Publications
Partners
Cape Town - In Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates Adam DeVine plays Mike Stangle. The brothers post an ad on Craigslist, to get suitable dates for their sister's wedding.
The film is based on a true story – though the real Mike and Dave sensibly decided not to bring dates from Craigslist in the end.
In this this quick Q&A he tells us about his character, working with Zac Efron and filming in Hawaii.
When did you first hear Mike and Dave’s story? Did you hear about it at the time?
I didn’t. I told one of my best friends the idea for the script and I said, “Evidently this is a real story.” He was like, “Dude, I know that story; I saw the clip of them on the Today Show, it was hilarious.” He’s in the demo, so I think we’ve got one fan. It’ll gross at least $10. What was so cool about this movie was that it says, at the beginning, “Based on a true story.” People are for sure going to think we’re lying. People will be saying, “This is illegal! We’ve gotta sue! The movie people are lying to us.”
What kind of guy is Mike? How much of him is based on the real guy?
I’m not going to say they’re similar, because I played him pretty dumb. I think the real world would be pretty offended by that. We took the story that they told, and not necessarily the characters. These guys are basically just fun-loving party guys. Hanging out with them, they’re not really trying to offend anyone. They’re not mean drunks; they’re just fun party guys. That’s how Zac and I tried to play them. With Mike especially, we flipped the roles, because I’m a couple of years older than Zac. In real life it’s the other way around. I thought the dynamic of playing Mike and having Zac Efron as your younger brother, what that would be like. He’s a little bit smarter and obviously a moderate amount better looking… I mean, a moderate amount. I’m not going to say a whole lot. Having him be this human Zeus of a man, and to have that be your little brother – the insecurities that come with that must be quite interesting. Everything must have come a little easier for him. I tried to bring a lot of that into the character of Mike. I’m not sure the real Mike and Dave have that same dynamic.
Did you know Zac at all before you did the movie?
We’ve become really good friends through this. A lot of times you shoot something and you’re with someone for a month or two, and you become friendly with them, but then you get back to LA and your regular life and you drift apart. I think Zac and I are going to be cool, weird old people that are like, “Come on over and let’s play Bridge.” That’s what old people do, right?
There’s no delicate way to ask this question: was part of your desire to do the role based at all on the fact that it shot in Hawaii?
Oh yeah, 100%. It would have been a hard pass on the movie if it had shot in Northern Ireland in the rain. Everybody was super jealous of me. It was the best thing just to say. “Yeah, I’m going to Hawaii all summer to shoot this movie.” If 10-year-old Adam could have heard me say that as an adult, he’d have freaked out. What was great about it was that I think it would have been harder to shoot a movie like this is if it hadn’t been so fun at the same time. And if we were shooting something dramatic and real, and there were kids off-camera doing cannonballs into the pool, and people running past in bikinis sipping pineapple cocktails, it would have been a lot harder to do. It was just so much fun to shoot, and Hawaii really gave it a laid-back, relaxed feel on set. It was a big Fox movie, and there was a lot of money at play, and a few big stunts and pyrotechnics, but it still really felt like we had all the time in the world and we were on Island Time, as they say.
Does being on location help when you’re doing a film that’s so much about the relationships between these characters?
I totally think it does. I only come from the world of truly knowing your co-stars. My show, Workaholics we were best friends for seven years before we got our show. Maybe it’s just testament to what a shitty actor I am that I really need to know these people. Like, I can’t make pretend. It’ll fall apart if I get a big movie someday with Sean Penn and I’m going, “Sean, we’ve gotta hang out for a few weeks before we start shooting. Let’s go to Cabo, me and you.” But especially for this movie, being away in Hawaii – and we went a few weeks early for rehearsals and script work with the writers and with Jake – we really got to know each other, and that’s when I think Zac and I really bonded. You don’t have anyone else to hang out with. It’s not like Zac and I have a ton of friends in Hawaii. I already knew Anna really well from doing all the Pitch Perfect movies, so it was fun having her there. And it was nice truly getting to know Aubrey, who I only knew a little bit.
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates releases in cinemas nationwide on Friday, 12 August.
