Cobie Smulders and Chris Pratt Delivery Man Interview #DeliveryManEvent

With Delivery Man now out in theaters, I have shared the experience I had attending the premiere, my interview with Vince Vaughn, as well as my review of the movie.  So now it’s time to share the interviews with Cobie Smulders and Chris Pratt that we did while on my Disney Event in LA for both this movie and Thor: The Dark World.

Delivery Man

Cobie Smulders AND Chris Pratt Delivery Man Interview

All dressed up and ready to head to the premiere of Delivery Man, it was fun to await the arrival of Cobie Smulders and Chris Pratt.  They were heading to us to talk about the film.  Chris was running a bit late, darn LA traffic, so Cobie arrived first, entering the room looking adorable and started the interview by asking all of us where we were from.

Cobie Smulders

Q: How did you first become involved?

CS: Well, I’m sure all of you know this but I’ll repeat it anyway.  It’s based on the original film (which) is a French Canadian film by the name of Starbuck.  I saw that a couple of months before I even read the script or anything.  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 as well and then I heard it was being redone and was kind of 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 our version as well and 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 mom affect your role?

CS: 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, you know, here he is.  Look how handsome he is.

Chris walks in, dramatic difference in appearance from the film.  He is now about 70 pounds lighter.

CP:  Hi.

CS:  I was just asked how being a mom helped with this film.  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 and I think that one of the things that I know I crave 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.  Being a mom?

CP:  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 like they 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.

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Q:  How did you gain weight?

CP:  Well, really applied all of the principles of losing weight and just reversed them.  You know, 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.  And then I had a meeting with the director and I saw the original movie.  The actor who played my role in the original, really brilliant actor, and part of the charm was that he was a bit of a bigger guy and I thought that this is really great.  It’s a role where I can gain a lot of weight and I’ve always wanted to do that.  I’ve done it before once and I really wanted to do it again and see if I could really push it this time and so I did it.  Everything you think, you know, minus any guilt.  It was really great.

Q:  Were you able to lose it all?

CP:  Yeah, I lost it.  I wish it could have been immediate but it took a long time. It took about seven months or eight months to lose it.

Q:  How long did it take to gain it?

CP:  It probably about the same time.  I was rapped on Zero Dark Thirty in June and so by November I had gained about 70 pounds.

CS:  Well done. Well done.

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And so you know I had to ask….What was it like working with Vince?

CS: I loved working with Vince.  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 he’s sort of known for his amazing improv, and I am very rusty and so when I came to this film and met him, he was so supportive and he’s also very considerate and very charming.  Like he really goes out of his way to put everyone at ease on set and set the tone for everybody so it was pretty great.

CP:  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 wait staff in 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.

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Q: How many times did you improv?

CP:  I think that question is probably indicative of what you’d come to expect from a Vince Vaughn movie especially in a sort of outlandish premise like this.  But once you see this movie, you’ll see that this isn’t a movie that’s a laugh a minute comedy.  I mean there are funny laughs in the movie but essentially everything is teetered to like a very strong, dramatic story line that each of the scenes we’re in (together).  So we weren’t just falling and laughing a lot.  I mean the funny scenes that are supposed to be funny are funny.  There were some moments that were particularly funny, for me in particular working with these young kids that I was working with. They were just amazing kids. But for the most part it’s actually pretty dramatic in terms of the turns that the characters taken and the way the scenes are shaped so it wasn’t like being on the set of Old School or Wedding Crashers or one of his other more outlandish comedies.

As Cobie’s favorite scene with Vince? (Spoiler alert)

CS:  I had this great scene 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, I mean it was just this monologue, 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 and so there’s a lot going on.  It was a fun thing to play.

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Q:  Were those improvisations?

CS:  No, scripted.  The movie was very scripted to sort of go back to what Chris said.  I think that what happens is when you’re doing more improv in a movie or on a set in general, like things, you just throw things out and things switch up.  I mean this because Ken (director) had such a strong vision for this film and maybe even stronger because this is the second time he did it.  He really was specific about the characters and how he wanted them to relate to each other.

Great and fun interview!  Now, have you been to see Delivery Man for yourself yet?  I would love to hear if you liked it as much I did.

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Interview with Cobie and Chris

*Thank you to Disney for inviting me to be part of the Delivery Man Event.  Having taken care of all my expenses to bring me out for this event, please know that all my opinions, excitement and fun I share are completely true.

Trippin with Tara
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21 Comments

  1. Wow, Chris Pratt has lost a ton of weight. He looks totally different. I miss him when he’s not on Parks & Rec every week, he’s one of my favorites. I’m excited to go see this movie.

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