Vince Vaughn Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters

It was like a thing that would shoot out the dodgeballs

and super fast.

So for some reason they had cranked this thing up

to like the highest speed, but in the movie,

you're not going to really read that.

So they put me in front of it.

They're like, We're going to hit you a few times.

You're going to catch it.

And the first thing came and it was so kind of powerful.

I go, Guys, this is crazy.

Like, no, one's going to be able to tell

if that thing's going 80 miles an hour

or 60 miles an hour or 40.

I said, You got to tone this thing down.

Like, this is dangerous.

Only to come to find out

that the great Justin Long had already been there

for an hour, getting hit by this machine at full speed,

multiple times.

[basic rock beat]

Swingers.

I liked Jon right away.

He was, you know, very funny.

He was with the Improv Olympic in Chicago,

and I was with that same improv company

prior to him being there.

I had already moved to LA.

So we had a lot of common ground.

Do you dig that? We're going to Vegas, Mike.

[Both] Vegas!

Do you think we'll get there by midnight?

Honey, we're going to be up five hundy by midnight.

Vegas!

Vegas, baby.

[Both] VEGAS!

It's funny 'cause Jon wrote the script

and a lot of the jokes and funny lines

that I had said in real life were in the movie.

So a lot of the expressions and things that are

in the film was stuff that I used to say just joking around

with him.

But yeah, the character was sort of based

on an experience of, Jon did go through a breakup

when he moved to town and I definitely took them out.

That was the neighborhood I hung out in,

I used to love to go see those old big bands

and swing bands and all those places where I lived

in that area, so those were the places I would go to.

A lot of the ex-punk bands started playing swing music.

It was incredible to go see these 15-piece bands

play original swing music.

[You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight plays]

♪ Well, it's you and me and the bottle makes three tonight ♪

♪ Well, it's you and me and the bottle makes three tonight ♪

[applause]

To ladies? - To ladies.

So I definitely took John to those neighborhoods

and out to those places.

And then with girls and stuff, it was I was encouraging

to him about, you know, dating and this kind of stuff

in a positive way.

That stuff was all true.

But then for a comedy it's, you know, over-exaggerated.

Not everything that happens in the movie was what happened

in real life.

So there was a lot of, you know, the comedic styles

of Trent. the phraseology, the way that he talked was all,

you know, characters I would slip into at times

when you're joking around or expressions I would use.

There's nothing wrong with letting the girls know

that you're money and that you want to party.

Ready to order?

Yeah.

That stuff was all stuff that I had actually said.

So it was kind of odd in reading it originally,

'cause a lot of the jokes and stuff were just stuff

that came from us hanging out and things that I said.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

Greenpeace, so what drew you there?

Women.

80% female, Greenpeace.

Yeah. It was a different experience for sure.

I always liked Steven's movies, you know, as a kid,

so many of them, whether it was E.T.

or Close Encounters or Jaws were so impactful.

I remember meeting him and talking film with him a lot.

We would have these meetings and we'd just talk

about old westerns or movies, and he was very generous.

He was very engaging with a much younger person

who was excited about the films,

where we would just sit and talk about these things

and hear his perspective, so it really was a lot of fun,

and then going to do the movie

was a very different experience.

As you said, Swingers, we kind of shot that thing.

We didn't have permits, you know,

we were kind of stealing shots.

And then obviously you go to a budget of a film

that kind of is allowing of everything.

Careful. - Okay, watch his head, watch his teeth.

Ian, he's hurt. - He's sleeping.

No, no, honey, no.

[cross-talk] around let me get the table.

[dinosaur groans]

Watch his feet, he's swinging all over.

Jeff Goldblum was great, Julianne Moore was great.

We had Pete Postlethwaite, who I liked very much,

was in that film, and it was just a different exercise.

You know, being able to look at something

that was not a dinosaur and pretending it was,

was just, you know, an exercise in imagination.

Psycho.

There was like a Warhol painting almost.

I had liked Gus' movies like Drugstore Cowboy

and Private Idaho, so it was more about working with him

than it was even doing Psycho at that age.

I didn't really think about remaking a movie so much.

It's like, you know, an artist would cover a song

and then another artist would cover a song,

and this was a movie that Gus liked.

So I was really excited to go work with him,

and then once the process started,

it was odd because there was moments

when we sort of were going to do it as a shot for shot,

and then there was times when we would drift

where it wasn't exactly that.

It was an interesting exercise as an actor to explore

because there was certain times we were looking to match,

you know, what was done and you had

to find your own internal way of getting there

without it feeling, you know,

like you're just sort of executing it.

And so the exercise of that was really interesting

and I kind of enjoyed doing it.

I thought it was just like an interesting,

an interesting experience to have.

Old School.

A lot of it was on the page.

Todd's a terrific writer and great with comedy.

