Jonah Hill is not only a film fanatic and a movie blog junkie, he has a mild, jocular beef with The Playlist. We won’t bore you too much with the navelgazing, but suffice to say he had some good-natured issues with our coverage of his role in the upcoming baseball film, “Moneyball” which he confirmed to us is a done deal. “I beat all these people for the part, and I was so excited for the role and then I read your site and you were like shitting all over me saying I was going to ruin it and it was now going to be a broad comedy,” he teased good-naturedly.
Despite the bumps along the way, such as Soderbergh’s getting the last minute axe by Sony and millions of dollars already spent against the project, Hill is just enthusiastic and eager about what’s on the page and the potential of the film that is slated to go in front of cameras in July. “Bennett Miller, Aaron Sorkin? There’s some great players here. Bennett is really on his shit. He takes like a movie what, every five years? ‘[Capote’] nominated for Best Picture and Best Director. He just doesn’t jump on any project,” Hill said, noting Brad Pitt is still in the lead role of Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane while he’ll play Paul Podesta, the stats-happy assistant GM who helped Beane turn the losing team around in the early aughts by focusing on the analytical principles of sabermetrics.
Once he wraps “Moneyball,” Hill will team with David Gordon Green for the “babysitter on a coke run” comedy “The Sitter.” “I can’t wait to do that. It’s going to be insane. People are going to be shocked by it, [the script] is out there and hilarious. We want to do something like [Martin Scorsese’s 1985 film] ‘After Hours’ with a guy and bunch of kids traveling around one night to the music of [Brooklyn-based electro-rockers] Ratatat. Actually, we haven’t talked to them yet or mentioned that to anyone yet,” Hill said.
Hill’s next film to hit theaters, which also unspooled at SXSW, is the dramedy “Cyrus.” If you read our tweet from last night, you’ll know we were rather effusive — much like everyone else — in our praise of this incredibly charming, funny, sweet and deceptively nuanced film directed by the Duplass Brothers and co-starring Marisa Tomei and John C. Reilly. We’ll save more for our review, but suffice to say the Duplass Brothers have honed their craft, come into their own and really delivered a hit out of the park with this funny/sad, endearing love-triangle comedy. The chemistry in the film is remarkably good and Hill will really surprise people. The young actor stretches the acting muscles he’s normally known for with a performance nuanced with a creepy/funny vibe and splashed with a dash of melancholy.
“I’ve been fans of the Duplass Brothers for seven years,” he said, noting that he’s been wanting to work with the siblings for a long time. “It’s only been in the last year or two that I’ve been able to choose my own projects, but I’ve tried to remain really choosy. I’m a huge film geek, I read all the sites, and I read what people say and I get it. I get disappointed in people too and I really take my time and be careful about what I choose.”
While Hill isn’t trying to apologize for Seth, his outspoken and hilariously vulgar character in “Superbad,” the film that essentially made his career, he relished the opportunity to play someone who wasn’t just, as he said in his own words, a “loudmouth.” “Moviegoers in general know me from Greg [Mottola’s] film. And I’m extremely grateful for that role and that film. But the [‘Cyrus’ script] was really something special. I’m really lucky to have been able to find this role,” he said.
As for the inevitable “what’s next” questions, which yes, we asked, Hill was all too eager to clear up. “Yeah, I actually wanted to give a round-down of the list to clear up the rumors,” he said. ” ‘Moneyball is this summer, [David Gordon Green’s] ‘The Sitter’ will happen in the fall and ’21 Jump Street’ with [“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” directors] Phil Lord and Chris Miller will happen early next year.”
As for “The Adventurer’s Handbook,” a script Hill wrote with his bffs — up-and-coming filmmakers Matt Spicer and Max Winkler– and “Middlechild,” another project written by Hill and set up with Judd Apatow way back in 2007, the interview was unfortunately wrapped up before we could find out any concrete updates on those projects [editor’s note. after the fact, I was told, ‘Adventurer’s Handbook’ now looks like 2011, which makes sense given how many months are left in the year. And “Middlechild” surely won’t arrive this year either].
Hill has certainly come a long way, developing his own projects, and now becoming a leading actor (opposite Pitt no less), and he couldn’t be happier: “But really, I looked at my calendar and saw, ‘Moneyball’ this summer and ‘The Sitter’ in the fall and thought, ‘Man, this is going to be the best year of my life.”