Delivery Man is a movie about family. While the main character David Wozniak (Vince Vaughn) leads the cast through an emotional ride, his journey to grow up and “have a life” is based on the strength of those who care for him. Two of the most important influences around him are his girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders) and Brett (Chris Pratt).
We had the chance to sit down with Cobie Smulders and Chris Pratt who were equally down-to-earth and cool. From the moment Cobie walked in the room, I instantly liked her. She had an air of confidence and yet, she totally seemed like someone you could just hangout with. (And girl — those arms! Buff.)
Speaking of cool, stuck in traffic on his way to meet with us Chris Pratt’s wife, Anna Faris, Tweeted us to let us know he was on his way. For a bunch of social media junkies, we were thrilled. And immediately decided that Chris and Anna were simply the coolest.
Q: How did you first become involved in the film?
Cobie Smulders: The movie is based on a French Canadian film by the name of Starbuck, and I saw it a couple of months before I even read the script or anything, and I really loved the film. I was really moved by the story. I really loved the characters. I really loved that it was Canadian because I’m Canadian, and then I heard it was being redone and was surprised ‘cause I thought it was such a great film. Obviously, it’s nice for it to come to America, and I was also excited that Kevin Scott who wrote and directed the original was gonna do the American version as well. I just thought he had such a strong vision, and he had such great storytelling ability that I just knew it was gonna be a good movie. And then I heard Vince was attached and so I started just auditioning. I just went in and auditioned and met with all the guys and convinced them to give me the role.
Q: How did being a parent affect your role?
Cobie Smulders: Well, very much. I mean this movie is really all about parenting. It’s all about what it takes to be a parent so I automatically connected with that at the same time.
And I was pregnant in this film, not in life but I had the fake belly on, and I remember just crazy emotions that come into play when you’re pregnant. One of the things that I know I craved, and I think that pregnant women do crave is stability. You know, you’re in this situation where especially if it’s your first child a lot of things are unknown and in terms of this movie, the character of Emma, she has a very unreliable partner so she’s just sort of trying to figure all that out.
Chris Pratt: Well for me, my son was had just been born when I was doing this movie. I think he was maybe two months old. So for me I wasn’t necessarily able to relate to my character’s journey as a father in this movie ‘cause he’s like so overwhelmed with the idea of being a father. I was still finding every little tiny thing endlessly fascinating about my own son. But I did miss him a lot and so there were moments in the performance where I needed to just stare off into space and think about something that bummed me out. The fact that I was away from him was something that I could go to if I needed to so that was, that was my way out.
Q: Chris, you had to put on a lot of weight for this role. How did you gain weight?
Chris Pratt: Well, I really applied all of the principles of losing weight and just reversed them. I had just come off from a movie where I had gotten in good shape. I did this movie, Zero Dark Thirty, and I got in good shape for that. In a way like how a lot of people lose weight I just crash dieted and worked out and starved myself until I was skinny. So by the time I was done with that movie my body was really ready to gain weight, rapidly. My wife was in the last third of her pregnancy and so a good 20 pounds of that was probably just sympathy weight, and gaining weight alongside her as we indulged in things that we don’t normally eat. I thought this is really great.
It’s a role where I can gain a lot of weight and I’ve always wanted to do that. It took about seven months or eight months to lose it, and it probably took about the same amount of time to gain the 70 pounds.
Q: What was it like working with Vince?
Cobie Smulders: I loved working with Vince. He is so — I think he’s everything that you would kind of expect him to be. Super funny, super quick. Going into this movie I was very intimidated because, you know, he’s sort of known for his amazing improv and I was very, uh, I am very rusty and so when I came to this film and met him and, uh, he was so supportive and he was so, uh, you know, he’s also very considerate and very charming. Like he really goes out of his way to put everyone at ease on set and, uh, and set the tone for everybody so it was pretty great.
Chris Pratt: I feel the same thing. I mean, really I mean he’s beloved by people, his fans and people because he just seems real. You know, he seems like a regular guy and I think that he’s everything you would really hope that he would if you’re a fan of his. He’s not like some Hollywood A hole. He’s no nonsense when it comes down to doing work. He does work and makes sure everyone around him does good work and that’s important as the captain of the ship. But at the same time, charming, caring and he’s polite. He’s polite to everyone from the people who are his weight staff, restaurants to fans and strangers on the street who approach him, who like him. He always gives a little bit of himself to people so he’s really everything you’d hope he would be.
Q: What’s your favorite part of the movie?
Cobie Smulders: I had this great seen with Vince at the end of the film, this very long scene where he goes into a speech proposing, and then things start unraveling. And that was a really great scene to shoot because it was just this never-ending monologue and Vince just did a great job with it. And for me it was very fun to play off of not only just as an actor but the circumstances being I just delivered a baby, so there’s a lot going on. It was a fun thing to play.
Delivery Man is in theaters November 22, 2013.
For more about my trip, check out all of the #DeliveryManEvent posts, #ThorDarkWorld posts and #DisneyPlanesBloggers posts.
