Her meets with Dan Mazer and Rafe Spall to discuss nude scenes with Rose Byrne, willy photos and extravagant efforts to woo a lady

By Genna Patterson

Dan Mazer, co-creator of Ali G and collaborator of Sacha Baron Cohen on Borat and Bruno has turned his hand to direct a romantic comedy, although if anything, its an anti-romantic comedy.

With actor Rafe Spall leading a cast including Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids), Stephen Merchant (The Office), Anna Faris (The Dictator) and Simon Baker (The Mentallist), the awkward set ups just have you squirming with discomfort. If you were drinking tea watching this movie, you’d snort it out your nose it's so funny and outrageous.

HER sat down with the lads to discuss the movie, the lovely Rose Byrne and how Rafe secured his role by showing Dan pictures of his willy.

                              

                              Pictured: Dan Mazer and Rafe Spall

HER: You have a very funny cast on I Give It a Year. Was there any craic?

DAN: Good craic, janey mac.

RAFE: We got through a lot of crack during the film yeah… No, it was a real laugh. Sometimes you get with comedy people, especially stand ups – they don’t laugh at other peoples jokes, whereas this was a very generous set where everyone was encouraging everybody else. Rose Byrne’s a great audience, she loved a laugh, and it was my objective on any given day to make Dan laugh at the monitor and Rose laugh in front of me. So we had a really nice time.

                    

                    Pictured: Rose Byrne

DAN: I think comedy relies on funny people and you can have the funniest scripts in the world and people who are perhaps brilliant actors but not necessarily kind of naturally funny with a lightness of touch.

For example the dinner party scene, where you take Stephen Merchant, Rafe, Anna Faris, Minne Driver, Jason Flemyng and Rose, and it would just be like the best dinner party you could possibly imagine. You just want to be at that dinner party. It would be a real struggle to actually start techs again. I’d sit down with them and ten minutes would go by and we’d just be talking and having a laugh. Almost the main challenge of making the film was to stop having a laugh with people and concentrate.

RAFE: Rose and play a couple who aren’t supposed to be getting on in our first year of marriage and in real life we really got on. I think it was maybe a worry for Dan because we had perhaps too much chemistry. Rose is a lovely girl, hard to look at of course…but she’s also smart and funny and kind.

HER: Does I Give it Year come from any personal experiences Dan? Where did the story come from?

DAN: Essentially it’s like all the most annoying incidents and habits from my seven years of marriage, distilled and super-sized into 90 minutes. All the annoying things that I do to infuriate my long-suffering wife I’ve recreated and put in 90 minutes. I feel I’ve spaced out the annoyances long enough so that I’ve survived somehow.

HER: Rafe, how did you become involved? I read you had to do four auditions? Was Dan a bit hard on you?

RAFE: Dan was always supportive of me and really wanted me to be a part of it. I just had to convince the studio and certain people that I was capable of being a leading man in a romantic comedy. People don't want to be the first ones to take a risk.

They don't want to be the first ones to give you a go at that. But then when other people find out that someone else has given you a lead part in something else, then they go, ‘well he might be fine for us.’We’ll give him a go too.’ And I understand why people are precious because it's a lot of money making these films and they want to get it right. And I was happy to prove myself to everybody, because I imagine its not a very nice situation to be doing a film where you know that not everyone’s behind you. So you get some famous actors who are thrown into a film but their director doesn't want them and that can be terrible.

HER: Dan, are you in the habit of asking actors to send you nude photos?

RAFE: I didn't send him one… I showed him one on my phone, and that was all me, and it was because I wanted to break the ice. I knew well I’d be showing my willy later on in the day, so I said ‘let me show it to you on my phone first’.

DAN: He set the precedent. I’m going to ask for them all the time now (even if there are no nude scenes). Even before they come in and audition, I want to know what I’m dealing with. If its not right then, there’s no point in them walking in the door.

RAFE: He’s going to see if someone has a bigger or smaller willy than him (Dan).

                       

                       Pictured from left: Simon Baker, Anna Faris, Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall.

HER: Rafe, you transitioned from love loser Ian in One Day to a love winner Josh in I Give it a Year. How did you go about it?

RAFE: There’s no difference, its just simple acting. Just because you play a loser in one film, it doesn't mean that's the only thing you’re capable of portraying. Its just acting and you go along with what the good parts are. And I want to play challenging characters and they both had good things going for them that I thought I could portray. In terms of the way I looked, I cut my hair, I worked out a little bit, and tried to make myself 15 per cent better looking, which is no mean feat.

HER: Rafe, would you play another lead in a romantic comedy?

RAFE: Well, if something’s fun - if I get sent a script which is funny, whether it's a romantic comedy or whatever… if its funny, then I’ll do it. I want to do all sorts of parts. I’ve been quite lucky in my career not to be pigeon-holed into one thing, I want to avoid being typecast.

