convince them otherwise, but fortunately, I was absolutely committed to giving that book a stupid name.
But won’t the movie need to have a different title?
“Movie Woovie”…“Filmy Wilm.” Michael Winterbottom Intobottom will have to take care of that. I’ll have to defer to him as the filmmaker at some point.
Any thoughts about playing characters darker than or decidedly different from a sunny British lothario?
I accept that, at some point, I’m going to have to get a haircut. If I’m to be taken seriously as an actor. I can’t always go “well, I’d like to play this wild-haired British rock star comic.” It kind of only leaves the door open to play people like Jesus, Jimmy Page, Charles Manson… [After that] I imagine I’d be scraping outside of the barrel.
[Various splashing noises can be heard on Brand’s end of the line for at least two minutes.]
What’s going on over there? It sounds like you’re falling down a drain.
[
Laughs] Oh my God. I wish I could tell you, George, exactly what I was doing during that conversation and why I was doing it, but it’s the kind of thing that might look bad in print. Let’s just say there’s a process in the United Kingdom called a “gentleman’s wash.”
