My experience with the Farrelly Brothers goes back to ShoWest 1999. That was one of the first press events I attended as Moriarty, and it was hard to get stars and filmmakers to agree to talk to someone who arrived at the event with a pseudonym.
On one press line in particular, I watched a handful of people walk right by me, and a few people even got irritated when they realized I was there representing Ain’t It Cool News. Not the Farrelly Brothers, though. As soon as they saw my badge, they both walked over and said, “We love what you do,” and they ended up giving me more time than anyone else there that evening.
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to go through the test-screening process with the Brothers, watching several cuts of the same film as they fine-tuned it, and I’ve sat in on some of their round-table rewrites of their scripts, watching they way they manage a room full of writers. And through it all, what has struck me is that there is no pretense about them at all. They do not believe themselves to be infallible, and I would imagine if you used the word “genius” in a conversation with them, they would laugh harder than anyone. But they work at what they do, and they are tireless when they are in pursuit of a laugh. They believe that the audience is the only arbiter of taste that really matters, and they do whatever they can to make sure that the audience walks out of their films happy.
It was nice to sit down with Pete and Bobby for the first time in a while to talk about “Hall Pass,” a film that I enjoyed, and to chat about where they are on the development of their longtime passion project, “The Three Stooges.” Even in this short interview, I think you get a sense of how no-nonsense they both are, and how much fun they can be to chat with about anything.
“Hall Pass” opens everywhere this Friday.