Bill Hader Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

I was you know Seth and Evan and Greg Mottola you know they really were so open to whatever I wanted to do and I wanted to give him glasses because when I grew up in Tulsa Oklahoma there was a cop that would bust us sometimes and he wore glasses and it just kind of damask you laid it like we just we couldn't be we were never afraid of him because he had glasses on and then this idea that he becomes you know that he and McLovin are best friends if this kid McLovin is his best friend and i thought that was funny and i remember what helped me with that character was Greg Mottola gave me a note there's a scene in the movie and we shot it early where we're Slater busts into a house party and McLovin is having sex with a girl and he you know I played it in a way for comedy I played it big and over-the-top and I was jealous but I played it for comedy meaning like what are you doing after a couple of takes of that Greg came over to mean he went this guy's your best friend and he just ran out on you and I went okay got it and then that's to take that's in the movie where I'm like what is it why'd you do that like why why would you run off like that man like why'd you do that and it just became infinitely funny I remember I started doing that and the boom started shaking because the boom guy started laughs ain't like everyone started laughing cuz it was like just so real and it taught that taught me a big lesson [Music] Dave and hot rod is based on a guy I went to high school with and the story and that about him being on acid and a piece of metal flying into his eye that that happened to my friend I think he took magic mushrooms and he went into his his courage and started soldering stuff and a piece of metal flew into his eye and he called us and was like hey Can Has take me to the emergency room apparently someone told me he saw the movie and then Wow that was nuts you know how Seymour the piece of metal the guy's tripping balls on the piece of metal flies into his eye you know that happen to me once it's like yeah it's based on you dummy I'm making him sound like he's not smart he's actually brilliant but he's just like such an Oklahoma dude and now he's like a professor I don't think he wants his students to know that that's based on I auditioned for Tropic Thunder and there's a an executive who works at Paramount who I could do a good impression of and I did the reading a couple of times then I told Ben Stiller I'm like you know I can do an impression of this guy and he said what's that I was like I just want you all to know that we're having such a good time here and I remember he said this executive is unset and he goes do you know why they make the sandwich was so fresh and then he turned to the guy who made the sandwich is why the sandwich is so fresh and the guy kind of awkwardly was like I made them this morning because because he made them this morning and I did that in front of Ben and he laughed really hard and I went oh cool all right well and I didn't read the script I learned what I just did I did that and he knew the guy and he started laughing and then a couple days later my agent called me is like yeah you got the part and then we had the table read for that table ready for Tropic Thunder was insane it was like that whole group and then Tom Cruise walked in and Tom Cruise because I had a lot of scenes with him he sat down next to me and he was awesome you know what when he had all the makeup on and stuff it was really easy to chat with him because you forgot it was Tom Cruise and he was just going so crazy and over-the-top in it that it didn't feel like Tom Cruise but then we would sit in between Tessa you know setups and I mean he was so generous I mean I was asked I go you know risky business is such a great movie man when he goes oh thank you thank you yeah we did that it was you know and he would really give you really great stories that had great advice in them in the thriller les grossman thing and I would just be chatting with them and he'd be fine and then it wasn't until the premiere of the movie that again I saw him without the makeup on he was like hey man and okay Tom Cruise just yeah he's just you know he's giant movie star that's right yeah I'm in the second Star Trek movie I'm a voice of a ship JJ called and said hey man can you do you want to do a voice for a ship and the new Star Wars Star Trek and I went sure and he goes and you do it like today Michael I'm in Las Vegas he's like let me get into this and then it just got a call going a car's picking you up to take you to this little recording studio in Vegas and I went in and I did it like three times and then left and then a bunch of SNL people were watching the movie and they all went ha ha there's bill I wouldn't have noticed me but really now there's no like that's the weird thing you do these things and you do that they're so fast I don't I've watched things that I've done voices and I fully forgot I was in it I have three small children and we'll watch movies and then suddenly my voice pops up in it like Ice Age 3 or something I'm a gazelle and it's like hey I don't like when the hell did I do this they think it's embarrassing they think it's terrible they don't like it they're like oh it's embarrassing but I mean I would be embarrassed that's the thing I always say it's like if I was watching Star Wars and my dad showed up on the Millennium Falcon I'd be like just blows hey guys how's it going hey what's happening you guys wanna go hey Billy would love if you guys went to warp speed or wherever you call it oh my god Jesus yeah it's embarrassing [Music] yeah the bb-8 voice is very that's like JJ Abrams being just a nice guy and being like I'm gonna I'm gonna give you like a fanboy dream of having your credits in a Star Wars movie I just know I courted sounds and it didn't really work like I was going I was doing all these and I would watch the movie so I got to watch the Star Wars movie seven months before it came out and a little boost watching it on a little monitor and I would just do ADR for any time bb-8 came up and I would just do like these things and it didn't seem right and I was like well maybe