If you thought the first film was crazy, Horrible
Bosses 2 is wilder and crazier, upping the ante on
every level. After what happened with the bosses
from hell, the first time around, Nick ( Jason
Bateman), Dale ( Charlie Day ) and Kurt ( Jason
Sudeikis ) have decided to become their own
bosses by launching their own business. But
when they’re outplayed by an investor ( Christoph
Waltz), the three best friends hatch another
misguided plan, this time to kidnap the investor’s
adult son ( Chris Pine) and ransom him to get
their company back.
During a conference at the film’s press day, co-
stars Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason
Sudeikis were joined by Jennifer Aniston (who
plays Dr. Julia Harris, the hot dentist with an
overactive libido that she’s trying to get a handle
on) to talk about building their chemistry, how
much ad-libbing there was, saying such raunchy
dialogue, upping the ante, getting Christoph Waltz
to laugh, adding Chris Pine to the mix, making
sure they got this film right, after the success of
the first one, and whether they’d consider a third
movie. Check out what they had to say after the
jump.
Question: Jennifer, how does it feel to be in a
sequel?
JENNIFER ANISTON: It feels wonderful to be in
a sequel, especially a really good one. Right? I’m
very happy to be in this sequel.
It’s been a few years since you did the first film.
Did any of you go back and watch the film again,
to pick it back up?
ANISTON: I actually did, yeah.
SUDEIKIS: In pre-production, when we were
going through the script and rehearsals with Sean
[Anders] and John [Morris], we watched it in my
trailer, that day. One element of sequelitis is how
things came to be. And when you actually sit
there and watch the movie that we’re basing the
second one on, you’re like, “Oh, that’s right.
Okay.” It was really funny. I know for me, it got
me fired up to do it again.
Jason, Charlie and Jason, how did you build your
chemistry, initially?
JASON SUDEIKIS: Well, you have to work on
something to make it pretty great.
CHARLIE DAY: Sudeikis and I had worked
together before the first film.
JASON BATEMAN: The first time we worked
together was at the table reading of the first film.
Jennifer, doing the scene where you were at the
addiction meeting, did you ad-lib any or all of
that, or was it all scripted?
ANISTON: The structure of it was there, and
then we would throw in little things, as we were
doing the volley back and forth, of what my
demands were for the description of what it was
that he was admitting in the group. That took on
different little variations, from take to take. When
we saw this cut, it was a fun surprise to see,
“Oh, they chose that line.” There were endless
lines.
Jennifer, how do you get into the mind-set to do
this type of language?
ANISTON: I find it extremely entertaining, the
way she speaks, because I don’t really think that
she thinks that she’s saying anything
inappropriate. For her, it’s like describing the
ingredients to a wonderful soufflé, or “What are
we going to be doing this weekend?”
SUDEIKIS: The scene where you’re watching the
security footage with those two gals, and just
how candid you are and the looks on their faces,
is so funny.
ANISTON: That was one of the most
uncomfortable days, I have to say. We were just
talking about it like it was the funniest TV show
you’ve ever seen.
BATEMAN: That’s not as uncomfortable as I
was when I saw what ended up happening to my
character. Those were all body doubles. The
first screening I saw was the first time that I saw
my character ended up getting sodomized.
ANISTON: Charlie and I also had a wonderful
surveillance camera moment that ended up not
being in the movie. I had to do it on top of him
in a coma, and he broke, half-way through the
take, when I grabbed him.
Jennifer, was it fun to return to this character?
And knowing that you were doing the sequel,
what did you do to up the ante and take her one
step further, this time around?
ANISTON: Honestly, I think the writers called
just to say, “How far can we go with Dr. Julia?”
And I basically said, “Go as far as you can go, as
long as it’s in the realm of not insulting or
offending too many people.” I think it rose to the
occasion. The dialogue was great, and the sex
group lent itself to great humor and situations. I
was just psyched.
Were there any particular scenes that you guys
thought were way, way beyond, and you had
trouble getting through?
SUDEIKIS: No.
BATEMAN: These guys are so stupid that really
everything’s on the table. They have just enough
intelligence to create a justification, in their own
minds, for doing it, but all the lack of intelligence
to actually execute it.
Did you all get Christoph Waltz to laugh?
BATEMAN: Yes.
SUDEIKIS: Yes, we did.
DAY: It was a maniacal laugh.
Jason, Charlie and Jason, what was it like to add
Chris Pine into your already established
chemistry?
DAY: I think there was a concern about bringing
anyone into it since we had a chemistry that we
knew we could rely on. You hope that you didn’t
get someone who was either unfunny, or trying to
be funny too much. But I always thought Chris
was extremely funny as Captain Kirk, in [the Star
Trek ] movies. He delivers the action, but he also
has great comedic timing, so I really wasn’t
worried about it. And then, he’s such a great
actor. Like working with Christoph or Jen, or any
character that comes into the scene, if they’re a
great actor, they only make the scene better.