So the part that was interesting was the studio didn't know

if I could do comedy,

because at that point I had done a lot more,

having done Swingers and then Lost World,

I just sort of instinctually gravitated

to more kind of character-based stuff

in Return to Paradise or Clay Pigeons.

I had been doing much, kind of more smaller indies,

but I hadn't done a lot of mainstream comedy,

so I think he maybe had to show them an interview

I did on a talk show or something to make them comfortable

that I could do the comedy.

So that was interesting for me because I had sort of come

from comedy.

Max, can you earmuff it for me?

We are going to get so much ass here,

it's going to be sick.

I'm talking like crazy, like boy band ass.

The fun of that character for Beanie was really, you know,

you, you love your friend a lot.

So that goes a long way with audiences, and just in general

that he's, his heart's in the right place for his friend.

But then you just start to build things that are specific.

He's kind of a hustler who is ambitious with Speaker City,

you know, trying to build this empire, but it's,

you know, Speaker City.

Speaker City, we're just slashing prices on everything

from beepers to DVD players.

Give a warm Harrison University welcome to my pal,

and your favorite, Mr. Snoop Dogg.

[cheers]

He was so encouraging of his friend to go

and have a relationship.

He was sort of excited for the big parties

and they get the stuff going with the college girls

and stuff as a guy that was at the time was 30,

but ultimately, you know, he really loved his wife.

He wasn't going to do anything to kind of jeopardize that.

So I thought was fun about him was he had the support

of a friend.

He liked to have a good time.

He was not completely happy in his marriage,

but he was ultimately a guy that valued his marriage

and wanted to try to make it work.

Dodgeball.

That was one of the best scripts I ever read.

That thing changed not as much as other scripts had.

It was really well done, and what I liked about it was

in Old School and then later in Wedding Crashers,

I'm not the lead, so I get to be a little more wild.

In Dodgeball, the character really grounds the audience.

He's kind of a sane man in an insane world.

Stiller's character's so specific and all the guys

that go to Average Joe's Gym are really specific and unique.

Look at the show! Enjoy the show! [cheers]

Is this a bad time? I could always come back.

So I thought that it was important for the character

to kind of have this personality, you know,

be a likable guy, again, very loyal, begrudgingly so

to the people that depended on him,

not that he was wanting to be there for them,

but he just ultimately couldn't help them.

He would rather have found a way

to not have these responsibilities,

but once he got connected to all the guys at the gym,

he couldn't not be there for them.

And so I think for Peter LaFleur,

he's kind of the eyes of the audience.

You're meeting all these interesting people

at the dodgeball gym,

you're coming in conflict with Stiller.

And so he's sort of the grounded character on a journey,

that's, the world is much more kind of bizarre

than he is.

People have different translations for different things.

Yeah.

And that's a special bond that you have with,

with your mail order wife. I think that's nice.

It's fine.

I remember showing up and they had the, Rawson,

who was the director, I think played Division III sports.

And a lot of times the case will be with guys that kind of

played sports later, but not like big time,

they overly want to do stuff.

Like for him, it was so important to overly throw the ball

and overly do this.

There was a scene where they had this kind of like,

I guess you would use it for baseballs.

It was like a thing that would shoot out the dodgeballs

and super fast.

So for some reason they had cranked this thing up

to like the highest speed, but in the movie,

you're not going to really read that.

So they put me in front of it.

They're like, We're going to hit you a few times.

You're going to catch it.

And the first thing came and it was so kind of powerful.

I go, Guys, this is crazy.

Like, no one's going to be able to tell

if that thing's going 80 miles an hour

or 60 miles an hour or 40.

I said, You got to tone this thing down.

Like this is dangerous.

Only to come to find out

that the great Justin Long had already been there

for an hour, getting hit by this machine at full speed

multiple times.

So he definitely had a strong commitment

to going through the pain of the experience.

Wedding Crashers.

That screenplay changed quite a bit,

including the structure.

The original version, I think was both Owen and my character

crashing the marriage of Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams.

It wasn't me and Isla getting married

and then him coming to us.

So we had a really good idea.

Owen's very funny and a good writer and David's terrific,

so we really just kind of rebuilt it.

We, it was an interesting time,

like it started with Old School

where we were able to do these more hard-R comedies

and be left alone.

No one was telling us, You can't say that.

We were kind of young kids trying to make each other laugh

and in doing so, we're able to create something

that felt authentic and Crashers was the same thing.

We were really left alone to kind of build these characters,

create these flawed guys,

have those three weeks to sort of pitch ideas, write scenes,

you know, like the me wanting to keep the painting

when I leave, that was Owen's idea.

He was like, It'd be so funny

after that guy drew the painting, that it means something

to you now, that you want to take it with you.

So we really used that time to kind of build the scenes out,

play with the structure of the movie.

