Danny McBride Land of the Lost Interview

MoviesOnline sat down last weekend with Danny McBride to talk about his new movie, Land of the Lost, based on the classic television series created by Sid & Marty Krofft. Will Ferrell stars as has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall, a man with no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts who must survive an alternate universe full of marauding dinosaurs and fantastic creatures from beyond our world after he’s sucked through a space-time vortex to a place of spectacular sights and super-scaled comedy known as the Land of the Lost.

Coming along with him for the adventure are crack-smart research assistant Holly (Anna Friel) and a redneck souvenirist (McBride) named Will. Chased by T. rex and stalked by painfully slow reptiles known as Sleestak, Marshall, Will and Holly must rely on their only ally--a primate called Chaka (Jorma Taccone)--to navigate out of the hybrid dimension. Escape from this routine expedition gone awry and they're heroes. Get stuck and they'll be permanent refugees in the Land of the Lost.

When casting the part of redneck huckster Will Stanton—a constant thorn in Dr. Marshall’s side—the filmmakers looked to a performer with whom two of them had previously worked. In 2006, Ferrell and Land of the Lost executive producer Adam McKay saw comic actor Danny McBride in Jody Hill’s dark comedy The
Foot Fist Way at Sundance. It was a small independent film that immediately resonated with Ferrell and McKay, and they signed on to release it theatrically
through their company, Gary Sanchez Productions. Prior to beginning photography on Land of the Lost, McBride had also locked in scene-stealing roles in Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder and agreed to star in the HBO television series Eastbound & Down.

Silberling found an everyman quality to McBride—a trait he shares with Ferrell—that allowed the actor to be coarse, yet still charming, as the manager of Devil’s Canyon Mystery Cave. He felt that McBride could do most anything on screen and audiences would still find him sympathetic…and love going along for the ride. Commends the director: “Danny is unbelievable; he feels like a found object. He does not seem like a guy that just walked out of a comedy club in Hollywood…more like a guy that just dropped in from North Carolina who happens to be incredibly funny.”

Ferrell is used to having others be the straight man for his wild antics on camera, but he found it refreshing to work with an actor who allowed him to occasionally
switch roles. Says Ferrell: “We trade off in this film. I go between competent scientist and bumbling scientist, and Danny and I pass the ball back and forth.”
McBride jokingly says of the film’s star: “Audiences like a sexpot. They like somebody who exudes sexuality, and that’s definitely what Will does. Everything from the socks hiked up to his knees to the vest that’s littered with trinkets and trophies from past conquests in quantum paleontology. This is what the ladies are looking for.”

Danny McBride is terrific in Land of the Lost. Here’s what he had to tell us about his new film:
 
Q: Did you know the show, Land of the Lost?

Danny: I did know it. I don’t think it was in the first run, but when I was a kid, I had definitely seen this show and was genuinely freaked out by it, but found myself watching it whenever I could.
 
Q: What freaked you out?

Danny: Chaka’s brow freaked me out a little bit and the Sleestaks. It’s funny ‘cause I had forgotten about the Sleestaks, which is like, “How could you forget about them?” When I first came to the set and all those Sleestaks were there, seeing them brought back all these primitive fears in me that I had when I was a kid. I was like, “Oh, I hated these guys, and now I have to act with them.”
 
Q: You were freaked out by Chaka and it’s come full circle to where you 69 him. 

Danny: I 69 him. You face your fears, as an actor, head on.
 
Q: How did that scene evolve?

Danny: In the script, it said, “Will 69s Chaka and they wake up by a pool,” and I was like, “All right, we’ll see how that works.”
 
Q: Were those giant crabs actually edible?

Danny: I didn’t know we were going to be really eating it. They just handed us those crab legs and it was stuffed with turkeys. They were like, “Yeah, you can eat this,” and we were like, “Okay.”
 
Q: What was it like working with Will Ferrell?

Danny: Will is the greatest. I have a history with him. He was responsible for getting our little film, The Foot Fist Way, out there. But, this was the first time I got a chance to really work with him, and he was awesome. It was a 90-day shoot. It was a long movie, and to be stuck with Will, Anna and Jorma, they were just all great and the movie went by so fast. He’s great to work with. He can make you laugh without even saying stuff. He just bears into you with his eyes, and you’re just like, “This is going to be shit.”

