This week we have been talking to folks involved in the making of the new Warner Brothers comedy “COP OUT”. Before last night’s premiere in New York City, The Black Box Office’s Tara Lockhart caught up with Tracy Morgan again, with Bruce Willis!
Q: I wanted to ask you about the scene with the little boy. Did you think it was offensive?
TM: Did you feel my pain? No, it’s funny. If it’s not offensive, it’s not funny. I did “Little Man“, okay? I got beat up by a little boy the whole movie. Kids love it, they love to beat up adults.
Q: Was anyone around to monitor what the kid was saying?
TM: His parents? He’s an actor. The kid’s an actor.
Q: How has WB allowed you to push the envelope?
TM: I think WB really took care of us. They’re a classy studio. They allowed us to have a rated R which is really difficult to get nowadays.
Q: What was it like to be the sex symbol in this movie?
TM: Oh, you’re talking to me? Bruce was trying to get some love…
Bruce Willis and Emma at the NY premiere
BW: There’s a long history of all kinds of cop films, and this film stands on the shoulders of all those cop films, going back to gangster pictures.
TM: like “In The Heat Of The Night”
BW: Cop comedies, cop serious movies, Bonnie & Clyde, all these films are really about the same thing – triumphing over the bad guys. That’s about it. You wouldn’t want to see a film where the bad guys triumph over the good guys all the time. You’d get bummed out and stay home and watch the news — which is what that is.
I think Cop Out stands by itself as a film that has elements of a shoot-em-up in it, elements of romance in it, elements of ‘save the girl’ in it. 2 Cool tough cops that know how to be cops, but at a certain point we drew the line and said “you know what, we’re just going to make this funny. Everything else is secondary.” So while it has some action, bad guys, and romance in it, we just went balls out with the comedy and tried to make you laugh.
Q: With such radically different characterizations, was there a game plan without Kevin involved?
TM: We basically went Ralph & Norton. Me and my hair-brained schemes, and him with like “come on dude, I gotta go through this again, where do you find time to read about monkeys who like to give head?”
BW: Our first day of shooting was a really interesting day. It was without any pressure, without anyone ever saying “well, you know if you guys f*** this up we’re all gonna go home”. Within 5 minutes of that first scene in the diner, our timing, our overlapping dialogue, just pauses and just that stuff you learn after years and years of doing comedy just fell into place easily. Had we not had good timing, it would have been a different picture.
TM: Yeah, my wife would probably kick my ass!
Q: Bruce, what did you think of Tracy’s John McClain impersonation?
BW: Damn good, damn good. Still a little young .. but damn good. Here’s the thing to note: With all the other films I see this film being compared to the buddy comedies of the 80′s and 90s, In The Heat Of The Night, and films where there is very strong racial tension – Black Cop/White Cop what’s going to happen/are they going to kill each other/eat each other – And not one time in this film did we comment on the fact that Tracy’s Black and I’m white. I didn’t miss it at all.
Q: What was the draw to work on this film. Was it the script, the title…?
TM: Bruce was on board and when they mentioned Bruce and Kevin…I was in. I became Paul.
BW: When I first got the script, Kevin was being talked about very seriously. But the script was written by a couple of very funny guys.
Screenwriters Rob & Marc Cullen
BW: Rob & Marc Cullen. Really funny guys. They helped us with the little changes. They had ideas all the time, but it made me laugh out loud, something very difficult to do on a script’s first read. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed like a fun project. I met with Tracy and we said “Okay, let’s go!”
Q: What’s it like being directed by Kevin vs. acting with Kevin?
BW: It’s the same thing. Kevin’s really loose, he plays it real loose. He gave us a lot of latitude. He’s got his own timing, his own sense of humor, and he knows when to reign us back in. All of the improv we did, we would go back and discuss itreview what worked and what didn’t, then go back and shoot it again. I think the only part that was real improv that stayed in the film was the scene in the car with Tracy and Seann talking at the same time.
Q: Bruce, have you ever been interested in writing your own memoirs?
BW: I can never write my own memoirs, just because so many people are still alive and would get hurt.
Q: Tracy, you’ve had the experience of writing your own memoirs. Care to comment on the subject?
TM: Don’t do it. Too many people are still alive and might get hurt.
Q: They say that you bring tools with you from past lives before acting and everything else you’ve done. What tools did you bring with you specifically for your roles?
TM: I brought my sense of humor, my sense of humor to get me past my mother and father separating, my oldest brother having cerebral palsy, and the bullies in the school yard. I had to make them laugh to keep them off my ass, so I brought that throughout my career.
BW: I had a little brother named Ralph. He’s no longer with us. He was a lot like Tracy. I just thought about him a lot. he was there with me a lot.
COP OUT is in theaters this Friday.
