21 and Over is a new comedy from Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the writers of The Hangover, and it follows its characters on a similarly crazy adventure. It tells the story of Casey (Skylar Astin) and Miller (Miles Teller), two guys who arrive in town to take their best friend, straight-A student Jeff Chang (Justin Chon), out for his 21st birthday.
The plan is only to have a drink or two as Jeff has an important medical school interview in the morning, but the night soon devolves in a drunken debauchery and he ends up completely wasted. Now Casey and Miller have to get Jeff home in time for the most important interview of his young life.
We got to catch up with Justin and Miles at the 21 and Over press conference held at the Saddle Ranch Chop House off of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. The two discussed what it was like working with two different directors on the film, playing a character who is drunk for most of the film, what their own 21st birthdays were like and more.
Check it out below.
We Got This Covered: Justin you get to do a lot of physical comedy in this film. Was there ever a moment where you said to yourself this is too much?
Justin Chon: No. Everything was always a yes, but it hurt. I’m being thrown around, I’m hitting the ground, but being carried like that was actually the most painful because you have to be dead weight. These guys were complaining that I’m not helping them out, but I’m like “dude it hurts!” Your armpits start stretching and it hurts pretty badly.
We Got This Covered: How did the teddy bear stay on your crotch?
Justin Chon: There were a few different ones. We had an underwear one and we had a pouch drawstring one. The pouch drawstring one hurt like shit, and if you tie it on loose, when you’re running it’ll fly off so you got to do it pretty tight. So after about an hour, my balls were hurting like a motherfucker. It hurts really badly so I would have to loosen it for a second in the bathroom and chill out and then go back and re-tighten it.
We Got This Covered: How did you two psych yourself up to run around campus buck naked?
Justin Chon: You just do it.
Miles Teller: Yeah you just do it. After the first one you’re pretty comfortable with everybody, but it’s like before that you’ve got to do your ass makeup and stuff in the trailer for two hours. It’s so embarrassing, but after that it’s good.
We Got This Covered: Did you guys have ass doubles?
Miles Teller: No, but I wanted to. I thought about it.
Justin Chon: I kind of had an ass double because I had a stunt double, and his ass was way more defined than mine. He’s a stuntman and he’s built.
Miles Teller: On the kissing scene that was a double for me (laughs). It was just like a mouth double.
We Got This Covered: What was it like working with two different directors on this film?
Justin Chon: You know what, usually it’s a tough thing because you’re getting two different directions sometimes, but they were amazing with it. Jon and Scott would talk with each other, but one person would deliver the notes. And they always had our backs so we trusted them.
Miles Teller: Also Scott was more focused on the monitor in terms of continuity and stuff, and Jon would just be like “Miles say poopie, that’s funnier. Go with that.” Literally for every line I say in the movie, Jon would give me like six backups and then he would let me throw in like five or six different ones. It was really conducive the comedy and it was very seamless.
We Got This Covered: Ben Kingsley once talked about how difficult it is to play drunk. Justin, you’re drunk for 98% of the movie, so how difficult was it for you?
Justin Chon: That was actually the hardest part about the role, figuring out the levels. I just created some stuff for myself like defocusing my eyes, how much I’m swaying, and how much I’m slurring. They created a really good system where I would say “what number am I” and they’d say 7, and I know on a scale of 1 to 10 how drunk I should play. But I really had to trust them because I can’t watch myself and I had the trust of directors as to how drunk I should be at that certain part of the script. That was the most challenging for me.
Miles Teller: That’s hard to do.
We Got This Covered: How many takes did you do on the bull?
Miles Teller: A couple because of the puke gag, a stream of puke, they had to line up.
Justin Chon: At first they tried to use this tube that they taped to me, and it looked like The Exorcist because it just shot out. The takes that they did use, I just spit it out. It was just tapioca and rice and stuff, but just the fact that it looks gross makes you want to throw up.
Miles Teller: You put a lot in your mouth! I remember we always kept saying “more, more! Put more in your mouth!”
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