Q: Did you get to improv a lot in this?

Danny: Yeah. One of the things that initially attracted me to this was doing a comedy that would be mixed with some movie that would have all the special effects of this scope. I’m not used to really seeing a comedy of this scope. That was one of the initial draws to it. I just wanted to see what I’d look like standing next to a T-Rex, to tell you the truth. That was really what it came down to. People don’t get that chance. They’re not alive anymore. A lot of people don’t know that.
 
Q: What would Kenny Powers (from Eastbound & Down) think of this film?

Danny: He’d probably watch it. I think he would like it. He’s not a real person. He’s a character. [Laughs]
 
Q: Anna Friel said that you teased her with a lot of British jokes.

Danny: I did. She was one of the first real British people I’ve ever met before. I thought they just existed in history books, but no, they’re real. [Laughs] They walk amongst us. It wasn’t like They Live. I didn’t have to put sunglasses on to see her or anything. [Laughs] She was just there, all the time.
 
Q: Was there anything you were surprised to learn about British people?

Danny: She introduced Will and I to all these weird things, like Ribena, this weird little red thing that she would put into her water. No, I had met British people before, just none as beautiful as Anna Friel. I’m laying it on thick. [Laughs]
 
Q: What would you say is the tone of this humor? This film is PG-13, but kids are going to want to see it and it rides an edge.

Danny: It definitely does. There is definitely a subversive nature to it. On face value, you’d think it would be something just for kids, but it’s pretty racy. There’s stuff in there where you’re like, “Oh, okay, I don’t know if I’d really want my kid watching that.” But, what I liked about this film was that it was unexpected. It takes some turns that you don’t expect, with the tone and even with some of the comedy. When you see that the special effects are done for real and it’s not like the old TV show, I think it’s definitely unexpected where it goes, tone wise. I think it’s cool.
 
Q: Were there any ad-libs that you did that were a little over-the-top and that you had to tone down?

Danny: Yeah. There were a lot of those, where I’d just be like, “Oh, I want to say, ‘Fuck you,’ so bad and I can’t say it.” [Laughs] 

Q: Were you surprised at how much you got away with, with the PG-13?

Danny: Yeah. There was a great rape joke that didn’t make it. Anna was translating Chaka and, when she was translating what he was saying, she was like, “I think he’s raped an apple,” and raping apples is not cool. That would turn people off. So, Chaka doesn’t rape an apple in the movie, anymore. But, zombie dick is totally cool. [Laughs]
 
Q: Were there any scenes that were particularly difficult to get through because you couldn’t stop laughing?

Danny: A lot of the stuff at the swimming pool at that hotel, and the scene where he dumps the piss on his head. That was pretty funny. And, when he’s singing the song. There were a lot of scenes. It didn’t even have to be scenes that were funny. The cameras would be rolling and we’d be, “Oh God, he’s trying to fuck with us now” and he will just have this look, this glaze over his eyes, where you know that he’s going to try to make you break. It’s like an arm wrestling tournament to see who’s stronger and who can not laugh at Will’s jokes.
 
Q: How fun was it to do the wire work?

Danny: It wasn’t that much fun, to tell you the truth. I suffered a casualty, doing that. I lost a mole on my stomach, from the wire. And, it was a good mole. He had been with me, since I was a kid, and I lost him on this film. It was terrible.
 
Q: Your career has really taken a strong upward swing, in the last year. What is it like to be able to pick projects, instead of fighting for them?

Danny: This career has been so weird, in the sense that I never really had any ambitions to go into acting or anything. I had gone to film school as a writer and director, so most of my interests were behind the camera. I just ended up acting in The Foot Fist Way out of necessity because we didn’t know any actors, so I skipped that whole period of having to go to auditions and be rejected and have headshots, and all that stuff. I don’t think I have the same appreciation for where this is at, but it’s cool. Because of what’s happening on the acting front, we’ve been able to push these projects that we’ve been working on, as writers. I’ve definitely felt my fair share of rejection from the writing tip, and so it’s good to be in a place where you can start pushing the other stuff you’re interested in forward, and people actually will listen to you about it. With the TV show, just being able to work with all these guys that I’ve grown up with, and have been friends with forever and we’ve collaborated, and in a real job that’s actually going to find an audience. At the end of the day, it’s definitely a cool feeling.
 
