Interview: Joe Lo Truglio talks Paul

While we might not know him by name, Joe Lo Truglio is becoming the perfect “that guy.” His scene-stealing supporting roles in I Love You, Man, Role Models, Superbad and in Reno 911!, has made him a fan-favorite. With Paul, Joe Lo Truglio re-teams with director Greg Mottola (Superbad), for a stronger, funnier role as F.B.I. agent O’ Reilly, as well as an uncredited performance as the title alien, Paul.

Killer Film catches up with Joe to talk about the film, the comedy, and working with Greg Mottola again.

Jon: I read in prior interview you’ve been a big fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and as a fellow comedian, what was it that you liked about them?

Joe Lo Truglio: My first introduction to them was Shaun of the Dead, and I’m a big horror fan, so I went into that movie without knowing who they were. After I saw that, I saw Hot Fuzz. Their sensibilities are in horror, comedy, and sci-fi, so it was match made in DVD Heaven. They also are very collaborative, smart guys, so we clicked really well. So that helped the creative relationship.

Jon: I’m sure with their script and with Greg Mottola directing, it was a pretty sweet deal to go do Paul?

Joe Lo Truglio: Oh, yeah, it was truly a dream come true. Not only was I working with Greg again, but to work with Simon and Nick for the first time and to stand in for Seth Rogen as the alien for the entire production. Also it was to work with Bill Hader again, as you know from Superbad and our web-series The Line. It was him who first told me about the project. He told me they were throwing names around for this project where he was an F.B.I. agent and needed a partner. To be considered, I thought I was on Cloud 9.

Jon: You’ve said you’re a big horror guy, but Paul is your first real genre film, was that added incentive too?

Joe Lo Truglio: Yeah. Well, I mean it was, but how I approach a project is determining who’s working on it and who’ve I worked with before. It’s namely the material, and both were like in the Red Zone for me. The fact that it was a genre film was like icing on the cake. Like you’ve said, I’ve never been apart of that genre film, and in this case, it’s very much apart of it, along with all the CGI, the effects, the explosions. I’ve never been involved with something like this. I also was curious to approach all of this stuff.

Jon: Greg Mottola (Adventureland) is really carving himself out a nice niche as a comedic director. What was it like working with him again?

Joe Lo Truglio: He’s like a chameleon in terms of his film-making talents. You’re right; he’s a great comedic director, but also a better observer of life. With Paul, he took all of the epic stuff and made it smaller, more personal, and that’s rare for a comedy director, I think. It made it resonant more, rather than just being a cool sci-fi flick. That’s all a testament to Greg.

Jon: You’re pairing with Bill Hader is impeccable, and it really shows in Paul. As funny as Seth Rogen and the cast are, I personally believe you two steal the film away from them. How is it working with Bill Hader?

Joe Lo Truglio: Wow, thanks. Bill and I are film geeks and that time of energy you saw in the film could have easily been us watching Jaws or something. We both have a similar passion for movies. I think a lot of that back-and-forth came across in O’ Reilly and Haggard, even in the web-series The Line. I think that’s why we hit it off. Bill and I both love making movies and so it was easy to have that dynamic on-screen. We knew we wanted O’Reilly and Haggard to be like Abbot and Costello, but more genre-oriented.

Jon: When you guys are on-screen, it gets better when Jason Bateman comes into the mix. How was it working with Bateman, who’s exploded this year, appearing in like every other comedy.

Joe Lo Truglio: He’s the man, and deservingly so. He’s such a pro of dry comedy. He’s everything you expect him to be: funny, collaborative, professional. He knows how to deliver a good performance and a good vibe on set. We had a lot of fun with him. We played a joke on him, where I had the cast sign the Teen Wolf, Too poster, when Jason wrapped. We all signed it in bad werewolf puns like “Howl will we ever forget this experience?” Just awful puns. That type of chemistry, I hope came across in the movie as well.

Jon: Combing all of that fun, along with Pegg/Frost’s script, I would imagine with all of you in the mix, I bet you couldn’t help but improv a bit, despite how funny the script already was.

Joe Lo Truglio: Sure, sure, yeah. There was a little bit of that. We stuck to the script for the most part. The good thing about Simon and Nick and they’re fully aware of the talent that had in the film with Kristen Wiig, Hader, myself, and Jason Bateman. They certainly didn’t want to squash that potential, but the script was very tight and smart and it had a lot of ideas that were better if they were clearly executed. You’ll see in the DVD extras that the spirit of ad-lib and improv was certainly on-set, and it was almost impossible for some of that not to get into the movie.

Jon: It known that you did an uncredited job as Paul, while Seth Rogen was off doing The Green Hornet. How did that even come about?

Joe Lo Truglio: It was already arranged before we went to film in Santa Fe. Greg Mottola had asked me, along with producer Nira Park, if I would be interested in doing something like that. It was important for Greg to have another human being interacting with the cast, just to get a more authentic and true reactions. Seth Rogen was in a mo-cap suit a few weeks before in Los Angeles. I was there too, watching him do the whole movie like a play. While on-set, I would re-watch what he did and mime it. Seth came back in post-production to re-record some lines, after we finished, since I added some new stuff. I was a great opportunity to help create a character with the other contributors. So many people help make Paul, it was so great being one of those aspects.

Jon: Finally, one of my favorite geek moments, is probably the film’s least subtle in-jokes, and that’s off Sigourney Weaver’s appearance. What was yours?

Joe Lo Truglio: Favorite geek moment? Hmm, let’s see. There’s quite a few references to other films and this is a really obscure one, which I think is on the DVD special features, when O’Reilly is breaking window towards the climax there, with the axe. There was a cognitive effort to make the gestures of the axe swinging to be like Jack Nicholson’s in The Shining. Most people wouldn’t even notice, but with me being a horror fans, The Shining is one of my favorite films, so to imitate Jack with an axe, is like thumbs up.

Paul is on Blu-ray/DVD from Universal Home Entertainment August 9th.