To celebtrate the home release of the Ben Falcone directed comedy Tammy, We are proud to be able to share this conversation with actors Gary Cole (who plays Earl) and Mark Duplass (who plays Bobby) in the film.
Tammy is available on Blu-ray and DVD from 10th November
- Gary Cole
Mark Duplass
QUESTION: So, both of you, why did you want to be a part of this movie?
MARK DUPLASS
When Melissa McCarthy calls you and says “Do you want to come do a movie with me? I’m co-writing and producing and my husband’s directing, it’s going to be a family affair. We’re going to get make exactly the movie we want to make with no studio interference”, you usually say “Yes”.
GARY COLE
Yeah, when I was called about the movie, I knew Melissa was at the center of it. I knew Ben was directing it and they had already put this cast together. So it was a very easy decision to make because I knew they were going to come up with something with all those elements.
QUESTION: You guys play father and son, tell me a little bit about your characters?
GARY COLE
I play Earl, he’s a rancher of some type, we don’t know exactly what he’s raising out there, we just know that it’s somewhere in the middle of nowhere and he has to frequent this bar — that’s his habit. He has a son, played by Mark, and we encounter Pearl – Susan [Sarandon] – and Tammyin the middle of their road trip. Earl is looking for some company and finds it in Pearl, and the consequence of that is that Tammy and Bobby meet for the first time.
QUESTION:Tell me what it’s like to do the majority of your scenes with Susan Sarandon.
GARY COLE
Well, what can you say about Susan? Her work speaks for itself.I was a huge fan of both Melissa and Susan and to know that I was going to work with her — you do come awake, you want to be ready and do your best and it was great. We had a lot of fun.
QUESTION:Mark, I found that the majority of your scenes with Melissawere really the heart of the movie –and really sort of bring Tammy’s story to where it needed to go. Is it difficult to play the “straight man” when you’ve got all this other craziness going on around you? And playing it with Melissa?
MARK DUPLASS
Yeah, I played Bobby in the movie, and in many ways Bobby and Tammy’s relationship is the heart of the movie. We do less of the exploding jet skis and more of the relationship stuff. It was very fun for me to sort of play a “straight man”, which I hadn’t done a lot of before. Most importantly, I had a lot of great conversations with Melissa and Ben, who were very thoughtful of how they wanted audiences to perceive Tammy. Bobby, in many ways, is there to let audiences into Tammy and see what is great about her, because there are so many fantastic qualities to her. I think their relationship is unique and just really sweet.
QUESTION:As you mentioned, it’s sort of a family affair — you’ve got Ben directing, Melissa starring. What is it like to work it within that dynamic when you’ve got so many people around trying to make a great piece of film?
MARK DUPLASS
Any time you have the writer, the star, and the director of the movie be entirely comprised of a married couple, you’re in for a unique experience that could go terribly wrong, in this case, it was great because not only were they creatively aligned, but they clearly love and respect each other and, most importantly, having Melissa as a filmmaker, acting inside of the scenes while we’re improvising, she can steer the scenes where she wants them to go and control the narrative. So it really helps them exact the tone of what they want, while we’re all improvising and trying to find those fun nuggets.
GARY COLE
I was great that they had had this script for quite a while. They were real familiar with these characters and had a clear plan of what they wanted to do. Mixed with that, just an openness to play with it too. They designed it that way, and when you put Melissa in the center of that storm –you know that things are going to be free and open and can just be manipulated as you go. That creates a lot ofhappy accidents.
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