Jason Sudeikis is having his Moment—after more or less playing the straight man on SNL for a few seasons, he's had starring roles in a handful of comedies and even tried his hand at dramedy with recent film Tumbledown, which opens today, and in which he co-stars with Rebecca Hall. We chatted with the impeccably charming actor, who lives in Brooklyn with fiancee Olivia Wilde and new-ish baby Otis to get his take on making movies, playing Joe Biden, and navigating celebrity in New York.
I watched Tumbledown last night. It’s an interesting role for you because it’s a romantic comedy but it’s darker than a lot of things you’ve been in. What compelled you to take it on?
I really loved the script that [Desi Van Til] wrote. I really loved the story that her and [director Sean Mewshaw] came up with—Sean being her husband and my director. And I thought that it was a great version of a timeless romantic story. Even beyond the heyday of rom-coms..and again, I have the same kind of hard time putting it under the umbrella since we’re conditioned to do so. There are laughs, it is romantic, but it is a romantic dramedy, and what the hell does that mean, who knows.
It reminded me of a movie from the '30s, like a Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant film like Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday or All About Eve, where there’s the contention—or the tension, I should say—between the two leads. It makes all the emotional sense in the world and it really is a battle for them to allow themselves to love and be loved. I like that. I thought it was clever. I thought it was a great part for a female lead as well as for me. It is Hannah’s story and I like that and I felt that the Andrew character was strong and wrong, which I think men have a tendency to be often [laughs]. And yet at the same time, also having the ability to let Hannah know when she’s being strong and wrong, and the two of them navigating that together, regardless of their gender, felt very human.
Do you find it harder working with serious material, going from doing straight comedy to darker stuff?
I don’t on the inside. You might look at it differently, you might go, “Looks like you had trouble with this one, Jason,” but from the inside it's like, I’m doing the same thing, I’m trying to make smuggling weed across the Mexican border or killing my bosses or cashing in a hall pass as believable as the tone allows, and so for me, I mean, the majority of my life has been spent not on camera, so I’ve experienced comedy and drama and tragedy, to co-opt a much more concise Mark Twain quote. But I feel like this is just a different vessel by which to play any sort of dramatic narrative, whether it be for drama or for comedy. It’s still conceived prior to its execution, so you’re trying to make it real for you, and ultimately at the end of the day for the camera. Whatever happens after that, at this point in my career is out of my control.
What do you look for when you’re reading a script?
Well there’s no real formula. Something that surprises me. It depends on the genre. I’m not a big fan of...I can’t tell you what defines this term for me totally...but I’m not a big fan of stories that are inconsequential, that don’t seem to resonate deeper than the execution of them. Even with all the big studio comedies I’ve found, and maybe this has a lot to do with the training that I was lucky to get at Second City where we were doing sketch comedy, but there was always something else that the comedy was about. It doesn’t always have to be something that’s articulated.
For me, it’s like, okay, what’s the story, then what’s this story about besides what it’s about, and then at that point it kind of comes down to being surprised, as a true lover of the arts, whatever medium that is. Being surprised can sometimes be by having it harmonize with something within you, not a complete, “Oh my gosh I can’t believe that happened,” but like, “Oh yeah, that makes sense to me.” And when the work is shown and revealed dramatically, it’s almost like long division where I can see how it got there, and more importantly feel how it got there. Those are the things I look for.
Unfortunately, and I don’t think this is new, I think people have been frustrated with this for many many years, but you don’t find those as often as you’d like. You always find a glimmer of something and you want to dig deeper. It’s really important to me that with a piece of material, you meet with the person that’s charged with the responsibility of bringing it to fruition, producers, who has the most heat. If a person can convey that, if they already have a knack for the visual then they can usually get that across onscreen.
Do you still watch SNL?
I do.
What do you think of the new cast?
I think they're great. The majority of them, it’s slowly becoming that point where I haven’t experienced all of them on Wednesdays, but the half that I do know always had a good Wednesday—that’s when we did our table read. You don’t see everything that a person puts together and even maybe know their specific comedic voice yet, because maybe the show has—it’s going this direction during a political season, we end up seeing more political takes on things. But from the people I know, they’ve got even more moves in the tank and what I like most about this cast is that I can feel on Saturday that there was a lot of laughing on Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon, Tuesday night being where the bulk of the material is written.
When a cast comes together and either sharpens one another or delights one another is, I think, when that show reaches a special point and the doing of the show becomes more important than how the show is received. There’s a bubble mentality within that 17th floor, and the 8th and 9th in 30 Rockefeller Plaza that is unlike anything. It’s like you’re getting to see a clubhouse talent show every Saturday night. I love it when I get the sense that they’re making each other laugh and this cast has as much of an ability to do that as any in the past I know.
If Joe Biden had run for president, do you think you might have come back for a cameo?
I don’t know, probably. The only thing that would have disallowed it would have been my own personal schedule. I think when that all was being discussed I was shooting in Vancouver, which would have been tough to pull off. But I believe, yeah, I would have had no problem.
I finally got to meet him at the end of the summer, or, I guess, at the end of the fall. It was when he was vacillating or deliberating the decision. This was my first time meeting him, and I was like, "Hey, you don’t have to tell everybody, but you should let me know, you kind have my career at SNL in your hands." And he was like, "Oh that’s right I do, don’t I?"