SUDEIKIS: He came from the dramatic point of
view, like what you would feel if your dad did
this? He wasn’t trying to hit the joke. He was
just trying to hit the reality of it because the
funny is already in there, or we hope it is, by us
doing our thing and reacting to him and being in
over our heads. He didn’t try to do what we did.
He did his own thing, which was both charming
to the characters and also really effective, as far
as the scenes were concerned.
BATEMAN: You just hope he’s a good guy
because having a nice vibe on the set, when it’s a
comedy, is so important. You hope there aren’t
any dickheads, and he’s a really good guy.
DAY: And because he’s a peer, when we were
able to really make him break, it was satisfying
because you know that’s our target audience, in a
sense. He was our comedy barometer.
The shower product that your characters market
in the film has all of the makings for what we
see with those “As Seen on TV” infomercial
products. Do you guys ever watch any of those
infomercials, and have any of them cracked you
up, the way that the audience will laugh at you
guys?
SUDEIKIS: Yeah, I used to watch them all the
time.
BATEMAN: We just don’t stay up that late
anymore.
SUDEIKIS: I love them. I was susceptible to
them.
BATEMAN: There are all the coins that I bought.
SUDEIKIS: And the commemorative plates. My
favorite thing to do now is to watch Home
Shopping Network or QVC, late at night, when
they’re trying to sell you a pair of earrings. They
have the little timer on there, and you have to
hear a dude riff about it for seven minutes. It’s
fun to watch at 3 am because that’s not their A-
team. You really get to see a guy struggling.
“It’s onyx, and women love onyx.” You have no
idea what he’s talking about.
What was it like to share scenes with Jamie
Foxx, in this role?
SUDEIKIS: That’s In Living Color . That’s one of
the funniest dudes around. But he’s so good at
everything else, and we had forgotten that.
DAY: I was a fan of Jamie through comedy, first.
Then, obviously, his dramatic work is great. But
on the first movie, he was in and out. It was fun
for us, but we were like, “Man, that guy was
cool,” and he came and went. The second movie,
he was around for a lot more of it. I, personally,
just had a great experience working with him. I
liked him as much, as a performer, as I do as a
human being. He’s so cool. He’s very cool.
BATEMAN: He’s the greatest guy in the world.
SUDEIKIS: But we cannot forget Kevin Spacey.
He’s great.
DAY: It’s great working with Kevin and Christoph,
or any of these actors who can actually just say
the lines and make it interesting.
SUDEIKIS: There are no two people better to
dress you down than Christoph and Kevin.
DAY: That is true.
Sequels are notoriously tough to do really well,
especially when the first film is so good. Was it
important to you to spend as much time as you
need, to get this film right?
BATEMAN: Sean Anders and John Morris
deserve all the credit in the world for delivering
this film. However, they were very inclusive in
the whole process of developing this script and
making it what it is. We knew that that was a
privilege, so we took full advantage of that
opportunity. We spent a lot of time working on
the script and making sure that this was
something that was at least as good as the first
one, and hopefully better, because we were proud
of the first one. We sat on the phone for a long
time and talked about whether we should do it.
And I’m glad that we did because, for my money,
this is a lot better than the first one, and I loved
the first one.
ANISTON: I agree.
If there is a third one, what would you want your
characters to do? Where could you see them
going next?
DAY: For this second movie, we really thought
long and hard about how to do it. It was a very
inclusive process where we had a lot of
conversations about it, and we didn’t just go out
on a limb and say, “All right, now we’re in
Acapulco.” We put some serious thought into it.
So, if we are going to even consider doing a third
one, we’d have to do the same process. There
are so many bad sequels made. We just really
didn’t want to be a part of that, and I sincerely
believe that we didn’t do that. So hopefully, if
we’re going to do a third one, it will be a movie
worth watching.
Jason and Jason, how many “kill-marry-fuck”
scenarios did you come up with, and were there
any particular favorites or thought-provoking
ones?
SUDEIKIS: That just really came out of two guys,
sitting in a car and wasting time while their buddy
went inside to go buy walkie talkies and rubber
gloves. We did that probably seven times. The
one that tickles me the most is probably using
our friends from The Hangover . It’s a little meta.
Jennifer, you also have Cake coming out, which
is getting such great critical reaction. Do you
enjoy doing both comedy and drama?
ANISTON: I love doing both. One accesses one
part of my brain, and the other accesses
another. But any time I approach any character,
comedy or drama, it’s grounded in reality and
coming from the truth. There’s comedy in
drama. There’s drama in comedy. I don’t find
the two exclusive of one another.
Horrible Bosses opens in theaters on November
26th.
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