The gang at Ain’t It Cool News is stepping up its coverage for the comedy Run, Fatboy, Run, which opens stateside this weekend. The film screened to a packed house at SXSW 2008, and it seemed to be a great hit. It’s a very funny and entertaining film. During his visit to SXSW, director David Schwimmer sat down with AICN’s Capone to talk about it all:
Capone: Were you worried…you were taking about going too dark, but were you worried that right off the bat it might be harder to like Simon’s character, because, I think, at least your female audience members might not appreciate him leaving his pregnant fiancée.
David Schwimmer: Yeah, that was the big hurdle of the movie. When I read the script, I was, like, you’ve got to be kidding me…Three pages in, this guy’s leaving, abandoning his pregnant bride. I’m, like, there’s no way I’m going to forgive this character, and then, sure enough, by the end of the script, I was, like, I don’t believe this, but I love this guy. I’m rooting for him. You need an actor like Simon who’s just likeable, Your heart breaks for this guy, because he’s so down on himself.
Over the phone, AICN’s Quint checked in with the film’s star, Austin favorite Simon Pegg, who was in the middle of doing a bunch of press. They chat about all things Pegg-related, including his upcoming role as a young Scotty in Star Trek and the impending Spaced DVD release. Also, they talked about working with Schwimmer:
Quint: So let’s talk a little bit about David Schwimmer and what he was like as a director.
Simon Pegg: He’s done a lot of TV and he’s done theater. I think as a director, he is enormously talented and a lot of that comes from the fact that he is very good with the actors. He is extremely good at second guessing how we are feeling and knowing how we are feeling and that’s important when you are an actor. You want direction and you want it to be sympathetic as much as you can and he definitely had that and you know he was working with a really good DP.
There wasn’t any kind of question of him not understanding the techniques of filmmaking, you know, he knew what an F-Stop was and he knew what the lens sizes meant and he knew what dollying left can do to a phone conversation. He was fully aware of the technicalities, so it felt very relaxed in his company as a director.
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