As arms dealer Efraim Diveroli, hes charismatic, manipulative, fearless and faintly psychotic.
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I found Jonah Hills performance terrifying, which I wasnt expecting.
How did you go about dramatising that character?
Did you and Jonah talk about his psychological makeup?
It was a tonne of discussions and working with Jonah.
And of course the writing process coming up with this character.
Nobody knows who these two guys are.
Its very liberating to be able to do that, and really create a movie character.
Were not making a documentary.
While the events of the story are hopefully fairly accurate, the character itself you have some freedom with.
Hes that perfect storm of confidence and manipulativeness.
Yeah, and swagger.
Its always fun to see an actor like Jonah play somebody who is supremely confident.
So to embody that is really fun for an actor, and really memorable for a character.
Thats the interesting thing isnt it?
Those are the most magnetic characters, and theyre always found in gangster movies.
Isnt it interesting, the cultural half-life ofScarface?
That its survived for as long as it has?
Its 33 years old, isnt it?
And yet gangster rappers love it, students love it.
I used to love it.
Yeah, people love it.
Its a very aspirational movie, you know, even though it probably shouldnt be.
But its exactly what you said: its like, you have to love Tony Montana.
Hes so magnetic and so charismatic.
its one of the only movies shot in Miami.
I was gonna say, its a local movie!
…So they felt like they owned it, you know?
So thats very much how it found its way into our story.
It felt like something these guys would worship the way my friends who grow up there worshipped it.
Its a great question.
But the goodwill is perishable, so you have to use it… you know?
You have to spend it wisely.
You have a cinematographer, Lawrence Sher, who you work with a lot.
Your films well shot in way that comedies generally arent.
We take this very seriously.
Yeah, I do.
I remember watchingDue Dateand being really struck by the way it was shot.
I love the look of that movie, too.
With comedies, theres a tendency to put a character in the centre of the frame.
Well, what happens is, so many people do improvisation.
We never shoot with three cameras, we shoot with one camera like a normal movie.
So we dont do a lot of improvisation we shoot it like a film.
They just do coverage!
But we try not to do that.
But you basically prepare for total mayhem but thats every movie, you know?
You meticulously prepare to throw away what youve prepared and just shoot from the hip.
You started in documentaries, didnt you?
I did, yeah.
Did going from that to comedies affect the way you approach your filmmaking?
The documentaries I made werent necessarily newsworthy they had a comic slant to them.
They were very Nick Broomfield in style, if you know who that is.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
So he was always my inspiration when I was a young filmmaker.
This film has a comic edge, but it says something serious in a funny way.
I wondered what you thought about what it says about privatisation of something like the military.
I think its what the movies about.
And when its inconvenient, theyre hung out to dry.
These guys became fall guys for that.
In some ways, Jonahs character is a normal businessman.
Yeah, hes a hustler.
I said this to someone before because they asked me about gun control.
They didnt care what they were selling.
It just happened to be that they found a loophole and an angle.
They got in on something that was really profitable for them.
But they didnt care about the politics of the war.
They didnt care which side they were arming.
In a perfect world, theyd be arming both sides.
So Im glad you noticed that.
There are certain lines that have strong echoes of the article.
One character who has been fictionalised, though, is Henry [Bradley Coopers character].
Yeah, hes a bit of an amalgamation of two characters.
I mean, you do that sometimes in a movie its the economy of storytelling, you know.
So that character is inspired by somebody, but hes also a little bit of our own creation.
That was another great performance from Bradley Cooper.
Yeah, Bradleys the best.
Bradley walks on the set and Im just [breathes out].
I dont have to worry about anything.
Im so comfortable with him Ive made three movies with him of course.
This is the fourth.
But hes just the best.
Whose idea were the glasses?
Because somehow they make him look really sinister.
That was my idea!
I remember I emailed him a picture of Jeffrey Dahmer [infamous serial killer]!
I hadnt made that connection.
I said, We need these glasses.
Forget whos under the glasses.
But look at Jeffrey Dahmers glasses.
So hes looking through, basically, a legally blind prescription.
His eyes are all big and weird, so it throws him off a little.
Yeah, I agree.
So what do you think more generally about the filmmaking landscape in 2016?
The summer seasons over, and its a relief to see something like this, frankly.
You know, its tough.
I understand it from the studios perspective.
And that gets you nervous because, I thought you wanted original stories.
And, you know, its tough.
Its a weird time in the movie business for sure.
Todd Phillips, thank you very much.
War Dogsis out on the 19th August.
