Vince Vaughn, Malin Akerman Interview Couples Retreat

Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Malin Ackerman, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell, Faizon Love and Kali Hawk star in the upcoming comedy Couples Retreat, directed by Peter Billingsley. Based on an original idea of Vaughn's, the comedy follows four Midwestern couples who embark on a trip of a lifetime to a luxurious tropical island resort. While one of the couples is there to work on their marriage, the other three set out to jet ski, spa and enjoy some fun in the sun.

However, they soon discover that participation in the resort’s couples therapy is anything but optional and that their group-rate vacation comes at a price -- all of the couples must partake in the unorthodox counseling techniques of Eden Resort’s renowned “Couples Whisperer” – Monsieur Marcel (Jean Reno). It’s all or none. And if it’s none, they will all be sent home. What follows is a hilarious and heartfelt look at real-world problems faced by all couples.

We sat down recently with Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman, who play one of the couples, to talk about their new film. Here’s what they had to tell us:
 
Q: Was it hard to get actual work done, working in a place like this?
 
Malin: Yes, it was. Obviously, you can’t really call it work when you’re there. It’s just an amazing vacation. Between every take, you just look out and you go, “Wow, we are in paradise.” Of course, we did get a lot of work done, and it was supremely enjoyable. We had such a great cast. It was such a great way to start a film. It was 3 ½ weeks in Bora Bora. Anytime you travel, the cast and crew gets to hang out, so you really get to know each other well, which was a nice base for this film, especially, because we’re all couples who know each other. We’re supposed to be good friends. So, we all ended up hanging out and having dinners together. It was fantastic.
 
Q: Was it a similar situation to the movie, where there were all these awesome things you could do, but there was a boss telling you that you had to be on set?
 
Vince: I don’t think so, no. For me, I grew up where it was flat and cold, so to go to a place like this is so foreign to me. Both my parents worked and, any time I’d do something fun, I could always hear my dad in my head, just making fun of me, like I was a wimp for going and trying to have a good time. I’d feel guilty about doing anything fun. The place was beautiful and it was great to be there, but the challenge, from a producing side of shooting in that place, became very apparent, very quickly, with the logistics. That place hadn’t been filmed in, in a long time. There were a lot of challenges in the execution of the filming.
 
Q: Vince, does writing allow you to have quality control over the projects that you’re involved in?
 
Vince: For me, it’s something that I’ve done forever uncredited. Even on Return to Paradise, I wrote a lot of the stuff in that. I’ve never taken credit. It was just my approach. I remember a moment in time, when I was talking to Favreau, and I said, “Man, I’m so tired of sitting around and waiting for parts to come. No one’s hiring me, but there’s no material.” I was waiting for material that I would do. I couldn’t get hired for anything. I was just an out-of-work actor. I said, “We should really write stuff,” and then he wrote Swingers, and we got to improvise and do stuff. I really got my wings, in that moment, and took it upon myself. Sometimes rejection in an area, at the time, can seem hard, but it can actually be a gift because it forces you to get better at things that you weren’t initially considering doing. I’ve always written and done stuff, and the best case scenario is when there’s a collaboration. In this case, it was easy because Faizon [Love] and I are friends. We had done Made together with Favreau. We had all been through the process that way before. And, I had done The Break-Up with Jason [Bateman]. The girls were new to the equation. But, this is the system I’ve always put in place. This time, I took credit for the first time. Favreau wrote the first draft, and then he was occupied with Iron Man stuff. So, me and this wonderful female screenwriter, Dana Fox, wrote the next draft. But then, I always bring in the actors and say, “Well, what do you think?” I always find that, when you include people and give them a voice, it’s a better collaboration and it’s easy to come to a common ground, and your actors are more invested in the roles themselves, and have ideas. Some of it sticks and some of it doesn’t stick, but you go through this improvisation process and you get some things that work and you shape scenes, at that point. And then, you go and shoot whatever you land on and write, and you allow a couple free takes and see if something comes up that makes sense.
 