HER: Dan, you’re used to doing mockumentary comedies (like Bruno and Ali G)? Why suddenly the transition to romantic comedies?

DAN: Well I think the truth is that funny is funny, and jokes are jokes and my primary objective for this was to make the funniest film possible.  I wanted to make a comedy where people actually laugh.

I thought it would be interesting to bring some of the sensibility of Borat and Bruno and the edginess of my previous stuff to a more mainstream subject. Without necessarily compromising on the humour and the edginess but hopefully enticing more people to go and see it because of the more mainstream subject.

                       

                       Pictured: Rafe Spall and Stephen Merchant

HER: You’ve made a romantic comedy more accessible to males -

RAFE: There’s usually a convention of what people call a romantic comedy that are just for women and people have said to me, ‘what are you doing next?’ and I’d say ‘I’m doing this comedy film, I suppose romantic comedy’ and they’d say ‘Oh yeah my wife would tell me about that.’

It’s not the case, I think it (I Give it a Year) appeals to both men and women which is quite rare. It’s because this has got real, hard comedy in it. Its really funny, proper big laughs, which a usual treacle-y romantic comedy might not have.

DAN: Yeah I think it's the type of a romantic comedy that you wouldn’t be ashamed to bring your boyfriend or husband along to. Effectively they needn’t come out of the cinema sort of hiding their faces when their friends come out of the Stallone movie next door. I think it’s alright for a man to go and see this.

                       

                       Pictured: Stephen Merchant and Anna Faris

HER: Rafe would you want to do a Stallone-type action movie?

RAFE: Eh, if the script was really good. There are some great action movies in the history of cinema. Like True Lies, Schwarzenegger film, its absolutely brilliant. And I’d love to do something if it had wit. Like Die Hard (movies) are funny,Point Blank is really great. I like mining the comedy in anything. There’s nothing that is beyond funny.

HER: You did a naked photo shoot with Rose Byrne? Awkward or erotic?

RAFE: That's a good question! (Laughs with Dan) You know what, I’ve done a lot of sex scenes in my life and they are distinctly un-erotic. Unless you get turned on by 15 blokes standing round watching you pretend to have sex, that doesn’t really do it for me… This was slightly different because we did it in lots of different ways. First just Dan and I and the stills photographer, then Dan and I and Rose, and then Dan, and I, the stills photographer and a body double. So it was a really weird day. But its amazing when you’re put in that sort of situation, how when you’ve been stood there.

So we did the pictures of my willy and obviously you had to see that, but for the rest of the time I put a sock on my willy. Like a normal sock.

HER: It was big sock…

RAFE: Not like one of those little ones you wear in your trainers. You’re stood there naked with a sock hanging off your willy. And Dan’s going “Ok, can we do the 69 now?” It’s amazing how quickly you can get used to it…

DAN: Because we did it on the last day, that helped. By that stage we were all friends. It would’ve been more awkward if we’d done it on the first day. I thought we should leave it to the end until everyone knows each other and that takes away the curse. I’d much rather see a strangers willy than my friends though… It got weird to see these people you worked with every day completely naked. It was a weird vibe.

                       

                       Pictured: Simon Baker and Anna Faris

HER: When you started out with Sacha Baron Cohen making the Ali G show, did you ever consider playing the part yourself?

DAN: (Laughs) No way. Never. There was talk about me playing the best friend, Martin Freeman’s character Ricky C, but no never.

HER: Rafe, if Dan weren’t here, who would you say is the best director you’ve worked with?

RAFE: Ang Lee from The Life of Pi. He’s incredible. I came on to that quite late as Tobey Maguire was attached to it first. The Life of Pi was incredible.

HER: Dan, if Rafe weren’t here, who was your favourite actor to work with?

DAN: Sacha Baron Cohen.

HER: What is the most romantic thing you’ve both done?

RAFE: I wanted to do something romantic for my wife on our wedding day so I planned to do sabrage – cutting a champagne bottle with a sword. I borrowed a sword from my friend (who offered me a sword, an axe, a knife) and I looked it up on YouTube. But the first video I saw was ‘sabrage gone wrong,’ so I didn't practice it. I just did it on the day and everybody applauded. It worked and she was impressed.

DAN: Buy her flowers from a BP service station? I can’t think of anything to top that. I do little things, like give her £50 to go and buy herself something nice. It’s the little things that are important.

HER: And what is the manliest thing you’ve both done?

RAFE: I think my last story covered that. But I also fixed the U bend on my toilet and it worked. Oh, and I was present for the birth of my two kids and I cut the umbilical cord.

DAN: I can’t think of anything. I don't even like changing light bulbs. I’m a northwest London Jew.

I Give it a Year is out in cinemas on Friday February 8.