Sue's Private Celebrity Goss: Jonah Hill Reveals 'Hard-Core' Laughs In 'The Sitter'

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Jonah Hill Reveals 'Hard-Core' Laughs In 'The Sitter'

'This and 'Superbad' were probably the two most fun, greatest feelings I've had while making a movie,' he tells MTV News in our Fall Movie Preview.
By Josh Horowitz

Jonah Hill in "The Sitter"
Photo: Fox Film

Director David Gordon Green calls it the love child of John Hughes and Martin Scorsese. Star Jonah Hill dubs it his favorite film experience since "Superbad."

However you want to spin it, one look at the red-band trailer for "The Sitter" makes clear: This is one damn funny movie. But MTV News didn't have to wait until August when the footage popped up online. We checked out the Brooklyn set last fall, when Hill and Green were plowing forward with their raunchy-yet-sweet-hearted comedy, and we walked away with muscles sore from laughing.

As part of our Fall Movie Preview, we're bringing you a sneak peek at "The Sitter," which hits theaters December 9, plus our chat with Hill, who spoke about drug dealers, improvisers and how he made sure the studio wouldn't soften his comedy's hard-R edges.

MTV: How's the shoot going?

Jonah Hill: It's going great. This is our halfway week. Week five out of 10 weeks. Very interesting information for people at home! I'm sure people were wondering how many weeks our shoot was. Big question on everyone's mind. But it's been the most fun experience of my life.

MTV: Where does that vibe come from?

Hill: It started with the script, which I thought was fantastic and hilarious and heartfelt and all the things I look for when choosing a movie. Then it continued when I said, "Yeah, I want to do this, let's find a director." I asked David, and he read it and said yes. Then we asked Sam Rockwell, and he read it and said yes. All the kids we found are amazing. The movie is about me having to babysit these three kids for the night. It's kind of like an R-rated, insane version of "Adventures in Babysitting." All hell breaks loose, and Sam Rockwell and J.B. Smoove play these two drug dealers. My mean girlfriend convinces me to buy her some drugs for her party. One of the kids steals some drugs from them, and then we're on the run through New York City for the rest of the night. The drug dealers turn out to be eccentric guys — they have science experiments and other insane stuff going on — and end up being the worst guys in the world to piss off.

MTV: What's the nature of your interaction with Sam's character?

Hill: He's a weird guy and goes back and forth between being funny and charming, and being uncomfortable and strange. Perfect for Sam. Not as a person, as an actor.

MTV:Have you worked with kids before?

Hill: Not on a major scale. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was technically a kid when I worked with him. When we were making "Superbad," Chris was the only one who had to go to school. So Seth [Rogen] and myself and Michael [Cera] would constantly make fun of him because he had this old teacher who would come — not old, if you're watching! — and be like, "Chris, it's time for school," and we would just laugh and laugh. And here we are uneducated and unable to read.

MTV: These kids are a little bit younger ...

Hill: Yeah, these are little kids. They're 10, 10 and 13. It's honestly the most fun ever. They bring such a fun energy to everything. We took them on a field trip to see "Jackass 3D." It was awesome.

MTV: David is a director who likes to throw things out at you and see what happens. Does that play to your strength?

Hill: He is incredibly improvisationally gifted. He's super fun. He's just a gifted guy. He's one of those guys who you meet and you feel he could possibly do anything if given the opportunity. He's super into real-estate ventures and weird things like that. He's an eccentric guy and one of my close friends. I'm happy to finally work together.

MTV: Needless to say, this is a hard-R film.

Hill: Pretty hard R, pretty aggressive R-rated film. They asked me to act in the movie, and I said I will if you let me be an executive producer because I want to make sure it maintains what I read on the page to being as hard-core with kids as you'll let us go. If this is the movie that takes us out of the business, we went down swinging!

From "Abduction" to "Muppets, "Moneyball" to "Breaking Dawn," the MTV Movies team is delving into the hottest upcoming flicks in our 2011 Fall Movie Preview. Check back daily for exclusive clips, photos and interviews with the films' biggest stars.

Check out everything we've got on "The Sitter."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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