It was all smiles and happiness when our two favorite Angry Birds, Rachel Bloom and Jason Sudeikis, entered the room on May 22, 2019 at The London West Hollywood. The two actors were in Hollywood to discuss their latest and greatest movie, The Angry Birds Movie 2 (in theaters August 14). They spent the morning meeting with press and bloggers and I, along with others, had a chance to chat about movies, music, families, improv, Aaah Real Monsters! role models and Kansas City (among other things). Interview edited for clarity (we had a fun, and boisterous chat full of laughs!).
This post is sponsored. We were invited on an all expense paid trip to promote the movie. All opinions and experiences are our own. This post also contains affiliate links.
Here are the highlights of our interview:
Rachel Bloom and Jason Sudeikis Interview
Jason Sudeikis had another movie opening the same weekend we interviewed him. He was asked if his character Red from The Angry Birds Movie 2 and Principal Brown from Booksmart were to meet, what would the conversation be like.
Jason: Oh gosh. I think they both are charmingly cantankerous. I think they’d find a common frustration and hit it off. Birds of a feather for sure.
Rachel Bloom was asked why she didn’t compose anything for The Angry Birds Movie 2.
Rachel: Because they didn’t ask me. Anytime I’m on a project and there’s anything with an original song- I’m shameless about going, ‘you know who writes original songs and has an Emmy nomination’? There’s a project- there’s another movie that I’m working on actually that hasn’t been announced that there was supposed to be an original song for my character and I just was like, yeah. So I wrote it for free. They did not use it so it is always a risk you take.
Jason: I was going to say, do you ever just write it and then bring it in? ‘Cause sometimes they just need to, you know, hear it.
Jason was asked about humor for kids vs. humor for adults in The Angry Birds Movie 2 and toys that are built around the actors.
Jason: They had a doll for the first one, where it would be my voice. One of the lines was ‘drop your nuts and move your butts’. And then in the first movie they cut to a guy who’s literally holding his nuts.
Rachel: Rachel: Is it trippy for your kid to have a toy?
Jason: It has to be.
Rachel: Is it confusing or is it just cool?
Jason: Angry Birds was the first movie he saw in the theaters. I can remember taking him and he’s probably one and a half at that time, and when I first spoke-he was sitting in front of me- and he just kinda looked up. He sat and watched the whole thing. He’s got a crazy good attention span.
The conversation then turned to the differences between the two Angry Bird movies, writing, adlibbing, improv, props, and recording the voices.
Jason: They allowed us room to improvise and stuff within the thing (The Angry Birds Movie 2). Anytime you open it up and then you also sort of know what worked on the first one. I mean, you’re getting do to a sequel, but I imagine it is similar to doing a serialized TV show where you have time to get away from, like how did you feel on your jump from the first season to the second season when you sort of get like that, you know what you feel about the show, but then also you get to hear what other people think and you get to pick and choose what you can take to the next level. At the end of the day, you’re in there by yourself and then the magicians, after the fact, make it sound like we’re all there. They pick the best stuff, the funniest stuff, and you know, then make it seem like we’re in the same room together. I feel like such a hayseed. I’m dazzled by it. I never thought about it before doing these movies. And then when I’m sitting there, I’m like, wow, it really sounds like we’re them.
Rachel: Yeah, and we’re manufacturing that kind of natural human chemistry and I think that’s why it helps. I mean we both come from improve, where that muscle’s built in, where you’re used to being around people so you can kind of imagine, okay, I’m with a person right now. I think that really shows in this movie.
Rachel and Jason were asked if they would do a quick improv for us.
Jason: I mean I would need a full script yeah, that’s not cheap.
Rachel: We come from theaters where we were paid nothing. We’re not cheap.
Jason: Exactly. Well, someone made money off of us.
Rachel: I PAID money. I think I gave over $10,000 to the Upright Citizens Brigade. I paid for my own props. That’s a whole other thing. My husband and I met doing comedy and we have our basement. We have it labeled, it’s called prop room of nightmares. And basically, when two comedians fall in love, you combine all of your cheap props from 20 years worth of sketch comedy shows. So we have shelves of hats, American flags, fake snakes, fake rats. Just the weirdest stuff that you don’t want to throw it away because what if I need a snake?
Jason: I still have clothes in my home that I haven’t worn since a sketch group in Kansas City, just in case.
Rachel was then asked about her character, Silver, and how she relates to her in this social and political climate.
Rachel: The idea of playing a woman in the STEM field in a movie where, I mean, I know how I consume media as a kid- you, especially as a little girl, you look for any little girl characters because when I was growing up, they were kind of few and far between. I watched the show, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and there was this character, Oblina who was smart and English, kind of a Hermione Granger, and you really seize on those characters, same thing as with Lisa Simpson, and you go, oh, that’s a template for something that I can be. And so the idea that there were little girls who will see this and see my character and go, oh, I could be a cool engineer and I could be really good at math and science, and that would inspire them is so awesome because we need more women in STEM fields and we need them to not be afraid to go into STEM fields. And then I think that’s something we’ve been talking about is the world is really polarized right now as it always is. But the country’s very polarized. But what’s cool about this movie is that my character kind of reaches across and says to his (Jason’s) character.”Hey, you seem upset. Are you okay?” It isn’t like, you seem upset. What’s wrong with you? You suck and you’re weird. It’s, hey, let’s talk about this. And then you go into his character’s head and you see, oh no, he doesn’t want to get rid of a truce, for the sake of getting rid of a truce. He’s afraid of abandonment. And I think that is a very human understanding that everyone just wants to be loved and no one’s trying to be the villain is really special.
Jason and Rachel were asked about pretending and play as children.
Jason: One, I was always around funny friends. I always loved being around people that made me laugh and it was fun to make them laugh. And so that’s a huge part of it. But then also we got a video camera like when I was in the sixth grade. Everybody’s got the camera now. Like I’m so excited. Yeah. For you know, movies and television right now. But even 10 years from now when it’s the kids that grew up with this and are making stuff. I mean just the editing software on these. My friend Matt Cherry literally directed a film that he shot on there called Nine Rides. It’s happening all the time. And so that was a huge thing for me. So then having your friends and then filming it and then watching it again. So it was a lot of make-believe, a ton of it. But then they have the opportunity to rewatch it.
When asked if he still watches those movies, Jason replied.
Jason: I do. It’s been a while. My sisters and I have watched them with a few bottles of wine.
Rachel: I’m an only child so I had a lot of imaginary friends and then my parents encouraged me to do theater. My grandpa was an amateur standup comic and community theater actor. So he started making me sing from a very young age and then my mom videotaped every second of my childhood to the point where when I turned 30 she gave me, all of my home movies that had been transferred to DVD.
Jason: Nice.
Rachel: 72 DVDs and they’re all unlabeled and I’m still going through them. Every second from age one and a half to 13 then I get really awkward. I know, I know and it’s incredible.
Jason: Wow.
Rachel: Then you see me start to get awkward at 13 and you can tell someone was like, I think we shouldn’t film . . . It’s like this person is going through a thing. Let’s not document this.