And I think it translates, you know,

having that time when we got into those scenes.

Swingers was similar because we rehearsed that movie

so much trying to get it made.

So I think having that time to really dive in

and have a little bit of ownership over the lines

and the dialogue.

I've been looking all over for you.

I've got to get out of here, pronto.

I got a Stage Five clinger.

Uh-uh, I need more time.

Did you hear what I just said to you?

Stage Five. Virgin. Clinger. Let's go.

I'm going to start the car, I'm serious, let's go.

I think that really translated in the screen.

It was a lot of fun, was a lot of work,

but it was really enjoyable.

The Breakup.

Well, you know it was my idea of The Breakup

and what it was is I was being sent a lot of rom-coms.

I had never done one prior to it, and I thought,

Gosh, you know, it's always kind of the same motor,

these guys, whatever.

Then the guy goes and apologizes and the girl takes him back

and they end up happily ever after.

And so I thought, Well, how about two people

that really love each other,

but they just don't have the skills yet,

either of them, to make the relationship work.

I had found in my own life

that sometimes you could really like someone,

but neither of you are either ready

to be in something more serious,

or you just don't have the maturity or the skills

to handle situations,

and you can end up kind of ruining the relationship.

Don't tell me what I am or aren't not doing.

Oh, what you are not not doing.

Could you learn some English?

Once you ruin it, it's hard to go back.

Like once someone feels like the other person

has broken trust or let them down, hurt their feelings,

even though you may still like them,

you just can't go back to that,

and you learn your lessons from that experience,

and hopefully you don't repeat the same mistakes

in the next relationship.

So I had played a lot of characters at the time

that were kind of fun,

but I really was driving to have this film

where the guy wasn't confident or mature enough

to address things well,

but you could tell his heart was in the right place.

And then the girl would be a little gamey.

She wasn't totally mature either.

It's sort of both of their faults.

She's manipulating the situation more than one should.

They're both somewhat immature.

And that you would build to this moment

that when the guy finally got to that revelation,

that he was able to go to her, hat in hand,

which you had seen so many times,

that the girl had gotten to a place where it was burnt out.

He had let her down so many times

that she just wasn't able to reciprocate in a way.

And that the guy in the moment would then kind of have this,

this wisdom and dignity to be accepting of that.

It was awkward.

There was another guy outside

and he sort of really authentically,

you could tell he moved past his immaturities

because he handled that moment so gracious.

And then the tragedy at the end of the movie in a way,

was here were these two people

who both kind of liked each other,

but they both handled it really terribly.

And then obviously with the ending,

when they sort of see each other to realize, you know,

you're better off at the other side of it,

it never feels like it when you go through a breakup

like that, but ultimately,

having gone through those experiences

are sometimes the things that put you in a better place,

to both pick someone who's in a better place

for where you're at and also have better skills

not to ruin a relationship.

And then the question for people was,

well, did it work out between those two or not?

Which you know, is up to everyone to decide.

I think if they met each other

at the stage they were at once they went

through the experience, they probably would have worked out.

And that was really the point,

was that they both had come out of it,

even though it was painful,

more equipped for relationships than when the movie started.

And that had a big table scene that took a lot of days

to film as well, where John Michael Higgins,

who's terrific, John Michael Higgins gets up and sings

in my face Owner of a Lonely Heart.

♪ You're every step you take ♪

♪ You and you and that's the only way ♪

True Detective.

You know, having done Swingers and roles like that,

the characters are very confident

and they're very articulate and, you know,

able to move with a lot of self-value.

And then with Frank, what I found in that,

what I did was in the early stages of the piece,

he's trying to go corporate,

he's trying to go legitimate and he's using big words

and stuff, but I felt that the character didn't really have

a grasp on it, that he was over his skis.

And so I really tried to, you know,

as the character, come off confident and proficient,

but actually underneath it,

to trying to be something he wasn't.

So it was interesting to start that piece

where you have this guy who is not really self-assured,

although he's this kind of foreboding character,

there's a rage and an anger in him.

You see a lot of, you know, hurt in him.

There's a little kid in there that doesn't feel loved.

And he's sort of, you find him in a moment

where he's trying really hard, but he just does,

he has a lot of self doubt and things are slipping away

from him.

And then as the piece progresses,

he starts to become far assured and confident.

He kind of reverts back to what he was trying to escape.

He knows who he is when he's someone who's going

to be more violent, or this is the way I handle things.

Now I understand this.

And this is probably where I always saw my life going.

He's going to protect the one thing he loves,

but he's prepared at that point to face his ends.

Hacksaw Ridge.

Well, you know, I always put a lot of research,

even in the earlier movies with studying, you know,

either people, or learning about different experiences.

For Hacksaw Ridge, I had gone,

I never did a lot of press for it,

but I had gone a lot starting with Dodgeball,

taking movies overseas to the troops.

