Peter Segal Gets Smart

How a decision made in college brought audiences one of this summer's most anticipated comedies

by Mallory Potosky | Published June 20, 2008

(Page 2)

MM: Actually all of their comedies, the actors you’ve just mentioned, appeal to different groups in and of themselves. Dwayne Johnson is a little more action, Steve Carell is completely different from that and Anne Hathaway has the female audience.

PS: Right.

MM: So how did you, as a director, bring them all together, to act as this one unit in this one film?

PS: Well, first of all, once Steve was on, everybody wanted to come and play. Dwayne, actually, his agent called me and said Dwayne was interested in the role of Agent 23 and I was really surprised because at the time the role was very small. I met with Dwayne and he said, “Look, I love the work that you guys do. I love Steve. This just sounds like it’s going to be a blast and I would love to be a part of it.” And even took a pay cut to be a part of it.

Anne Hathaway insisted on coming in and auditioning with Steve because she’s a huge, psychotic fan of “The Office” and she wanted to meet him. She wanted to sit down and show she could dance—so to speak—toe-to-toe with his improvisational skills. Once we brought in Alan Arkin, who Steve had just worked with in Little Miss Sunshine, we knew that we were creating a very improvisational atmosphere. Everyone who had their various experiences with comedy knew that they had to be on their toes, so it was a really exciting feeling on the set every day when what I had to do was create an environment where all of these actors from different genres could bring what they knew to the table and then explore. So we’d always do one take as scripted and then once we got that down, then we’d start experimenting and start to play. It was always fun.

In the very first audition, when Anne sat down with Steve, it was the first time Steve had ever uttered the words of Max as Max. He started to improvise; he left the script and Anne went with him and I was scribbling notes in the margins on a piece of scratch paper because they were so great together. Those ad libs from day one wound up in the movie.

MM: So you changed the movie with improvisation? You also said Dwayne Johnson’s part was smaller. Was the script totally different beforehand and changed to accommodate him? Because he has a fairly large part at the end. I won’t give it away to readers but…

PS: Well, originally he was Max’s mentor, Super Agent 23. We thought it was going to be just a character actor. We wanted a quality person to fill these shoes and when he said he wanted to come in, well we couldn’t just waste this opportunity and we really beefed it up and reconfigured the story around that. Dwayne has just been amazing. He’s a very smart actor. You described him yourself as an action star. You look at what he’s done lately and he’s been in family films and dramas and now he’s branching out into more four-quadrant action comedies. I think he’s really smart to do that. He’s going to make a much longer career exploring different genres.

MM: Now you have another movie coming out with him, is that right?

PS: We’re working on the script for Billy Batson and the Legend of Shazam and we’d love for Dwayne to play Black Adam, who’s one of the great comic book villains. Ironically, there are many projects that I’ve been talking to Dwayne about and Steve about. I have to say, no matter how this whole movie experience turns out or ends up, this has been one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had and all of us would like to do it again.

MM: On other Get Smart movies or another ensemble piece?

PS: Well if the fans would really like another Get Smart, if it does well, we would do it in a New York minute.

MM: In terms of Carell, he seemed to fit the role perfectly because he…You know, Maxwell Smart’s kind of clumsy but he’s also smart and that’s how he does so well within CONTROL. What do you think made Steve so perfect for the role?

PS: No one can deny there’s an uncanny resemblance between Steve and Don Adams. Also Don and Steve share an intelligent kind of comedy. Both come from the stage. Don was a stand-up comic, Steve started in Second City, so both understand the rhythms of an audience and how to get the laugh. Steve is a very understated actor and brings a lot of humanity to every role that he does and it was his suggestion to treat this movie version of Get Smart as a comedic Bourne Identity. By infusing what he does and not trying to do an impression of Don Adams but to do his own version, which he thought would better honor Don’s legacy… to put it within a big scope where we could have spectacular international locations and action. In that world I think it’s exciting to people because they know him as Michael Scott and they know him from going around in that little yellow Volkswagen bus [in Little Miss Sunshine] and this is a different world for him but it still retains a lot of those elements that people love about his self-deprecating humor.

Catch Get Smart in theaters now.

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