BEVERLY HILLS, Calif — It’s not enough to be a sizzling commodity in movie comedies. Jonah Hill intends to ignite TV as well.
With
his career racing at the speed of light, he’s costarred in films like
“Superbad,” “Get Him to the Greek” and “Evan Almighty” and is a
burgeoning dramatic actor opposite Brad Pitt in “Moneyball.”
But on Oct. 30 he co-creates, produces and stars in Fox’s new animated comedy, “Allen Gregory.”
He
plays a precocious and pompous 7-year old who may be the smartest guy
in the room, but has yet to face the piercing assessment of his peers in
elementary school.
“We knew we wanted the main
character to be a delusional kind of pretentious character so what we
did, we figured the only way to get people to love him and still hate
him at the same time, is if he was a really adorable little kid. So
that’s where the ember that started the flame came from,” he says,
leaning his neck on the back of a vinyl couch in the lobby bar of a
hotel here.
While little Allen Gregory may be a deep thinker for a pint-sized pupil, Hill does not cotton to self-indulgent introspection.
Still,
he admits he’s driven. “I’m a very driven person,” he nods. “I think
drive is one of the most attractive things one can have. To be driven is
to want something for yourself, not to be scared to accomplish things.”
In
fact, Hill isn’t frightened of much. He may not be partial to flying,
but he says, “I honestly can’t name a thing that scares me.”
He
didn’t really plan on becoming an actor. Writing was his mojo ever
since he was 5 years old. A college drop-out, Hill says his parents
accepted that move with equanimity. “My mom was really cool about it.
She knew I wasn’t happy there. My dad was nervous, but in a
protective-dad way,” says the newly slimmed-down Hill, who’s wearing a
black, long-sleeved dress shirt and slacks.
“I’d
gotten this one part in ‘I Heart Huckabees.’ It was a movie with a lot
of stars in it. I had a little part, and I think my parents were just
nervous hoping I would find my way and figure it out. I was nervous, but
I knew I was young enough that if I tried for a couple of years I would
still be … I had time to fail. If I had to go back to school, I’d
figure it out.”
The other thing he had going for
him was the fact that he didn’t think like other people, he says. “I
think growing up I was an eccentric kid and a creative kid, and I think
growing up, I don’t think like everybody else, I guess. And in my
estimation I felt I was very different, so I thought differently. As I
got older — things like this — now thinking differently creates all
these wonderful opportunities for me.”
He’s not
talking about that teenage alienation that most adolescents suffer. “No,
this was when I was younger than junior high,” he says, resting the
heels of his shoes on the floor, his legs outstretched.
“I
had lots of friends, but more, like, parents didn’t get what I was
about. My peers got what I was about, but older people didn’t get what I
was about. I didn’t make it easy for my parents. My parents are
wonderful. They would tell me not to do what I was doing.” What those
childish trespasses were, he won’t say.
A quarter
of the way though the interview, “Allen Gregory’s” co-creators, Jarrad
Paul and Andy Mogel, interrupt, urging Hill to finish. “Hey, guys, we’re
just getting deep into my childhood right now. I’m done after this,” he
laughs. “I’ll be here.”
As deep into his
childhood that we get is to understand that he was “mischievous” as a
kid, but he doesn’t want to describe the pranks he master-minded. “I
liked to test the bounds of authority. It can lead to trouble,” he says
cryptically.
Riding the curl of show biz can be a
tricky maneuver. But Hill, 27, says he would be the last person to
complain. “It took me a while to figure stuff out, but I figured it out.
Look at me now. I think I think differently. I would never want to
think like everybody else. I think I’ve learned to be more logical and
understand a lot of people think a certain way, but I appreciate and
respect that I think outside the box.”
So all this
creative thinking hasn’t made him anxious or worried about the future.
“Things scare me in life, but I’m not scared of being judged by anyone. I
just want to make good art.”
———
Among
all the great programs ever televised, the two best are probably the
British series, “I, Claudius,” and “Brideshead Revisited.” “Brideshead”
earned 11 international awards and remains the pinnacle of British
period drama. The good news is that it is being re-released in a posh
30th anniversary edition on Blu-ray and DVD Nov. 1.
Based on Evelyn Waugh’s novel, it starred Anthony Andrews, Laurence Olivier and Jeremy Irons, who admits it changed his career.
“I didn’t think I’d be successful because there are a lot of good actors in England,” says Irons.
“I
remember the principal of my drama school when we were walking to see a
matinee that I’d done and he said, ‘You know, Jeremy, it’s a real shame
you weren’t born 30 years before because in the ‘30s and ‘40s you have a
perfect face for that period.’ And then, of course what happened, we
did ‘Brideshead’ and the fashion for that sort of Englishman came back.
Till then it was people like Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney and Michael
Caine.”
The new edition boasts a new transfer
from a high-definition source, plus special features, including a
documentary, four commentaries, new photo galleries, outtakes and a
viewer’s guide.
———
What if
the Grimm Brothers were modern-day profilers and the creatures from
their vivid imagination were actually criminals on the dock? That’s
basically the premise of NBC’s new series, “Grimm,” which premieres Oct.
28.
Sean Hayes (of “Will&Grace” fame), one of
the show’s executive producers, says “A lot of people don’t know
there’s over 200 Grimm fairy tales. We’re familiar with about 30 of them
or so, but it’s going to be fun educating people as to what those other
ones are that aren’t as popular.”
We might see a
twist on “Cinderella” or “The Three Little Pigs” or (as in the pilot)
“Little Red Riding Hood.” The Grimm Brothers were ahead of their time,
no doubt, and spun tales that were as dark as the “Chainsaw” franchise.
“This
all takes place in one world, it’s the real world, and our notion is
that the Grimm Brothers are actually profilers of criminal events. In
other words, the stories they told are real, and there’s no separate
world. They live in our world, and our guy can see them. He can see the
big bad wolf and the child molester, for example,” says David Greenwalt,
one of the show’s executive producers.
Distributed by MCT Information Services
