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WR: And a guy who doesn’t know how to say the right thing.

SR: Right, so I could make completely bad jokes, jokes that were in horrible taste, and it all fit within the character, so it wasn’t all too hard to be honest. I didn’t try to do much.

WR: It’s almost that every character in the movie goes to the extreme. Like when the Rachael character runs away, his character rather than talking about what he’s feeling, just keeps making more and more inappropriate comments. It’s just sort of how everybody in the movie is reacting. Anjelica Huston, the more worried she is, the more she wants to smother her son.

One thing I thought was really great was how the film smoothly represented the five stages of grief, but not on a forced timeline.

WR: Yeah, I based that on what my own emotional trajectory was and what felt honest to the character and the movie and that just happened to work out that way.

SR: It wasn’t until we were cutting the trailer that we thought about that. I remember talking to the trailer people about doing something where we show grief and shock. Then we watched it and went, “Oh! He did that, it totally coincides.” (both laugh). I thought it was gonna be a real stretch.

WR: It just naturally came that way. I wish I was smart enough to have seen that while writing.

SR: (laughs) I did too. That would’ve been helpful, Will.

Will, were you really as straight-edge as the Adam character in the film?

WR: (deadpans) I am totally straight-edge. In what way?

SR: (to Will) Well the character works out and never smokes or drinks. But you smoked.

WR: I did smoke. I would have a few cigarettes.

SR: That’s how we became friends. We both smoked.

WR: Well on Da Ali G Show you worked in this office and there were no windows or anything, so the only way [Seth & I] could get out of the office was on cigarette breaks.

SR: It was the only acceptable reason to leave for five minutes (laughs).

WR: And that’s how we became friends. Neither of us smoke anymore –

SR: (cutting off) cigarettes (both laugh).

WR: I should’ve specified (laughs). But I didn’t drink. I was a very neurotic, worrisome person.

SR: But you are much healthier than you were back then. You ate fried food and stuff then. Now you are the healthiest person…

WR: (overlapping) I am the healthiest person you’ll ever meet.

SR: It’s hard to go to dinner with him (laughs).

It sounds like the two of you carried around this script for a long time. In what ways did the dynamic of it change once you let other people on board such as the director and the cast?

SR: It changed quite a bit. I think a director really adds a lot to a movie. It’s like a whole other person that comes in and you want them to take ownership of the movie in a way, so it changed a lot when Jonathan Levine came.

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