A Cup o' Joe with 'Wanderlust' Producer/Writer/Star Ken Marino

But because it was a prosthetic and that looked exactly like a penis. We were all like, hey, look at this. It's clever. There it is, you know, but but but you wouldn't. Yeah, imagine doing that if it wasn't a prosthetic. You know,

I'm Nikki Novak. I'm here with Ken Marino who is this is a first. This is an all time first at Young Hollywood making me coffee.

Now I make it. You can have mine. I was making myself coffee but I would love if you had it. It's a double espresso.

How now how many sugars do we put in that bad boy?

I put one sugar. Uh, I got to sweeten it up just a little bit. If I just have coffee, no sugar. Yeah. Espresso I need to I got to take a little bit of the bite off. You know

The Italian in you just came out. You got to take a little bit of the bite out. Yeah. So do you need a little sip a little sippy before we start?

I certainly do need a little sippy.

We'll give you a little What I found interesting is you put your your phone away and you said, I better put this away cuz it will distract me. Yeah. Is that where the inspiration for the film? Are you one of those BlackBerry can't put it down kinda?

I'm not. Although I um I've I've become more and more with uh iPhones uh my iPhone just kind of going in there for no reason, you know, the habit of like zipping it open and checking your email for like every two seconds. I I shoot this show uh Children's Hospital and um Lake Bell and I tried for a couple of days to not bring our phone onto the set because it was just it was ridiculous. We we nobody was looking at each other, you know. And it was actually on Wanderlust too. I remember at one point when we were shooting Wanderlust, Paul was playing Words with Friends and everybody everybody was down into their in their iPhone and nobody was really looking at each other. We're in a beautiful place. And uh I got to get away from it. I got to pull away from it. So yes, I I guess maybe uh subconsciously that was part of it.

And I understand why you wouldn't want to look at Lake Bell. I mean, she's hideous. She doesn't have a good body at all. She's awful to look at. How do you deal with that?

You know, look, this this is uh one of the things we have to deal with uh in this town just dealing with the ugly women like Jennifer Aniston and

Yeah. The opening sorry. No. The opening Please. Cuz there's a lot of nudity. Let's be let's be honest. And the the the first full frontal, was that a prosthetic? It had to have been a prosthetic.

Yes. Thank you. We thought that it'd probably be best to have the nudist on set not necessarily uh slapping his stuff around the whole time cuz.

Right. Either he would be uncomfortable or whoever was standing next to him would be uncomfortable. I mean, I guess at a certain point we don't know be like fine. Yeah. The Domino Effect.

But but because it was a prosthetic and that looked exactly like a penis. We were all like, hey, look at this. It's clever. There it is, you know, but but but you wouldn't. Yeah, imagine doing that if it wasn't a prosthetic. You know,

Hey, what's going on here? Or you think it's a prosthetic so you do that and you realize it's the real deal. Yeah, that'd be a major faux pas. So did you cast yourself as you're a bit of a jackass. Look at you. Your body is ridiculous. Have you been working out, my God?

Thank you.

Rick, I think you're making everybody uncomfortable. Oh, everybody knows what I mean. How did you decide that that was the role you were going to play?

Well, you know, when Dave and I, right? We we we sit in a room together and Dave's a pretty fast typist and so we acted out and that voice came, you know, very easy to me. But when Paul had read it, he's like, uh, Ken's playing Rick, right? I mean, Ken's going to play Rick. And so then at that point I guess I was like, yeah, I could play Rick. I could do Rick.

How much fun is that playing the awful guy?

It's a lot of fun cuz you don't have to worry about uh, you know, being likable. You just have to you you just have to serve the story. The reason for that character is to push Paul and Jen into making a pretty heavy duty decision of joining a commune. And that is they'll do anything to get away from you. Right. And so you have to be kind of despicable.

I can imagine there were a lot of scenes that were uncomfortable for people to shoot cuz Jen had to be topless in one scene and you don't see anything. It's sort of like they fuzzy it out or whatever. as it were.

Thank you.

And Paul had the rant in the mirror.

Well, he's just The mirror scene was the first day up actually.

Was it really?

Yeah. And um, you know, it was a pretty long monologue of things weird things that Paul had to say. But then Paul just kind of kept going in this kind of crazy direction. And that that probably be about the second half of the stuff that was in there is all just coming from Paul's head.

So if there was something because in the film they go to a commune for two weeks and they sort of set that two week period that this is it. What would be the hardest thing for you to give up for two weeks?

Coffee would be really hard. Um, well and there's a coffee run in it because I'm obsessed with coffee and actually we pulled some of the coffee stuff out but like when they had they were doing the protest, he was like searching he was like in a bad mood because he was looking for coffee and there's one part point where he tries the coffee and dumps it out and it was like a riff that he did on coffee there. So that came from your life.

Came from my life. This is the antithesis of all that. I'm I'm just blown away uh by what you've done with the place. It's really Do you like our decorating?

You really you really uh Young Hollywood, you really outdid yourself. You have all the uh video games over here. Feel free to take one on your way. And then the Stella Adler of the art of acting is up there. Oh wait, didn't you study at Lee Strasberg?

I did. Are you an Adler?

I was at Lee Strasberg for a whole semester about 10 years ago. Yeah. And the one thing I remember

You didn't study with? I don't know who. That's that's not the one thing you remember. What is the one thing you remember?

The one thing I remember you had to do this crazy exercise on the chair where you like roll your head back and it's like You're obviously a lot better at it than me.

Yeah. Thank you so much for coming in. Great to chat with you. Loved the movie. I think I'm going to go see it a second time.

Pleasure.