<\/p>\n
There are two ways to describe what \u201cGail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass\u201d is about. One is, What if someone actually tried to use their celebrity sex pass? The other is a parody of \u201cThe Wizard of Oz.\u201d Which came first?<\/strong><\/p>\n Definitely the former. Adapting the broad strokes of \u201cThe Wizard of Oz\u201d as a template was kind of our second step. The first was this idea of a celebrity pass and where might that go, and how might that bring us into this fun, whimsical version of Hollywood.<\/p>\n The whole script revolves around the pursuit of Jon Hamm. Was he always the celebrity it was going to be?<\/strong><\/p>\n We worked on various versions of this for a long time, but once we got to the point of actually making the movie we realized that the convergence of Jon Hamm\u2019s image in the world and also him being so incredibly funny\u2014plus somebody we know and have worked with before [on \u201cWet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp\u201d]\u2014and the pairing with John Slattery, who also has all those same traits, and then the way that they\u2019re perceived as a pairing on \u201cMad Men.\u201d It just felt, like, you can\u2019t do better. So we wrote it for them and then prayed that they would like it when we sent it to them. We did not, admittedly, have a massive Plan B.<\/p>\n How did that work, getting them to both be in it?<\/strong><\/p>\n I called up Jon Hamm and said, \u201cHey, I\u2019m going to send you this thing. No expectation that you\u2019ll like it, but we hope you do.\u201d And I said the same thing to John Slattery. They both quickly were, like, Let\u2019s do it!<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny to see Jennifer Aniston in this movie\u2014she\u2019s someone you worked with, too, on \u201cWanderlust<\/a>\u201d\u2014in part because there\u2019s a \u201cFriends\u201d episode<\/a> involving a celebrity sex pass and Isabella Rossellini.<\/strong><\/p>\n I honestly didn\u2019t remember that until you said it now.<\/p>\n Oh. Well, she\u2019s dating Ross, and they make a list of five celebrities that they can sleep with, but Ross takes Isabella Rossellini off at the last minute. Then she walks into the coffee shop, and he tries to hit on her, but she\u2019s no longer on the list.<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, that\u2019s so funny. I had no idea.<\/p>\n Well, anyway. You said that you and Ken started with the idea of the celebrity sex pass. Do you have thoughts on those in general? Have you ever had one?<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t recall having one. But I don\u2019t think any couple who does it is serious. It\u2019s a way to have a funny conversation about what you like or don\u2019t like. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever actually a real thing, which is the whole point of this movie.<\/p>\n You seem to have a kind of dial you can turn, from heightened comedy that\u2019s realistic, something like \u201cRole Models\u201d\u2014unlikely to happen in real life, but it could\u2014to complete fantastical absurdity, like this movie. \u201cWet Hot American Summer\u201d is somewhere in between. The summer-camp characters are of this earth, but then there\u2019s the scene<\/a> where they go into town and do hard drugs out of nowhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019re right, there is a dial. When making a movie for a big studio, for a wider audience, the dial is a little over to this side. \u201cRole Models\u201d was a project that had been in development without me, and then when we came on board\u2014me and Ken and Paul Rudd\u2014it was layering in our sensibility on top of a more mainstream package. I think the reason that movie worked on that scale was exactly that. We honored the conventions that we were working in, but then added a little bit of our thing, just to give it an extra edge.<\/p>\n