Does Todd Phillips Know Lines From His Most Famous Movies?

Variety

Director Todd Phillips guesses lines from some of his most famous projects including, 'The Hangover,' 'The Joker,' and 'Road Trip.'

Transcript

00:00So just now do it?

00:02That's a funny line.

00:03I know what this is.

00:04I mean, this is a super ridiculous line.

00:05Oh, this is a horrible line.

00:12Hello, how about that ride in?

00:14I guess that's why they call it Sin City.

00:17Obviously, that's the hangover.

00:20It's the infamous speech that Alan gives on the roof

00:23of the first night of the hangover.

00:25How about that ride in?

00:27I guess that's why they call it Sin City.

00:29What I remember most about that is

00:31Zach and I really rewrote it on the roof that night.

00:34What we had originally written was a little too short,

00:37and we just kind of expanded on it.

00:39Of course, Zach puts his own touches on it.

00:41Yeah, that really kicked off the hangover

00:43that is in the hangover.

00:45What I think about all the comedies in general

00:47is the best feedback you can give a filmmaker

00:50or probably the actors in a movie,

00:52sometimes I'll get people to say,

00:54you know, I was in the worst mood

00:56and got home last night, and the hangover was on HBO,

00:59and I watched it, and I just forgot about everything,

01:02and I just laughed, and it just put me in the best mood.

01:05And really, what is the goal of a comedy but that?

01:09Ready?

01:16Yeah, that's from Due Date,

01:18and Robert Downey says that to Zach.

01:21I'm sorry we drank your father.

01:23That movie, more than any of the films I made,

01:26felt like we were making it up on the spot.

01:29We weren't, of course.

01:31We worked hard on a script and a story,

01:33but they're both so good at improvisation.

01:35Robert is so brilliant and so quick.

01:38To me, my memories of this movie are

01:40it was the best time I ever had making a movie in some ways.

01:45Oh, I know what this is.

01:47I found your 9-iron, bitch.

01:50Was that Snoop Dogg said that to Vince Vaughn

01:53in Starsky & Hutch?

01:55I found your 9-iron, bitch.

01:57Snoop was amazing to work with, and it was my second time.

02:00Snoop did a cameo in Old School,

02:03and quite frankly, the way I got Snoop

02:06to do the cameo in Old School

02:08is because he knew I was also going to do Starsky & Hutch after,

02:11and he wanted to play Huggy Bear.

02:13He was really difficult to wrangle on Old School,

02:16and he said, he explained it to me,

02:18because I go, Snoop, this is crazy.

02:20We're going to do a whole movie together, meaning Starsky & Hutch.

02:23I go, it can't be like this.

02:25And he goes, no, no, no, you got it wrong.

02:27He goes, you hired Snoop Dogg to play Snoop Dogg in your movie,

02:30and with that, you get all this,

02:32because he had a lot of friends there and a lot of hanging out.

02:35On Starsky & Hutch, you're hiring me as an actor,

02:38and he was right.

02:40He showed up on time every day on Starsky & Hutch,

02:43knew exactly what was going on, knew all his lines.

02:46It was a dream.

02:51I wish... I mean, this is such a ridiculous line.

02:54I wish monkeys could Skype, maybe one day.

02:58That's in Hangover 2,

03:00and that's probably one of my top favourite scenes in all three Hangovers.

03:04I wish monkeys could Skype.

03:08Maybe one day.

03:10We were just dying laughing this day,

03:13and Zach takes a moment and puts a cigarette in the monkey's mouth

03:16because the monkey was clearly an addicted smoker,

03:19like two packs a day.

03:21It was sweet.

03:23It's about as sweet as the Hangover can get.

03:25It really took off, and it was really a big success, the first Hangover,

03:28not just in the States but internationally.

03:31So we, me and the guys, we really just started talking,

03:34well, you know, what if we did another one, and we could do another.

03:37And the truth is, so many people are so dismissive of sequels in general

03:42because they think, oh, it's a money grab.

03:44What people don't realise about filmmaking is

03:47you really become friends and you become a family,

03:49and it's like, wait, we get to do this again?

03:51We get to hang out again together and just make each other laugh all day?

03:55So it's really motivated by that.

03:58I mean, I understand maybe the studio, that's what they want from a sequel,

04:02and while we want it to be successful,

04:04the truth is we just all want to hang out together again.

04:07OK, I used to think that my life was a tragedy,

04:11but now I realise it's a fucking comedy.

04:13Joker, Joaquin Phoenix, he says it to his mother right before he kills her.

04:19I used to think that my life was a tragedy,

04:23but now I realise it's a fucking comedy.

04:27Great line to say before you kill somebody,

04:30before you smother your mom with a pillow.

04:32Scott Silver and I wrote the Joker together, and Joker 2,

04:37and I forget where this line came from, when in the process it came from.

04:42Sometimes you just know, oh, that's going to be a seminal line,

04:45and that line really jumped out at us,

04:47and I remember Joaquin really liking that line too,

04:50which means a lot because he never likes anything.

