John C. Reilly

Interview By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

While no one may have expected John C. Reilly to improbably turn into a household name comedy star, anyone who saw his breakthrough role in 1997's Boogie Nights knew he could handle it. Known mostly for dramas and "prestige" movies like The Hours and Chicago - the latter nabbed him an Oscar nomination - he showed off a different side of himself in the 2006 summer hit Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Sure, he was still the lovably pudgy best friend, but matching wits with star Will Ferrell earned him the lead role in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

The film, a spoof of musical biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, comes out of the Judd Apatow factory; Apatow produced Talladega and this summer's Superbad, directed Knocked Up, and co-wrote the Walk Hard script.

"The secret to Judd's success, and the reason that actors as well as audiences really like him, is that he's so honest," Reilly says. "He decided when he got the chance to make his own films ' because he'd been working for a long time as a writer behind the scenes for Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler ' when he finally got the chance to tell his stories, he made the bold choice of telling the truth. 'I don't care if it's a taboo subject, I don't care if it makes me look stupid,' he just laid it all on the line, from 40-Year-Old Virgin to Knocked Up to all the movies he produced and co-wrote as well. He tells the truth, and he tells it in a really frank way, and he lets the actors improvise in a really truthful way because it's just coming off of the top of their heads. And in today, with the media being so carefully controlled and vetted by lawyers and designed carefully not to offend, it turns out being honest is a really radical thing to do."

Reilly played the fictional music legend Dewey Cox in the film, an amalgamation of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, and just about every other real music legend of the past fifty years. The film features almost a dozen songs that are actually funny and good, the result of plenty of collaboration. The title tune was just nominated for a Golden Globe award, and was credited to four different writers, including Reilly.

"That one, Marshall Crenshaw wrote the song," Reilly says, "but it was based on some lyrics that Jake Kasdan and Judd Apatow had written in the script, and then I also did a whole improvised thing in the middle of it where I'm talking about it and ruminating on my life, and I changed a couple of the lyrics, so in that case all four of us became the credited songwriters."

Each song seems to have come about in a different way. "I did a little bit of writing on almost every song, you know, not enough to be credited on every song," he says. "We always re-jiggered the lyrics a little to make them funnier or something. Sometimes I would just pitch an idea to songwriters. Like I would be driving to work and think, oh man, it would be great if Dewey got into the women's liberation movement with the feminists, but his whole thing, all he would want, would be for women to take their bras off. That's the most important thing to him, the bra burning part. And so I was like, what would it be called' 'Ladies First.' So I would go and pitch it to them, they would go off to a hotel room and write it, and then they'd come back and we'd record it later that day."

In fact, the songs ended up being legitimate enough to actually go on tour with. For the past couple of weeks, to help publicize the movie, Reilly has been on stage in a handful of cities in character, playing songs from the film. "The studio was kind of into it, at first, and then the writer's strike happened, and they were like, wow, this would be a really great way to get the word out to people about the movie," he says. "Since I can't go out on talk shows [which have been dark since the strike began in November], they got really behind it... In terms of interacting with the fans it's one thing to introduce a movie and say hey, thanks for coming, but it's another thing to take them from the screening and bring them to a music club and perform all the music from the movie and perform. It's ridiculous; I should not be getting paid for it. Wait, I'm not."

Well, if he's not doing it for the money, then perhaps it's for more simple pleasures: "To hear a whole club of people shouting 'We want Cox' before a show, that's something everybody should experience in their lifetime."

With classical training and plenty of critical kudos behind him, Reilly seems to be both surprised and pleased he's a comedic star all of a sudden. "The only way I know how to do it is to be real. I'm not like these guys like a Bill Murray or Will Ferrell who just know how to make a line funny, kind of like an extra sense perception."

So does this mean he'll stick with comedies over dramas' "I like working. I wish I could say I made a deliberate choice to do comedy, but it's what the studios wanted to make and it just came my way," Reilly says. "It's a joyful day at work, making your friends laugh. I look forward to doing a lot of different things, I hope it lasts a while, and I hope I keep working. If people want to see me in comedies, that's fine with me."

Apparently there's some prestige involved in comedies too - aside from being nominated for Best Song at the Golden Globes, Reilly was also nominated for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. But while he enjoys the awards season and likes to go to awards shows - "They're like our conventions" - he's matter-of -fact about his chances. "I hope I never win one of these things," he says. "Because the pressure of what to do once you're, like, the crowned one, I don't know what I would do. I think it's better just to be in the club, you know, 'You're doing good work, and we noticed you.' It's almost like the nomination is better than the win."

And what about another go as Dewey Cox in other movies or tours' "We'll see how much people love Cox. If they really do, and they want me to keep doing it, then I will, but I'm not one of those actors who'll force it down people's throats." Everybody bursts out laughing, but it takes Reilly a second to realize he's unwittingly made a remarkable pun. He finally cracks up. "I've made a lot of jokes about that name, but that's the first time I've made that one."