Idiocy savant

Austin Powers and Meet the Parents director
Jay Roach talks Dinner for Schmucks and his
comedic career

CHOREOGRAPHING COMEDY:
Roach, Paul Rudd and Steve Carell

by MALCOLM FRASER

Jay Roach is hardly a household name, but he’s directed some of the biggest comedies of the last decade or so, namely the Austin Powers and Meet the Parents movies. His latest is Dinner for Schmucks, a loose remake of Francis Veber’s Le Dîner de cons. Perpetual straight man Paul Rudd is a mid-level executive who gets invited by his boss (Bruce Greenwood) to a cruel dinner where each guest brings an idiot to make fun of; Steve Carell is the hysterically clueless IRS bureaucrat and taxidermied-mouse sculptor who bumbles his way into Rudd’s life. Roach sat down with the Mirror at Just for Laughs to discuss the film, his techniques and the peculiarities of his career.

Mirror: Why remake this film?

Jay Roach: I just loved the premise. I knew I could never duplicate it or match it, so I set out right away to make it quite a bit different.

M: The actors in the film represent a new style of comedy associated with Judd Apatow and company, but there’s a real old-school thread running through it as well.

JR: I’m a fan of Judd’s. We’re friends, and he’s doing something that we’re lucky to have him doing, because it’s very truthful… he’s so fearless. I’m probably more old-fashioned, because I like that style of comedy where you feel the choreography of the comedy as well as everything else, so it’s working on a whole bunch of different levels. But it’s by design more stylized, even more contrived in a way, and it’s up to the audience to go with it or not. I do try to set the rules for it, though, by having it come out of character. If you can find something in the character that earns that kind of physical comedy, then I think you get the best of both worlds.

M: Apparently there’s a lot of improv in the film, but I couldn’t tell when it was happening.

JR: To me that’s a compliment because there is a fair amount of improvisation but it’s always tight to the character. The actors are like great jazz musicians—they’re right with the track, the melody line and rhythm line, but they know how to riff off of it and make it feel like it was designed that way.

M: Your name isn’t well known as a director, even though you’ve worked with some of the biggest names in comedy.

JR: Some of my favourite directors, like Sydney Pollack, Mike Nichols, Billy Wilder, just worked with the best actors possible, and their style is not so important—their style served the story, served the jokes. And I’m not great at public speaking, so I’m not out and visible that much. I’m just lucky to have got to work with that class of people. It’s also funny to work with these amazing, world-class actors, and do some of the most ridiculous, absurd, occasionally profane things.

M: Have you ever lost it and cracked up on set?

JR: I have a towel I laugh into when I don’t want to wreck the shot. If I’m not laughing, I’m worried, ’cause I’m the audience. That’s what a director really does, is get paid a lot of money to just kind of be an opinionated audience member.

DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS OPENS THIS
FRIDAY, JULY 30