Malin: It was actually a really nice experience because it was so collaborative and everyone was so open to taking ideas. It just felt like a team effort, which is nice for us, who didn’t write the script, because we were allowed to have a voice. It’s nice to come in and go, “Well, I don’t know if she would really say this,” and Vince would go, “What do you think she would say? What would she do in this situation?” It was just about flushing it out and trying to make it as three-dimensional and real as possible, which is always nice. You don’t always get that opportunity. It was a really great experience, in that sense.
 
Q: Malin, is this the first time you’ve played a mom in a movie?
 
Malin: Yes, it is. I grew up. It was a lot of fun to do. I am 31. I could be a mother of two, no problem. It’s always fun to do [different things]. I’m always intrigued by any roles that are different from the last. It’s nice to exercise all your muscles. I was more attracted just to the script and the dynamics of everyone, and then I went, “Wow, she’s got two kids. That’s kind of cool.” I am the oldest of four siblings, so I’ve had a lot of experience in raising kids. It wasn’t completely foreign to me, but it was definitely a huge difference, in going from action hero [in Watchmen] to mom, which is also a type of hero.
 
Q: Vince, where did the concept for this come from?
 
Vince: As you mature, you start to think about different things. I got to a stage where I was ready to have kids and a family, and I started thinking, “What makes a relationship work?” There had been a series of romantic comedies, but I thought it would be funny to do one that would encompass a larger group of people that would be couples. That way, it wasn’t just one thing to dive into, but it’s that dynamic that we all have. If you have a good guy friend, you really are thankful, if the girls get along. And, if you have a good girlfriend, you like it if their guys get along. People come over and you BBQ, or you go to a game or concert together, and you have that dynamic within the group. And, I’ve always found that it’s easy to see other people’s stuff and go, “God, if they just did this,” or “Boy, they’ve got problems.” But, you never can really see what’s going on with yourself. It’s just the nature of all of us. So, I felt it would be fun to take a bunch of regular folks, who are having a hard time conceiving, or their wife left them, or you think that you’re doing good at life because you have a job that’s working, make kids a priority and then go and realize, “What happened to us, in all of that?” The danger of not dialing in to each other is that the trust is gone. I wanted to take that group and put them in an exceptional setting with the promise, in a Wizard of Oz way, of some expert or some kind of enlightened person taking them on a journey. It’s about looking in the mirror. You have the control over the choices that you make yourself, one way or the other, and you’re in charge of your life. And, it really was important for me to have a character like Favreau’s character and Kristin Davis’ character, for folks that felt like, “God, they’re just so far passed even trying.” In life, sometimes when you go through hard things, like losing someone in your family, losing a job or getting a disease, it’s easy to focus on the problem and not where you want to go to. Sometimes when things are meant for our harm, God or life will use it to pay you back double, or use you in the future as a way to promote you. Sometimes people take their own power or faith away, in that moment. With The Break-Up, I had a thesis to say, “Here’s two immature people who handled a relationship immaturely, but at the end of the movie, have grown from that. The lesson was not wasted on them. They’re in a better place, in the future.” My thesis with Couples Retreat was to say, “Take regular folks with regular problems and give some hope, love and a little optimism for the case for marriage and the reasons for the value of it.” That was the intention of the idea for this movie.
 
Q: Vince, you and Jon Favreau bantered as single guys in Swingers, in the relationship you had in The Break-Up, and as married men in Couples Retreat. Considering where each of you are in your lives, how different is your banter these days, from when we first saw you?
 
Vince: It’s really about the tone for the movie. Swingers was really about a guy who was left by a girl, and had to try to meet a girl, for the first time, who he didn’t have a class with or didn’t know from his neighborhood. You have to go up to someone you don’t know. It’s a skill to learn. You think, “How do I approach this person and not have them think that I’m a threat?” The movie really is about that, and the male friendship that happens in it. The tone of this movie is about couples and relationships, so the subject matter is different. Swingers was an R comedy. Wedding Crashers was an R comedy. This is not. We intentionally didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain in this. You’re allowed a ‘fuck,’ but we didn’t use it because it wasn’t fitting for the type of movie that we were making. It wasn’t the tone. I would love to go back and do another R comedy, if the subject matter inspired me, and have the banter be fitting to that. But, for this, for what we set out to do with it, it just felt inappropriate to be shocking for shocking’s sake. It wasn’t consistent with the spirit of the piece.
 