04:52Joaquin and I, we had a really special time working on Joker,

04:56and we really did not feel like we were done with Arthur.

04:59I remember most of the times when you finish a movie,

05:03you celebrate the fact that the movie's done,

05:06but I remember when we finished the first Joker,

05:08there was really a deep sadness with me and Joaquin.

05:12We weren't really ready to leave Arthur behind,

05:15so a lot of just the idea of trying to do another one

05:18was to spend more time with Arthur Fleck.

05:21Just like Joaquin was his own take on the Joker character,

05:26I think with Gaga and her version of Harley, it's the same thing.

05:30We tried to respect the animated series, the comics, the movies,

05:35but run it through a really realistic lens

05:38like we did with the first film.

05:42That's a funny line.

05:45There are two types of men in this world,

05:47those who run shit like me and those who eat shit like you,

05:51and that was said by Billy Bob Thornton in School for Scoundrels.

05:55There are two types of men in this world,

05:58those who run shit like me and those who eat shit like you.

06:04While that's a funny line, that movie was a really difficult situation for me

06:08because I wrote that movie with Scott Armstrong,

06:11who I had written Old School with and Road Trip and a couple other things.

06:15That movie was always meant to be an R-rated film.

06:17I swear maybe two or three weeks before we started shooting that movie,

06:21Harvey Weinstein called me and said,

06:23No, it's got to be PG-13, and I had really not a good familiarity

06:28in that space with this kind of comedy.

06:30And to me it was always disappointing, that film,

06:33because it really took the teeth out of the movie

06:35and we found it really difficult under those constraints.

06:42Okay, so I'm here for the...

06:45Well, let me look at the camera and say this one.

06:47I'm here for the gangbang.

06:50This line was from Old School,

06:52and this line was said by a terrible actor, me, Todd Billups.

06:57I'm here for the gangbang.

06:59I still to this day have people come up to me and say that line.

07:03I was with my mom in a restaurant in New York

07:06and a group of firemen were eating over there,

07:09and one of them got up and came over.

07:11I'm with my mother and just said it rather loudly,

07:14and the guys over there are all laughing, and I sort of nodded.

07:18My mom's looking at me because I don't know that my mom ever even seen the movie.

07:22Basically the gist of this character was

07:25I always play the creepiest guy in the movie,

07:28so this guy, we call him Mr. Creepy.

07:30He's in A Road Trip, he's in Old School,

07:32he's in two of the three Hangovers, he's in Due Date.

07:35I have done an extensive body of work,

07:38only act in Todd Billups' movies, though.

07:41Any director comes to me, they ask me, I refuse it.

07:45Oh, this is a horrible line.

07:48This is, you're already cheating.

07:51Anytime you pass up sex, you're cheating on yourself.

07:54I imagine that that was said in Road Trip by Sean William Scott.

07:59You're already cheating.

08:01Anytime you pass up sex, you're cheating on yourself.

08:03This is the thing that people have to understand about comedies in general.

08:07Comedies are not meant to be timeless.

08:10Comedies are often perishable

08:13because they're reflecting or they're commenting on the current times.

08:18So you can look at a line from 25 years ago and go,

08:21oh, I don't know if I, that line is,

08:24this isn't even the best example, but you know,

08:27ah, what is the best?

08:30I'm trying to bring danger back into rock and roll

08:33and there are no limits and no laws

08:35and I'll break down every barrier put in front of me

08:37till the day I die.

08:39That was said by G.G. Allen in my first film.

08:44It's a documentary about this punk rock singer, G.G. Allen, called Hated.

08:48I'm trying to bring danger back into rock and roll

08:51and there are no limits and no laws

08:53and I'll break down every barrier put in front of me

08:56till the day I die.

08:57He had a very unique perspective on music,

08:59but it was really more just his attitude

09:02and what he was putting forward.

09:04It just seemed like an amazing documentary subject.

09:07They say in documentaries, a documentary is 90% subject matter

09:11and G.G.'s a perfect example of that.

09:13The movie is very shoddily made.

09:15I had no money, I was 20 years old,

09:17but because he was such an interesting subject,

09:20it sort of carries the film.

09:22What is this one?

09:24Someone needs to burn this place to the ground.

09:28Someone needs to burn this place to the ground.

09:30What is that from?

09:31I mean, it could be any of my movies in some bizarre way,

09:34so it's a tough one.

09:35Oh, oh, oh, it's Chow, isn't it?

09:37Is it Mr. Chow?

09:39It's Alan?

09:40Oh, no, I know who it is.

09:42I know what this is.

09:44It's Ed Helms in The Hangover Part 3.

09:48Someone needs to burn this place to the ground.

09:51I don't know that it would be Hangover 4,

09:54but I have such an affinity to every actor I've ever worked with

09:57and those three guys, we really went through it.

09:59We traveled the world together,

10:01making movies, promoting these movies,

10:03so it would be a shame if we didn't just get the band back together

10:07to at least work together.

10:09I don't know that it's Hangover 4.

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