Due Date: Talking comedy

Interview with Robert Downey Jr and Zach Galifianakis post shooting of Due Date.

LOS ANGELES: In the comedy film Due Date, Robert Downey Jr stars as a short-tempered businessman and first-time dad who is forced into a road trip with a needy, aspiring actor in order to get home for his child’s birth.

The wannabe thespian, played by Zach Galifianakis, brings his dog on the trip across the United States. Much of the comedy stems from the banter between the two as they butt heads on a range of topics and events during their adventure.

The pair sat down with Reuters, and the verbal jabs just kept on coming.

How often did you break character and burst in to laughter?

Robert Downey Jr: Well I consider myself responsible for Zach’s stellar performance, and I really enjoyed shaping it and watching it come together.

Zach Galifianakis: (softly) I don’t know if that’s the answer to the question.

RD: Huh?

ZG: (louder) I don’t know if you’re answering the question.

RD: It was. How did it feel to be the patient midwife in a staggeringly slow process of ritual adornment?

ZG: Oh, my apologies.

Zach, you starred in the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time with The Hangover. Robert you are a big box-office star with Iron Man. Who has the biggest ego?

ZG: Don’t you think it’s pretty obvious? I mean if you had said Eggo that would be me. That was a waffle joke.

RD: Boy, you are really controlling the pace now, aren’t you? You are in your power!

Robert was nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in Chaplin and Tropic Thunder. Zach, were you at all intimidated by working with a double Oscar nominee?

RD: How could he not be?

ZG: Quite honestly, a little bit. At least going into it...

What was it like sharing the camera with a terrier?

RD: We were actually looking out for the dog, saying “Do you really think Sunny needs to be in the hot car for another 2 hours when he’s clearly out of frame?” And (director) Todd Phillips would be like, “Hey, we’re paying the dog! Get the dog in there!”

Robert, you wear the same outfit throughout the movie and it gets progressively more tattered and beat up. Were you sick of putting it on day after day?

RD: I always thought it would be weird to have one costume change for a whole movie.

ZG: What do you mean? Why is that weird?

RD: Just because I thought it’d be weird. I know you’re used to it.

ZG: Well, the costumes...

RD: (imitating Galifianakis) The costumes...

ZG: (exasperated) I can’t say anything!

RD: Go ahead.

ZG: No.

RD: Say what you were going to say.

ZG: (mumbles quickly) The costume is really important in filmmaking. It really is. But everything I say is, I guess, a joke. Costumes are important. Everything is important...

RD: ...and a joke.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2010.