Justin Long tells funny moment co-star ‘couldn’t stop farting’ on set of new movie

The star of a new film has revealed the hilarious off-camera problem that made production very difficult one night on set.

Actor and comedian Justin Long has spilled the beans on the funny reason one scene in his new Christmas rom-com was so difficult to film.

Despite all the wild lines the stars needed to deliver with a straight face for the Hallmark-type movie with a “naughty twist”, it was something off-script that was making production a little difficult one night on set for Christmas with the Campbells.

The cast and crew could not stop farting.

Long said his co-star Alex Moffat, of Saturday Night Live fame, tried to continue with their scene anyway.

“There was a scene where we were shooting late at night, everybody was a little punchy, you know, what happens after a long day,” Long told news.com.au. “And Alex had eaten a bunch of, I forget what they were serving for dinner, but it was something that was giving everybody gas.

“And Alex just kept going. He started loudly farting in the middle of the scenes and normally you would laugh a little bit and the crew would laugh and you’d go back to shooting, but he couldn’t stop farting.

“We kept rolling and he kept going with the scene. He would like pause, stop to fart like it was part of a line, like it had been scripted.”

Justin Long and Alex Moffat in the romantic comedy Christmas with the Campbells. Picture: AMC+ and RLJE Films

Long said he did what any good co-star would do and joined in.

“I started getting a little like ‘well I want to participate in this thing’. Acting is listening and responding so I want to be a good scene partner,” he said.

“I tried to squeeze out a few and we were just going back and forth like this. I could see the whole crew just stifling laughter. I looked at the boom guy and he just had his head to the side … it was ridiculous, it was crazy.”

Eventually, director Clare Niederpruem had to step in.

“She said ‘OK guys that’s really funny, let’s do one without all the farts’. She goes ‘just to have it,’” Long said.

While it was in fact that take that was included in the movie, Long said he thinks one fart made it in the final cut.

“It’s an Easter egg, emphasis on egg,” he laughed.

Long says his character is a cowboy. Picture: AMC+ and RLJE Films

Long describes his character, David, as completely unlike him – a cowboy, or in trying to find the best equivalent in Australia, a bogan.

David constantly whips out sayings like “news travels faster in a small towns than fleas in a dog pound” and “whatever winds your watch”.

His idea of a compliment is, “you look like a disco ball made sweet love to a shooting star”.

Long said he actually got a lot of inspiration for the character from Vince Vaughn, who he describes as someone “solid who can hold his ground”.

Long said for Vaughn, who was a writer on the film, the sayings would roll off the tongue “very naturally”.

“I tried to channel Vince because he’s got that kind of cowboy feel,” Long said.

“The way he combines words is so odd and brilliant, and feel unique to Vince but I’m sure he borrowed it from the guys he looked up to like Dwight Yoakam.

“He would often say ‘What would Dwight do? Think the way a cowboy would think, think the way Dwight would!’ and he would tell me stories about Waylon Jennings and Dwight and those guys.”

Vince Vaughn was a writer on the film. Picture: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Long said Vaughn was collaborative and would send him lines as he was rewriting the script, but while many funny lines are scripted, he is also a big supporter of improvisation.

Long reflected on working with Vaughn on the 2006 film The Break-Up, which stars Jennifer Aniston.

“People often think of Vince as the guy that delivers the punch lines but he is just as good at setting people up,” Long said.

“When I was shooting The Break-Up, the day before Jon Favreau had done a bunch of his scenes and Favreau was playing a bartender who is giving advice to Vince (who plays Gary) about his break-up, and it was really brilliant to watch the two of them go back and forth.

“I will never forget. Most of it they couldn’t use in the movie, it was way too much. It was Favreau that was doing most of the obviously funny lines and Vince was just setting him up, keeping the ball in the air.

“I feel really comfortable improvising around him and I’ve learned so much about improv from Vince. There was something about (the new film) that felt very full circle. I grew up, I came of age learning about improv by watching Vince’s movies and even his outtakes.”

Christmas with the Campbells streams exclusively on AMC+ from December 2