Stealing the Show: The best friend always seems to steal the show in romantic comedies, and that holds true for Rainn Wilson’s character in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. “Oh, you’re very kind. I was just given a lot of the smartest lines, I think. I think Don Payne, a somewhat nerdy, offbeat writer wrote a great part for a somewhat offbeat, nerdy actor with just a lot of terrific, smart, kind of wicked dialogue. It was really a joy to play and a joy to improvise off of.”
Speaking of Improvising: Did he and Luke Wilson engage in a lot of improv? “We did a lot,” confirmed Wilson. “Ivan really wanted and encouraged us to go off script and bring our own voice to it. As soon as we had an alternate take, we could be like, ‘Hey Ivan, I’ve got an idea.’ And he’d be like, ‘Don’t tell me, don’t tell me, just do it. Roll cameras.’ So we’d come up with a lot of funny stuff on our own, which is the way I really love working the most from The Office. I love improvising.”
Dr Phil Better Watch Out: Wilson feels he’s much better at offering relationship advice than his My Super Ex-Girlfriend character. “I’m totally the opposite of Vaughn,” explained Wilson. “Vaughn, I think, gives the world’s worst advice about all things having to do with sex, love and women. I actually think I give really good advice. I’ve been married for 11 years and I’ve got a lot of single friends in New York who haven’t quite grown up yet, even though they’re in their late ‘30s. They just can’t commit and they just can’t find the right woman. I’m always the one kind of guiding them towards maybe settling down and finding a nice girl, and maybe abandoning the high-paced scene of the New York dating world and settling down in the suburbs-type of thing.”
Wilson even has a surefire way to break up with a girl. “Well, a surefire way to break up with any girl is to tell her that you think that you’re gay. There’s nothing wrong with that because you could be exploring other sides of your sexuality. Like if she happens to run into you with another woman six months later, you can just tell her, ‘I’m not. Guess what? I’m not gay.’ So that’s always a good one because you don’t have to make it about her at all. It’s totally about you. Other than that, it’s just the old standbys. ‘I need some space. I need some time. I need to find myself. It’s not you, it’s me.’ Always start with it’s not you, it’s me and then go from there.”
Being Funny Amidst Crazy Special Effects: Wilson said it was no problem finding the funny even in such a special effects sort of film. “I think it’s easier to be funny. You had asked about the sidekick and the great thing about the wise-cracking sidekick role is that you feel none of the pressure of the movie. This movie is entirely carried by Luke [Wilson] and Uma [Thurman], and even to a little bit of a degree by Anna Faris who has to carry part of the story. But for me, I don’t carry any of the story. I know I’m in there to just have a little bit of comic relief. There could be giant explosions and I could just throw in lines I think are funny and have a good time, then see if one of them sticks.”
Was it more difficult to improvise when he had to imagine what was going on around him on the set? “You know, it’s all pretend. Even if you’re doing a scene with a guy, you’re surrounded by two cameras, 40 grips and stuff like that, and you’re pretending that you’re in real life. You’re pretending that you’re having a very naturalistic scene with somebody. Whether you’re doing that or imagining a giant catfight in the sky over lower Manhattan, it’s all just a game of pretend and having a good time.”
Losing It on the Set of My Super Ex-Girlfriend: “Luke and I would crack up a lot. We really, as different as we are as people, we share a very similar sensibility and what’s funny to us. We share what’s funny so when we go into some comic territory, we’d often find ourselves cracking up. More than several times we got a severe scolding by Ivan Reitman which, believe me, is not something you want to have happen.”
All Luke Wilson had to do was give Rainn Wilson a certain look and that would be it. “He has that kind of glint in his eye when he knows something that he’s saying is funny and when he’s really connected to it. Kind of the corners of his mouth will start to go up and you just know, you can see it in his eyes that he thinks what he’s saying or is going to be saying is really funny. And that’s usually when I start to lose it.”
Page 2: Rainn Wilson on My Super Ex-Girlfriend and The Office