Did he like your impression?
Yeah, I think so, yeah, as far as I know. If not, then he’s a better actor than I’ll ever hope to be. But no, it seemed genuine. I remember seeing him on Good Morning America, ages ago when I was playing him in the ‘08, watching me play him, and him laughing there, that seemed fairly genuine. He seems to wear his heart on his sleeve, so I get the impression—I haven’t audited or anything like that, but…so far so good.
Sudeikis and Rebecca Hall in Tumbledown.
What’s the best project you’ve been involved in that you think maybe hasn’t gotten its due consideration?
Oh gosh, there’s no sour grapes in this fruit salad over here, I’ll tell you that. I think it all happens for a reason. But I think I would have loved, for selfish reasons, I’m proud of what we did in the Horrible Bosses 2. There was a lot of work in pre-production, pro bono, just because it’s the three of us, me, Charlie, and Jason, and then the writers, directors, Sean Anders and John Morris wanted to come up with a movie that we were proud of. We tried to make something in the tone of, like, a modern day Marx brothers, modern day Three Stooges. It’s played at a wink, but only in the way we play it, not in the way it’s written. It’s not overly self-referential or anything like that, and I like that we played it like a movie.
But that’s one that I’m proud of that, again, for selfish reasons, I wish would have done better if for no other reason than the three of us would have gotten to do another one. I truly loved working with those two guys, and as a guy who’s played a lot of teen sports, and worked in a lot of ensembles with sketch and improv—I think you can ask any one of the three of us when we’re doing that, that it feels good because it makes me feel really good to make Charlie and Jason laugh, and I think those guys would feel the same about any one of the other two of us. And that’s a neat moment.
You still live in New York, right? Do you think there’s any chance you’d end up moving to LA, or are you centered here?
I can never say never, but I mean, we’re here. We live in Brooklyn. Work brings us often enough to LA. We’ve been in LA the past couple months, like we missed the blizzard this go around because I was working on Last Man on Earth. We’ve got a lot of friends there. It’s kind of nice to show up there and have it always be a reason for people to go out. It’s like, ‘Hey we’re in town!’ A lot of times it’s on other peoples’ dimes, so we get to fly in the big chairs, and drink, and if it’s an early flight, drink mimosas and not feel overly guilty about it. Both financially and you know, just socially… Heh. If they’re gonna put a mimosa in my face, you know, gotta drink it, it’s all they have left.
But, yeah, New York is home. We both have family here, and we’re making a family here. It sort of comes down to what the kiddo needs and wants, at the end of the day. We’re his plus one and two at this stage of the game.
What about New York do you prefer over LA or over another city?
Well, this is a character trait of mine—even the places that I’ve lived all my life, I can’t help but look back on all of them fondly. Even living in Las Vegas for three years, I know it was a little maddening when I was there but I don’t remember those things. So I’ve got nothing bad to say about LA. Because again it’s nice to be working actors—that makes LA a lot easier to deal with. It’s also great that we have friends that we consider chosen family out there so it’s lovely and the weather is obviously great. But New York—walking is a big deal, the interaction with people, whether it be at Madison Square Garden, or on the F train. It doesn’t matter.
I think as human beings and especially as people who get the opportunity to do what we do for a living, you can seal yourself off from the world, but I think from my personal philosophy I’m trying to imitate set life with set art. And so to remove myself from that life means it would affect, and in my personal opinion, negatively so, the stuff I’m trying to make, and the stuff that I’m a fan of already. So I like—not to use a word that has a negative connotation—but, the agitation that bumping against people allows, and the dialogue and the communication. I feel like it’s important to me as a human being and by proxy, what I do, and get to do for a living. It just allows for more spontaneity.
And as new parents, those moments are few and far between, so you really revel in them and the city allows for that. And that also is phasing into a quality of life that doesn’t want to be living up in an ivory tower. I’d prefer to be as I was prior to having a real estate agent that could direct you in the way of an ivory tower. Regardless of that, I feel it’s important to stay as connected to the ground as possible and New York provides for that, if by virtue of merely the size of the buildings around you. And the stature of the people who roll through here. It’s like there’s always someone more important than you in New York. And they might be living right next door to you, and you don’t even know it. They’re getting Chinese delivery, you accidentally get to peek into their apartment and you’re like, "Oh my god, the ceilings are 14-feet in there!" You know, it’s like, one of those neat, mysterious things about the city, and more and more so that’s primarily Manhattan. When we lived there I sort of felt that. But as that place becomes more and more of a floating country club, I feel like the other boroughs are taking up the cultural slack that the non-elite can, and still gives us plenty of places to get a good cheeseburger.
Do you feel a little less conspicuous in Brooklyn?
Not necessarily. But I don’t feel overly conspicuous anywhere, except maybe like, my parents’ house. That’s one of the few places where people might actually know 100% who I am, versus maybe think I’m someone else, or that I look like someone they went to school with, or as my friend Finesse Mitchell used to say when he was on SNL, like snap-famous when someone’s like, "Oh you are, I, you are, aren’t you, you’re, I know you…"
