*Disney provided my travel and accommodations while attending this event. All opinions expressed are my own.
So did you get a chance to see Delivery Man this weekend?! It opened in theaters everywhere Friday and I am so excited for people to finally get a chance to see the movie. I really loved the movie because it’s such a heart warming film. Before walking the red carpet for the premiere of Delivery Man we got a chance to sit down with Chris Pratt and Cobie Smulders and talk with them about the film. Both of them were so kind and it was a great interview. Here are a few snippets of my favorite part of the interview.
Cobie, how did you first become involved with the film?
I’m sure all of you know this but I’ll repeat it anyway. It’s based the original which is a French Canadian film by the name of Starbuck and I saw that a couple of months before I even read the script or anything and I really loved the film. I was really moved by the story. I really loved the characters. I really loved that it was Canadian because I’m Canadian as well and then I heard it was being redone and was kind of surprised ‘cause I thought it was such a great film. Obviously, it’s nice for it to come to America and I was also excited that Kevin Scott who wrote and directed the original was gonna do our version as well and I just thought he had such a strong vision and he had such great storytelling ability that I was really — I just knew it was gonna be a good movie. And then I heard Vince was attached and so I started just auditioning. I just went in and auditioned and met with all the guys and convinced them to give me the role.
What was your favorite place to film?
In New York. Well, I loved shooting in Brooklyn. We shot in Carol Gardens, we shot in Parks Slope and we shot a lot of our exteriors there. I think my character’s apartment was there and a lot of the outdoor scenes that we shot were in Brooklyn as well and I’ve always wanted to shoot a movie in Brooklyn. I was really, really excited that we were able to because nowadays it’s usually like, you know, Detroit for Brooklyn and so just to keep the cost down or whatever. I think at one time we were looking at New Orleans but I feel that in this film, the city of New York is such a strong character in our movie and it just adds so much to it, visually and it also just made it so much fun to shoot in. I mean you’re in Brooklyn and instead of going to get your coffee at craft service you go to like the local coffee shop and have a cup of coffee. It just made everything just much more fun, yeah.
Chris, you had to put on a belly. How did you gain weight?
That was fake. That was not me. That was a fake belly. Well, I really applied all of the principles of losing weight and just reversed them. You know, I had just come off from a movie where I had gotten in good shape. I did this movie, Zero Dark Thirty and I got in good shape for that. In a way like how a lot of people lose weight I just crash dieted and worked out and starved myself until I was skinny. So by the time I was done with that movie my body was really ready to gain weight, rapidly. My wife was in the last third of her pregnancy and so a good 20 pounds of that was probably just sympathy weight and gaining weight alongside her as we indulged in things that we don’t normally eat.
And then I had a meeting with the director and I saw the original movie. The actor who played my role in the original, really brilliant actor, and part of the charm was that he was a bit of a bigger guy and I thought that this is really great. It’s a role where I can gain a lot of weight and I’ve always wanted to do that. I’ve done it before once and I really wanted to do it again and see if I could really push it this time and so I did it. Everything you think, you know, minus any guilt. It was really great.
How long did it take to gain it?
It took about the same amount of time it took to gain it, 7 months.
What was it like working with Vince, Cobie?
I loved working with Vince. He is so — I think he’s everything that you would kind of expect him to be. Super funny, super quick. going into this movie I was very intimidated because, you know, he’s sort of known for his amazing improv and I was very, uh, I am very rusty and so when I came to this film and met him and, uh, he was so supportive and he was so, uh, you know, he’s also very considerate and very charming. Like he really goes out of his way to put everyone at ease on set and, uh, and set the tone for everybody so it was pretty great.
What was it like working with Vince, Chris?
I feel the same thing. I mean, really I mean he’s beloved by people, his fans and people because he just seems real. You know, he seems like a regular guy and I think that he’s everything you would really hope that he would if you’re a fan of his. He’s not like some Hollywood A hole. He’s, you know, he’s no nonsense when it comes down to doing work. He does work and makes sure everyone around him does good work and that’s important as the captain of the ship. But at the same time, charming, caring and, uh, you know, he’s polite. He’s polite to everyone from the people who are his weight staff, restaurants to fans and strangers on the street who approach him, who like him. he always gives a little bit of himself to people so he’s really everything you’d hope he would be.
Were those improvisation?
No, scripted. The movie was very scripted to sort of go back to what Chris said. I think that what happens is when you’re doing more improv in a movie or on a set in general like things, you just throw things out and things switch up. I mean this because Ken had such a strong vision for this film and, and maybe even stronger because this is the second time he did it. he really was specific about the characters and how he wanted them to relate to each other, so.
What did you like most about the story?
SMULDERS : For me, I was really moved the way that Vince’s character, David, chose to reconnect, not even reconnect, to connect for the first time with his children that were his biologically. I really loved the way that Ken wrote these scenes and also the way that it all sort of played out.
PRATT : Yeah, I think for me a movie like — it goes back to this execution of this idea ‘cause it could be a pretty broad idea, you know. there’s a version of this movie where these kids, uh, you know, oh, no one of them is a crazy kid and he’s part wolf. It could like go really broad. But instead it went to real places and really the movie about halfway through when he starts his journey on finding out and some of them are crazy like a professional NBA player like wow, that’s amazing or an actor who need a role and he helps him get the role and that’s great. But then all of a sudden you’ve got a kid who has needed assistance his entire life and lives in an assistant living home and that’s like then all of a sudden you’re, you’re moved and there’s a girl who is, you know, chemical dependency issues and you’re starting to dealing with these themes and these realities that make it a real examination of humanity versus just like, you know, see how silly you could play out the outlandish part of this.
Delivery Man is such a great film. I really hope that you take the time to go check it out this week with your family. It’s such a heartwarming and uplifting film with lot’s of comedy in between. For more information on this movie you can visit http://www.dreamworksstudios.com/films/delivery-man to learn more.