Once you had Will and Mark in the film, what was the experience like? Must have been a fun set to be around?
It was, it was great and you know Will has an amazing reputation as just being the kindest movie star in the business and he lives up to that and Mark also has a great reputation in the business as just being a great guy and a hard worker and somebody who will go to the ends of the earth to make it work. So the two of them together and more than anything the two guys really enjoy each other, they really get along. Mark told us the first time that we sat down with him how much he liked working with Will before and Mark was very excited about doing it again. So any time you have two actors that are on the same level of those two guys and they really like each other you’re going to have a great time. You never want to have a two hander where the actors don’t get along or where there’s no chemistry whereas here you’ve got the opposite the guys just love each other and they’ve got great chemistry so it just makes everything fun and funnier.
Thomas Haden Church steals the film with his supporting role – were you always keen to work with him after working with so many other comedians/funny actors?
Oh yeah I mean he’s been on my list for a long time as somebody that I have been a fan of and again when we were talking about various ideas of who to come in and play that role we believe that one came from me, I suggested that name and again everyone in the room went crazy and said yes. In fact this is one of those rare things where every member of the main cast was the first person that we thought of, the first person that everyone in the room went crazy for, and then we got them which is rare because usually there is a scheduling problem. But in our case we were really lucky and with Linda Cardellini, Bobby Cannavale they were all just people that we thought of right away and then went to and then we’re very fortunate that we got them.
As a director of some high-profile films in your recent career, what’s your view on the potential impact of Screening Room, the same-day “watch-at-home” idea that has many of Hollywood’s directors very split on the idea?
I would like to see things stay the way they are honestly but then again I’m not one of those people that needs to see a movie or buy a video game the second it’s released, I’m pretty patient about that – I don’t mind. So if I don’t see something at the theatre and I see it at home later it really doesn’t bother me that I saw it a couple of months later. But also I just think that the movies, I think that their important, I grew up in a small town and the movies were the form of entertainment when leaving your house and I just feel like it’s good for all of us to leave our house and go somewhere and sit with an audience, especially with comedy it’s such a great experience to go and watch a comedy with a lot of other people and laugh along with a lot of other people. It’s funny when I watch comedies at home I enjoy them but I don’t really laugh out loud nearly as much as when I’m in theatres with an audience, I just prefer that experience.
You have made a name for yourself primarily in comedy, but is there any other genre/film that you’d love to tackle in the future?
Yes, John and I are writing a thriller right now which has been really fun and exciting, and we’re working on expanding out into more adventure films. John and I both have kids and we’re interested in movies that can be enjoyed more by families and kids so we’re excited about a lot of different areas.
With the success of the film, has the possibilities of sequels been discussed? Would it be something you’d be interested in?
Well it’s been discussed; I mean it’s almost a no brainer that pretty much any movie that makes a certain amount of money at the box office you can guarantee a sequel has been discussed. It has been discussed but it hasn’t been discussed enough for there to anything really to report on just yet.
Daddy’s Home is out now on Digital HD, Blu-ray and DVD. Read our reviews here and here.
Scott J. Davis is Senior Writer and Reporter at Flickering Myth. Follow him on Twitter.
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Originally published May 4, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
