Last Christmas director Paul Feig reveals why Chris Hemsworth and Rose Byrne are so hilarious
Comedy king Paul Feig — of Bridesmaids and Last Christmas fame — reveals why he loves working with Australian actors and why he’s wary of men who call themselves feminists.
Entertainment
Don't miss out on the headlines from Entertainment. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Hotshot Hollywood director Paul Feig says Australian audiences are a joy to make movies for.
Although he was born in Michigan, in the northern US, Feig was raised on a diet of British comedy, from Monty Python to panel shows and has always appreciated its harder edge and willingness to embrace unlikeable characters.
And having directed Aussies Chris Hemsworth in Ghostbusters, and Rebel Wilson and Rose Byrne in his breakout movie hit Bridesmaids, he says he’s also well attuned to the comedy sensibilities that bubble up from Down Under.
“There is something very similar to me between Australian and British humour but Australian humour can be a little more raucous,” Feig says.
“Australian people are so funny and that’s why I love to come here to promote a movie – you guys are such great audiences and you just really get comedy in a way that we struggle in some other places. You’re more open about it because you just like to laugh. There’s a real joy in Australian audiences.”
Feig says the hunky Hemsworth, best known for his action roles and as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was a constant surprise on Ghostbusters, embracing the role of the dimwitted secretary and running with it.
And Byrne, who he also worked with on Spy, “is just a master at creating a weird character and then just acting completely normal – and it’s hilarious”.
“They are very character based,” Feig says.
“It’s not about big, silly jokes, it’s about becoming a funny character and then inhabiting that character in a very grounded way.”
Feig says the biggest difference between the comedy of his homeland and that of Australia and the UK is that “Americans are very hung up on likability and redeemability”.
One of his early directing gigs was for the American version of UK comedy hit The Office, which started as a reasonably faithful remake but with Steve Carell in the Ricky Gervais role “as a very hilarious but unlikeable character”.
But Americans didn’t take to the nastier elements of the character that made Gervais’ David Brent so cringily compelling and reinvented the Carell’s version as “a loveable idiot … who would still do things right occasionally and still win you over”.
“Americans just need that,” says Feig.
“That’s why if somebody does something terrible in America – if a celebrity gets in trouble for something – if they sincerely apologise and then have a sense of humour about themselves, Americans tend to forgive.
“But it’s fascinating because it does make you think about the characters you take on when you find projects.”
That challenge was just one of the many things that attracted him to his most recent movie, Last Christmas, which is out on home entertainment and streaming this week.
Game Of Thrones star Emilia Clarke’s lead character of Kate is a bit of a mess at the beginning of the London-shot rom-com, and Feig says that when Oscar-winning writer-director-producer Emma Thompson invited him to direct, he relished the opportunity to show a flawed, more-complicated leading lady than Hollywood usually allows.
“That’s what I loved about this script is that Emilia’s character at the beginning is very challenging,” he says.
“She is really lashing out and not doing the right things but that’s what makes her coming around so great.
“I got sucked in by the character, loved how funny it was, loved how emotional it was and by the time you get to the end of the script it really puts you through a lot so I was 100 per cent in.
“The idea of getting to work with Emma Thompson, every day, side-by-side was really good.”
All of Feig’s films since Bridesmaids, which have also included The Heat and A Simple Plan, have featured women in the lead roles and his feminist credentials was one of the reasons Thompson sought him out for Last Christmas.
While he says that was a huge compliment, Feig admits that he’s “suspicious of guys who call themselves feminists”.
“I would say I am a man who is strongly supportive of the feminist cause because it’s what I love to do,” he says.
“I love to tell stories about women and I just feel like women have got really bad roles – especially in comedy – over the last number of decades.
“And in the big blockbusters too really because they kind of have to be this 15-year-old boy’s version of a woman, which is either the mum who is mean or the girl who is so perfect but doesn’t really exist.
MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
HOW MICHELLE YEOH FOUND HER FUNNY SIDE
DIRECTOR’S BOLD MOVE TO CHAMPION WOMEN
‘TIS THE SEASON FOR FESTIVE SCHMALTZ
“I just have so many female friends – I always have my whole life.
“And I see these portrayals of women on screen and think that’s nothing like the women I know, who are funny and smart and strong and weak and flawed and three-dimensional and hilarious and everything.
“So I would just love to spend the rest of my career telling those stories.”
Last Christmas is out on Wednesday on Blu-ray, DVD and in the Foxtel Store.