Q: Jody Hill has said that he envisions Eastbound & Down as a two season show. Do you still think that, or do you think there could be a third season?

Danny: How we approached the first season was that we had an initial idea for how the whole show would go, if there was enough interest and we had a little bit of a run with it. But, we approached the first season going, “If no one watches this and we don’t continue, let’s make this so it can stand on its own.” And, that’s how we would approach the second season, too. I think we have a three-act idea of where the series goes, that would be three seasons, but it could end at the second season, if no one watches it, and it will stand on its own. But, we have a plan for what the third would be, if we got a chance to do it.
 
Q: Would it be another short, six-episode season?

Danny: I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I think it might be eight episodes. It was our choice to keep it small because we could just keep in control of the whole thing. We didn’t have to hire a writing staff and try to break our comedy down to some formula where other people are doing it. We’re all very, very hands on. We’re all in the editing room, all the time. We oversee everything. So, six seemed like it was manageable with everything that we had going on, and I think we’ll probably still keep it small.
 
Q: Does HBO have different expectations for what would constitute a hit?

Danny: HBO is so strange. Because they’re subscription based, it’s a little different than regular television. Of course, they want people to watch the shows that are on there, but reviews matter more to them than numbers do, to an extent, because if they have shows that are reviewed good, then that gives people a reason to subscribe to the network. With that, it was almost like the initial batch of reviews for the TV show were more important than the numbers were.
 
Q: Are you already thinking about how you’re going to top the first season?

Danny: The good thing is that we did have a plan for where we’d go, so that’s one thing that we’re feeling good about. We don’t have to really feel like we have to step over the same stuff. We had a plan for where things would go in the second season. The second season is going to be pretty crazy. We’re going to catch people by surprise. We’re treating this whole series as if it’s one giant movie. The second act of a film is not the same stuff that’s going on in the first, so we’re approaching this as if it’s the second act of a larger story. It’s going to go out there and be a lot different than the first season.
 
Q: Do you want to have Will Ferrell back on the show?

Danny: He might show up, here and there. We’ll see.
 
Q: What’s going on with Your Highness?

Danny: We’re actually doing that right now. I just came from Belfast. That’s where we’re doing it. That’s shaping up really nice. We snagged Natalie Portman this week. So, right now, it’s James Franco, Natalie Portman and myself, and we’re looking to lock the rest of the cast down, in the next week or so. It’s looking like it’s going to be a really crazy movie. The sets are being built, and they are all huge and crazy. I have to learn how to ride a horse and swing a sword, starting next week.
 
Q: Is it a medieval stoner comedy?

Danny: It’s not really stoner. It’s stoner as much as The Lord of the Rings books were, for that culture. If you’re stoned, you’d probably get a kick out of watching it. My character is a lazy, second-born prince who knows he’s not going to be king, so he just fucks off all of the time and smokes a little bit of the Wizard’s grass. It’s not centered around smoking. It’s about two brothers. Franco’s my oldest brother, and he’s like an action star. He’s amazing. Everyone loves him. And, his fiancé gets kidnapped by this evil wizard and we have to go on the road to save her. It’s a classic sort of quest tale with our fucked up view on it. There’s everything from stop-motion creatures to crazy CG creatures to puppets, like in Dark Crystal. It’s a wide variety of things that we’re pulling from, that are going to be in it.
 
Q: Are you enjoying the fantasy aspect of the film?

Danny: Yeah. We don’t want it to be a spoof at all. It’s just inspired by those things, but it has its own tone. When we were in the meetings with the people at Universal, they were like, “So, what is this movie?,” and we were like, “It’s Barry Lyndon meets Krull.” 
 
Q: Who is directing the film?

Danny: David Green is directing it. It should be pretty crazy.
 
