 "Photo: Courtesy of Kingsgate films")
The most infamous stoner duo since Cheech and Chong are back with a sequel, and this time, they're on the run from the government. "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" has the titular potheads wrongfully accused as terrorists and placed in Gitmo only to break out and travel cross country to freedom.
John Cho (Harold), Kal Penn (Kumar) and Neil Patrick Harris (Neil Patrick Harris) were in town to talk about the film during South by Southwest. The Daily Texan was able to nab a spot at the roundtable interview where topics ranged from stinky sneakers to verbally accosting Whoopi Goldberg to pubic wigs.
Daily Texan: After the success of the first film, were you guys anticipating a sequel?
Kal Penn: No, because the first one was not successful. It was not a success in the theaters, nor did it catch on on DVD right away. We didn't have much of a DVD marketing campaign going. What really got the film passed around was mostly, I think, people buying the DVD and recommending it to their friends. It was a really slow progression. It was definitely not an instant success, so it was nice when we found out we could do a sequel, because it was really because of the grassroots organizing of the fans.
DT: So what's it like making a fun movie?
John Cho: It's fun. Actually, it's probably less fun than you would imagine. We're not goofing off all the time. There's work to be done. As funny as it is, I guess we have to take the approach that it's a very serious business. Especially for me, I feel like I have to play it straight, and so I'm not yucking it up all the time, even on screen. This time around, what's different from the first one is that we all know each other very well, so it's not as combative. No, I'm kidding. It was a lot easier. It's like putting on an old, very stinky, unattractive pair of shoes.
Neil Patrick Harris: Comedy is very subjective, so I think it's way more difficult to film a comedy. The process of filming a comedy is much more difficult because it's not fun, but the end result will hopefully be fun. But in a drama, you simply get to go to a deep place, and there's more time setting up shots. With comedy, you have to deal with timing and pacing, and if you're going to pause longer at this thing, then I'll attack it in this way and "Is this funny?" There's a lot of, sort of, subjectivity to it.
KP: That's true. You kind of, in order to do comedy successfully, you really have to live in that moment. If you're aware that this is hilarious, what the characters are going through, then the audience isn't going to find it funny. You really have to stay committed to the nonsense.
JC: Having said that, we go on location, and since the filmmakers were very open to our participation and just collaborative kind of personalities, I felt like [a part of] the process of making it, as a whole, because we would end up at my apartment or Jon's apartment, and we'd have a scotch at the end of the night and talk about what happened that day and the bits that were coming up the next day. So the process as a whole, I think, you try to make as funny a thing as possible, it becomes a hard but fun thing, if that makes any sense.
DT: Speaking of your collaboration with the writers and director, did I catch a "Clara's Heart" reference in there, because that made me cry when I was 8. I just remember you being really mean to Whoopi Goldberg.
NPH: Yeah, I called her a bad word that I'm not allowed to say now. I said "the word."
KP: No way.
NPH: Yeah, I said "the word." Actually, in the scene that we filmed, there was a "Clara's Heart" follow-up to that line, but they took it out to make it a little more obscure.
DT: Was that your idea?
NPH: No, that was [writer/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg]. They wrote it. They just write the strangest, most obscure comedy.
Q: What's it like playing yourself on-screen?
NPH: It was really, really fun because I stuck firm to the belief that an actor's private life IS their private life and should be a deterrent from being public because it eliminates the audience's ability to suspend disbelief, to a certain degree. I was always a firm believer that the Matt Damon had a more successful career than the Ben Affleck because once he started dating Jennifer Lopez, it became so much about him and you saw him being him all the time that it seemed like you wouldn't buy him as an Italian mobster, even though he could play it very well. The Internet has overtaken that conceit so it's fun playing myself, but a very extreme version of that, because it sort of plays into that a little bit, which is cool.
Q: Are you saying that's not actually very much like you?
NPH: It's remarkably like me! [Laughing] No, it's almost the antithesis of me, but that's what makes it so fun.
Q: For a film that prides itself on being "un-P.C.," was there any kind of yardstick for what was too offensive? What jokes didn't make the cut?
JC: I'm trying to think of something from the first draft that isn't in the movie or wasn't in the draft we shot, but I honestly can't remember anything. [Jon and Hayden], much like Harold and Kumar, I feel, are innocents. And I think that's why the characters and the directors and writers get away with so much is that it's not a mean spirited "un P.C.-ness." It's really quite wide-eyed. We have a bottomless party, and it's almost a 13-year-old's perviness. It's not adult perviness.
KP: [Laughing] That's a great observation.
Q: What were your reactions like the first time you shot the bottomless party scene?
KP: Before we did the first take of that scene, we were outside of the house about to open the door, and John looks at me and says "Remember this night because for the rest of your life, you're going to be asked what it was like to shoot this scene." As soon as we opened the door, I realized how right he was. As "un-P.C." as the movie gets, it's never mean spirited. In fact, it does the opposite, where it kind of includes everybody as part in this 13 year-old humor movie, and I think that's what's been a joy to play.
NPH: Wasn't that scene just a merkin mecca?
Q: So it's all wigs, you're saying?
NPH: You're not allowed to show true vagina, but you can show a fake vagina on top of a true vagina.
Q: So that's why it got the R-rating instead of the NC-17?
NPH: Because of merkins.
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