Gary Rydstrom was like when we can manipulate it and do stuff with it it wasn't working so well I got to see the movie early that's cool and then in November the movie came out in December November JJ called me and said we figured it out it's this talk box like the Peter Frampton the Peter Frampton like you know like and then and he hooked it to this app on his iPad so what bb-8 is is me in the first movie I don't know what they did in the other movies I didn't work on the other movies but it's just me with this this talkbox going like and I'm just doing that and JJ and the guys were manipulating it as I'm doing it and it took maybe an hour and I get asked about it and now I assign pictures of bb-8 everywhere it's like this big thing and I did it in all of an hour the great Gardens episode that was Seth Meyers idea and he said what if you guys did great Gardens and I remember to be honest Fred and I were a bit we didn't want to do it because it was this dressing in drag and we were like you know there's a lot of funny women out there and I just dressing in drag feels kind of like another time I just I just don't like it like I love Monty Python that love gets the hall but anytime they're dressed in drag it always feels like a little out of step it just doesn't hold up or something and so we didn't want to do it and then the irony was he just persisted and was like you guys are the only two people in the show like no one's gonna call you out on this like just go do it and so we did it and no one gave you shirt it's the one that everyone knows so clearly Seth was right [Music] very very different than anything I've ever done he's he's kind of a it's not necessarily a cypher but you know he's kind of a new soul you know he doesn't he's kind of experienced in LA and all these people and and he's trying to find a community and he's trying to get in touch with like what's wrong with him cuz he knows he's murdered all these people and he knows that's that's wrong but he can't you know he can't figure it out and he can't really even like find a way to talk about it he can't even verbalize it you know this idea that he works in the shadows and lives in the shadows but he wants to be in the spotlight there's a funny conflict there so we decided to pitch it to HBO and again we said we want to play it very straight we don't want it to be it's not broad or anything and HBO that people that HBO had seen me in a movie called skeleton twins and they said oh we really like skeleton twins and we liked your acting in that so yeah I'll just go to table reads for dramas because no one thought of me in that way and I wanted to do that kind of work and so I did a table read for this drama and the casting director AV Kaufman saw me and really liked me so when she was casting skeleton twins you know they were looking at more kind of dramatic actors and she said you know who's really good is you know would be really good is me and and so I had this meeting with him and he was like I he the guy just doesn't you know you do Stefan you know and all that and no like you know I could you know work with you on the character and I and I know and the idea was that you know him being gays and he's out and proud has nothing to do he's depressed and I related to the idea of like no one's told you you're good at something you know you move out to LA you get away from your hometown and there was a part of that Milo character that I could have been that if just like one or two things went wrong I would have been right back home and pissed off and you know and I related to that those feelings and so I think we saw the character the same way which is like you know play him out and play you know you can be flamboyant and not there always seem to be a thing of like you know Craig and I talked about like don't people don't want to play them too flamboyant especially straight actors because I don't want to seem like they're doing a caricature or whatever and I get that and I but you know Craig and I were saying yeah we know plenty of gay friends who were out and very flamboyant and like just play it that way and the fact that he gave me so much he had so much confidence in me meant a lot and then get to work with Kristen in that way it was fantastic because it just was so we have eight we had eight years of experience together so there was no acting it was just we were just reacting off each other and and it was a blast while the one everyone loved was Stefan that was the one everyone talked about the most which was a blast that was always fun to do that was based on a barista and Chelsea who actually turned out to be friends with kate mckinnon after the fact which was funny he didn't talk like that early dressed like that it was just this attitude he had and then John Mulaney had a character that he would he would kind of do the voice of and we just kind of brought them together a lot of Stefan is John Mulaney he deserves a lot of credit for the character I mean so much of the language of that character is John Mulaney I have a favorite role they're all so different I just like that everything's so different I hope so you know and just continue doing that you know there's like little moments we have like a benchmark you know or you felt like oh man I was so loose I'm super bad and though that was a lot of fun or the chance to get to do some like skeleton twins which is so different and then bury which is its own different thing and it's it's just wanting to be able to swerve like that that's that's my biggest hope right thanks for hearing me natter on about my career I hope you enjoyed yourself [Music]

Channel: GQ

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Keywords: bill hader, superbad, tropic thunder, barry, bill hader gq, bill hader 2018, bill hader interview, bill hader roles, bill hader snl, bill hader barry, barry bill hader, bill hader funny, bill hader superbad, bill hader hot rod, bill hader star trek, bill hader tropic thunder, bill hader bb8, bill hader star wars, documentary now, bill hader documentary now, barry hbo, the skeleton twins, bill hader stefon, weekend update, stefon, gq, gq magazine

Id: fJZht2-Kg3w

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018