Q: You mentioned a wizard in the film. Have you ever thought about a classic actor, like Sir Ian McKellan or Christopher Lee, or anyone like that?

Danny: There were thoughts of someone in that realm. David’s been over in London, casting. For the most part, aside from Natalie, Franco and myself, we’re going for a totally British cast, and not necessarily comedians. We want the world to feel like it is a fantasy movie that is serious, and then the comedy just comes from the fact that this is the last dude that belongs in this world. So, that caliber of actor is something we would be interested in, to make it feel like it’s real.  
 
Q: What is the length of the shoot, for something like that?

Danny: We start in the second week of July and we go until the middle of October.
 
Q: And, HBO is just being flexible about the next season of the show?

Danny: It’s definitely a priority of ours. We want to get back to it, so we’re going to be working on that, writing the scripts and stuff, while we’re doing Your Highness. And then, hopefully, we’ll get to shoot that at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
 
Q: If you’re going in such a crazy new direction with Season 2, will you still have the same cast?

Danny: You’ll have to see. [Laughs]
 
Q: What’s Mr. Machine?

Danny: Mr. Machine is an old script that David and I wrote together, that takes place in the ‘80's. It’s got this Gremlins feel, about these kids who make this robot for their science project and it ends up taking over their town. It’s something we had written a long time ago and were able to get it sold, once things started poppin’.
 
Q: Is there a role for you in that?

Danny: Yeah, there would be, if we’re able to get that made.
 
Q: Knowing the Land of the Lost TV show, were you surprised that this film wasn’t more of a spoof?

Danny: The first thing I thought was, “What are the special effects going to be like? Are they going to be like the special effects in the TV show, or are you going to go for it?” When they said they were going to go for it, I was like, “Oh, that’s probably an interesting choice.” It seems like it would be a cheap joke, just to go with the toy dinosaur. I don’t know if that would hold my attention for an hour and a half. There’s the purists, who I always read about, that are like, “I can’t believe you’re raping my childhood.” But, if Land of the Lost is your childhood and we’re raping it, I apologize. [Laughs] I think the show is awesome, and I think Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas keep the mythology intact without taking it too seriously. If it was taken too seriously, it’s just Jurassic Park. We’ve seen that movie before. This is a more interesting take on that tone.
 
Q: You’re also doing some animation voices for Despicable Me and Flanimals?

Danny: I read about Flanimals. I’m not in that, but I’ve read that. I was like, “Oh, that would be cool, if I was in that. I like Ricky Gervais.” I am doing a voice in Despicable Me.
 
Q: Can you do a Danny McBride type character in voice-over?

Danny: It’s weird. I’m not even doing a voice that sounds like me. It’s like a weird, old Jewish guy from New York. It’s definitely strange when you’re in there with no other actors and you’re just doing this weird voice and there are people looking at you. You’re like, “Is this funny?” It’s strange. 
 
Q: What sort of comedy did you grow up on? What influenced you?

Danny: When I was a kid, I found Monty Python really early, probably earlier than I should have. I loved Flying Circus, and all their films. But then, I also loved all the John Hughes films, and all those teen movies. And then, you get to film school and you start to learn about other movies. I like Robert Altman’s style of comedy, and things like Mash. That style has definitely been influential.
 
Q: Do you ever think about doing topical humor, like what’s going on in current events?

Danny: Sometimes. But, it takes me so goddamn long to write a script that, if I strap on something that’s topical, it will be old news by the time I finish it.
 
Q: Do you write by yourself, or do you sit in a room together?

Danny: We do a little bit of both. Ben Best is another one of our writers and he lives in North Carolina, so we’ll email each other. But, being in the room together is the best thing. When we wrote the whole series for Eastbound & Down, Jody was cutting Observe and Report, so we just gave up any writing offices and we were literally in his editing room, writing the TV show while they were cutting the movie. We’re not high maintenance. As long as we have a notepad and pencil, we’re fine.
 
Q: Where do you think your character would go, if Land of the Lost got a sequel?

Danny: I feel like they would come back to him and he would be like General Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, ruling all the Mikunis. They’re all in white and stuff. It would be crazy.

“Land of the Lost” opens in theaters on June 5th.