Q: Vince, do you think acting has made you a better producer, and vice versa, since you know both worlds?
 
Vince: I think, for me, trying hard at things and failing has made me better at everything in life. I didn’t know anyone in Hollywood, so I felt like I had to out-work everybody and really try my best. If you can just keep moving forward and trying stuff, you don’t realize it, but roots get planted, like a tree. You go, “Boy, I don’t see a lot of growth in my work,” or whatever it is in your life. You think, “Man, I thought I’d have more opportunities where this was concerned, or where that was concerned, and I really don’t.” But, what’s happening is that you’re getting skills and strength and the roots are spreading, so that when the tree does grow, when you do get that opportunity, there’s a foundation that can support that growth. So, for myself, all the time I spent writing or acting, as I’ve been blessed enough to have some success, I’m better prepared for it because I spent a lot of time, when it didn’t go my way, working at it and learning about myself and learning about the different skills.

Q: Vince, where did you draw the inspiration for the counseling sessions?
 
Vince: Comedy is over-commitment to the absurd. The fact that a therapist would laugh at whatever your truths were is insulting. All of those different things are ways of finding an over-committed way to say stuff that would be said to someone in their therapy session. I’ve never been. I’ve always just talked to my family and my friends. I’ve never been a person that’s gone through excessive therapy at all. Some people might say that I should.
 
Q: Malin, what little thing does Vince do that would drive you crazy, if you were married to him?
 
Malin: He’s so concentrated, all the time. His brain is at a mile-a-minute while we’re shooting and working, so there’s really no time for the real Vince to come out because it’s constant work. That would be a good question for his fiancee.
 
Vince: Yeah. We got along really well. I was just impressed with Malin because she was such a giving actress. She was really a team player. She was a great team player. It was really easy. I saw her in The Heartbreak Kid and, she’s really pretty, but she was really out there. She was committed, and very brave to commit to that extreme of a career. That really impressed me with her.
 
Q: What were the challenges for you both, in making this movie?
 
Malin: Any movie is always a challenge, just because it’s a new character and you never know. You always want to make it as truthful as possible, which is sometimes hard because you’re always faced with new situations. But, at the bottom of this film, it’s all about relationships, and everyone in life has some sort of relationship, whether it’s with your family, your friends or someone you love. It wasn’t as difficult, as far as trying to relate to what you’re saying or what it would be like if your husband wasn’t listening to you, ‘cause that does happen in real life. You want to snap him into the reality. I’m always nervous going to set, no matter what. No matter how many months into it, I’m always nervous and excited, even though it’s a good nervous. There was a lot of improv as well, which I find exciting, but you just want to make it as good as possible. The challenge is always where you go, “Okay, how can we heighten this and make it the best scene ever?” Every day is that challenge. It’s not something specific.
 
Vince: What’s remarkable about Malin is that she speaks five languages.
 
Malin: Something like that, yeah.
 
Vince: What was your first language?
 
Malin: Swedish.
 
Vince: That’s amazing to me. I’m so dyslexic that I couldn’t even imagine learning another language. But, the command that she has, and then to think and perform in that, is just remarkable. It really, truly is.
 
Malin: Thank you.
 
Q: How closely did you follow the script for the movie?
 
