Jan 24, 2008 - Jason Biggs returns to a familiar genre with a role in New Line Cinema’s romantic comedy Over Her Dead Body. Biggs, who will probably forever be known as the American Pie guy no matter what other credits he has to his name over the course of his career, says that despite the fact he’s done his fair share of romantic comedies, Over Her Dead Body felt very different from his previous excursions into the genre.
“The one thing that separated this from the other romantic comedies that I've done is the role more than anything else,” explained Biggs who plays the best friend and business partner of a lovely psychic/catering company owner (played by Lake Bell). Bell’s character, Ashley, is hired by the sister of a guy whose bride-to-be was killed on their wedding day. The sister wants her brother to move on and believes getting a psychic to tell him it’s okay to do so is the only way he’ll feel free to get on with his life. Eva Longoria Parker plays the bride who comes back as a ghost to keep her now ex-fiancé from striking up a relationship with the psychic.
“I think thematically it sort of ties in, it's similar to a lot that I've done before,” said Biggs. “But the role was interesting… It was truthfully one of the most challenging roles I've ever done, believe it or not, because it was so layered. I was playing a guy who was straight, pretending to be a guy who was pretending to be gay. Is that right? Did I say that correctly? Yes. So I had to figure out sort of what his idea of gay was, or at least what kind of gay impersonation he wanted to do. I didn't want to go to the sort of stereotypical cliché place. I just thought that would be over the top and not credible, so in the end we decided the more subdued the better. But I was nervous and insecure about it.”
“I kept asking the director for help because I was really afraid that either not enough was coming across or too much was coming across. Anyway, it's very similar I guess to romantic comedies. A good romantic comedy, you kind of have to stick to a certain formula, and then the best romantic comedies sort of take a few risks within the formula. They don't stray too far, but they'll find ways to be original within that sort of context. I feel like [writer/director] Jeff Lowell did that here.”
Biggs shares the screen with a bevy of beauties in Over Her Dead Body, including Lindsay Sloane who plays Paul Rudd’s pushy sister. “We've become so close and the chemistry is so great there, unfortunately we only had one scene together,” lamented Biggs about his time on set with Sloane. “We worked one day together. We rehearsed. We shared rehearsal space a few time so at the very beginning of the process, we immediately clicked and then we didn't see each other again for two months. But that one day that she and I worked together was actually the one day that the entire cast was together. It was so much fun, so every other day was sort of just a smaller version of that. Most of my scenes, in fact all of my scenes, were with Lake and she's fantastic and so much fun. We had a great time together, and Lindsay says that her stuff with Paul was super fun.”
“I didn't really get to work with Paul, unfortunately, but everyone was great. The director, it always starts with him and it trickles down. He's the coolest. He's awesome. He's the sweetest, funniest, coolest guy, so laid back, really smart, fun. You've got someone like him running the show and inevitably you're going to have a good time. If you can't have a good time on someone like Jeff Lowell's, on one of his sets, then you are a serious wet blanket.”
Since his American Pie days, Biggs has been asked to do all sorts of crazy scenes. “I think, and I'm really proud, I think I've shown that I am willing to do anything for the sake of a laugh, if I think it's not gratuitous and in the proper context. If it's there and it's not lame, I'll do anything if I think people will laugh. I will do literally anything. I mean, I set myself on fire in this movie.”
Biggs isn’t joking. He actually performed his own ‘fire’ stunt in the film, although of course it was closely supervised by stunt coordinators and there was a fire/rescue unit on hand should anything go wrong. “It was really fun,” said Biggs of his stunt work on Over Her Dead Body. “It was, but I was so psyched. Again, I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm the guy who will do anything. Yeah, you want to set me on fire? F--k, yeah.’ They were like, ‘Jason, are you sure? We could shoot around it.’ I'm like, ‘Are you crazy? I will do all my own stunts in this movie.’”
“So all talk, all talk, all talk and then moments before filming - this happened with f--king the pie as well, actually - I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and then right before it I was like, ‘Am I really going to f--k a pie?’ Same thing with this... I was like, ‘Am I really going to set myself on fire?’ But it was really awesome. They fire-proofed me and I had all kinds of crazy layers and gels. But I don't think I had anything on my face and the fire was right there. I didn't realize that until afterwards. I was like, ‘Thanks for protecting my arm. What about the rest of my body that was not protected?’”
“We did it and they said, ‘You have a certain window of time to work with.’ I forget what it was and they were like, ‘You have this much time and then this stuff will not protect you forever. It will find its way to your skin.’ And I'm like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ So they gave me this time window and they said, ‘You'll know and it'll start to feel hot. Just put it in the water. Just err on the side of caution. Put it in the water.’”
“I did the first take, I was like agh, agh, agh, water. Then they come in and they're like, ‘Okay, listen. You don't have to do it again. That was great, but if you can, if you want to do it again, we'd love for you to stay on fire a little bit longer.’ I'm like, ‘Oh, okay.’ So we did it and that's the take that you see. We only did it twice, but it was fun. It was really fun. The pictures are great. It looked funny in the movie.”