Vince: The job of an actor is to look like you’re not acting. Sometimes I think people reward people who go to extreme emotions. I can look at it, and other actors can look at it, and go, “I can see the work in it,” but people go, “That must be powerful because you’re crying.” But, that would make everyone’s crazy aunt a great actor. So, I’ve always felt the real thing to do is make it effortless. Like any performer in music, on stage they look effortless, but there’s a lot of work that goes into looking effortless. The same thing for the dialogue with comedies. Comedies are much more difficult, especially when they’re story comedies, than drama. For example, if there’s a scene where a father says goodbye to his son because he’s going to go to work, you have to be simple with what sounds real and how that would really play out. In a comedy, you have to do it in that way, but also make people laugh. So, you have to be a little over-committed, but not so much so that they don’t believe or invest in these characters. We’re really well-prepared. This script had eight characters and four relationships. There’s no B-story. Every relationship has a beginning, middle and end. And, it was important to me, for my actors, to make sure that everyone got their respect and they had their relationship realized fully, from beginning to middle to end. It’s really an ensemble. But, the challenges of saying, “How do I buy into this guy, who feels like his marriage is over, and to this guy whose wife left him, and really do it in a way where it arcs and everyone gets their authentic journey, but at the same time, not have the audience feel bored because they’ve been through it too many times?” The editing of the ending came out of necessity. If you saw all these scenes played out literally, as we wrote them, they were well-acted, simple, truthful scenes, but by the time we got to the third couple resolving their issues, you felt like you were drained. So, we had to find a way to make it a collage and connect it all. Whether it’s Wedding Crashers, Swingers or even Old School, we’ve always collaborated and come up with stuff, and hopefully we’re having fun and buying into what we’re doing, so that, for the viewer, it looks like, “Oh, these guys are just having a good time.” It’s not that we don’t love our work, but it’s a lot of work to make it look like it just happened in that moment. If you went in with no screenplay and sat around with a camera, especially for a movie with four couples, where they have to track and you have to buy that they get back together, you would really put yourself in a no-man’s-land position where the equation wouldn’t add up to what you would need it to. There’s too much little stuff that goes on, along the way.
 
Q: Do you have to be very particular in who you cast then?
 
Vince: I love actors and I feel like, if you usually allow people some say, most people, if they start to feel comfortable, they’re going to have a voice. If they feel heard, then they will give back 10 times as much to you. There are some people that aren’t like that, who are only concerned about themselves. We all know people like that. Those are people that are hard to work with because you can’t get them to a place to trust. Where the guys were concerned, Faizon, Jason and Favreau are all old friends of mine and I had done this process with them before. The girls were new into the equation, but Malin was just a phenomenon of a team player. She was just exceptional. And, I think all the actresses really got comfortable. I think there was a fear, at first, and then they realized, “Oh, these guys aren’t looking to make fun of me in this scene. They’re okay, if the scene is at their expense.” They knew that, with the shark attack, I was going to be the one in the scene that looked foolish. The scene was really about trying to find that dynamic with friends that feels real. And, once they felt safe that it wasn’t going to be a cut-down contest, then everyone adjusted to that.
 
Q: Are you afraid of sharks?
 
Vince: I grew up around a lake, so yeah, I was uncomfortable. We swam with them. It’s like anything in life. Once you get around something, then you go, “Oh, this is kinda cool.” But, originally, I was like, “There’s no way I’m going in the ocean with a shark!”
 
Malin: Yeah, it was scary, at first. Actually, our guide had a shark bite on his arm. Right before we jumped in, I asked him, “What kind of shark bit you? That must have been a big one.” And, he was like, “Actually, it was a lemon shark,” which was the kind we were about to swim in. But, he was spear-fishing them.
 
Q: Where did you find that little boy for the film?
 
Vince: You can talk all you want about this and that, but if you just bring some kid on the set, it’s over with. You cannot compete with them.
 
Malin: They were incredible.
 
Vince: I have to give all the credit to (director) Peter [Billingsley], who grew up as a child actor and now has made this transition, for working with that kid. That was really his doing. He set up an environment where this kid felt safe and comfortable and was just happy, and I just got out of the way.
 
Malin: Yeah, kids are good at improv. Right in the middle of a scene, I would forget to do something that we rehearsed, like pour his milk, and he’d go, “Mom, you forgot my milk!,” which was great because it was so real, and you’ve just gotta go with it. He was fantastic. He was phenomenal.
 
Vince: Yeah, he was great.
 
Q: What was it like to work with Faizon Love naked?
 
Malin: He was buck-naked.
 
Vince: That was actually a scene that Favreau wrote, in the first draft. It was scripted that way, that he forgot his drawers. And then, Faizon started playing with Temuera [Morrison], who’s a great Polynesian actor from New Zealand. He’s such a nice guy. He was great because he was just so real with taking it seriously. You have the perspective of the audience, which is our characters, and then you have the oddity of the island, which is Jean Reno and the other characters. They’re so, “This is normal,” and then there’s our point of view. Something as simple as that is just the clashing of cultures, which just makes it funny.
 
Malin: And, he did some good method acting for us, in that scene.

“Couples Retreat” opens in theaters on October 9th.