I had gone to Iraq and Afghanistan

and was able to show the movies, which was funny.

I thought, Gosh, these guys,

these guys and girls are stuck over here

in this terrible situation.

Well, maybe these movies are funny.

Maybe I can go take Dodgeball over and show it

to the troops.

I didn't realize when I got there that a lot of them

had copies of the movie for me to sign,

even though the movie was just coming out in America

because they had, there was pirated versions

that would get sold overseas that were like, you know,

have someone's head in the video,

while they were watching the movie.

I just went into a very kind of deep dive

about what was it like, these sergeants

and the drill sergeants and the preparation

when it's actually war time

and how these things kind of play out.

And then sort of tried to build out a specific character

in this situation where you're dealing with someone,

you know, like Desmond, who can tell us, you know,

you don't even know if he's telling the truth at first.

Is this guy even honest, is he presenting what's real?

And then having the concern for the group at that time

as your highest demand,

which has these kids are going over to fight

and kill people.

They got to stay alive.

And this may be hard on this individual,

but we really need to do what's best for the unit to live,

and this guy is not going to be an asset to anybody,

he's going to get someone killed.

And then, which was true to real life,

being swayed by this person's faith, his belief,

realizing he really does have a conviction

in what he's doing,

and to sort of be won over by this kid,

and ultimately the journey that Desmond Doss went on

was so incredible, I never heard the story.

So it was really kind of building out, you know,

and then finding your own individual personality

with that, with how you would kind of approach it

and put yourself in those circumstances.

Brawl in Cell Block 99.

Rosalba's such a great writer.

and I had liked Bone Tomahawk quite a bit.

And Bradley, I think being a little bit different

than the other character, but again, was a guy

who kind of knew who he was,

didn't feel a need to talk a lot, you know,

wanted nice things in life, and one of them being

a relationship with this woman that he loves,

I had kind of a specific pass for him

that had a lot of violence and stuff in it.

So that's actually the scene when reading the script

that most moved me,

because I found it surprising and also authentic,

that you discover that the girlfriend is cheating

or your wife as it would be, and you're filled with rage

and hurt, and so he tells her to go inside.

He obviously feels like he can't control his emotions,

but he has enough wherewithal.

I think he's suggesting in some way

that you need to get away from me because I'm not fully

in control of how I'm feeling.

So she leaves him.

He's unable to process what he's feeling.

So he takes it out on a car, which I think in moment,

people have been mad, maybe they throw something

across the room, but I think his commitment

to really methodically destroying the car shows a real ocean

of hurt and rage.

And then it was the scene afterwards that I quite liked

when you come to find out that there was a miscarriage,

in the marriage going bad,

he doesn't blame all of the infidelity on her,

even though she's the one that has, you know,

acted out in this way,

he's able to hear her and recognize that some of the choices

he's been making have not been up to par,

and what I loved was

that after having this very honest conversation

with each other, he's clearly someone who's both angry

and very hurt over this, they decided to become closer,

and I really believe that.

I really bought in that conversation through the way

that things were discussed,

that those two people did become closer, that they,

I could say, wow, this is interesting.

One could see the infidelity and the trust being broken

as something that would divide them, but in this case,

I'm really believing that they're both being able

to be vulnerable and it brought them closer together.

And I think that's kind of Zahler in his writings.

He doesn't lay out, set up in obvious ways where they go,

Now I'm rooting for this character.

I think the characters surprise you.

The stories surprise you, and they feel sort of authentic,

but not kind of formulaic.

[punches land]

You're going to stop now.

[thud]

I'm fortunate in that I wrestled in high school

and junior high, and then I boxed a little bit,

just really, you know, staying in shape,

but I had done it younger, and then I did it older,

just for exercise, so I had a good foundation,

but it was demanding.

I love the artistry of Zahler and his commitment.

He really wanted to make these shots live in these shots

and have it be us, so it was a bit

like choreographing a dance.

Like these are not, we're not going to be able to hide

and just land a punch and have it work.

You had to really be consistent with a sequence

that might be 15, 20 moves.

And there was really not a lot of room for error.

So we sort of rehearsed it. The coordinator was great.

Zahler's terrific.

We would really practice these sequences,

but then ultimately when you get there on the day,

you kind of have to go for it.

You can't overthink it, so you want to keep everybody safe,

and at the same time,

you want to have the right emotion going on

to make the sequence be as grounded

and believable as possible,

and it's kind of a weird balancing act

because you can't really be too in your head.

So there was a couple of times I got caught

or someone else did, not very often,

but we really made the decision to really go for it

and be, err on the side of kind of being a little bit

more physical and aggressive,

and I think for the film, it really works.

Freaky.

Yeah. I like Chris Landon a lot.

He's really good in this genre of kind of horror

with comedy, which is not an easy thing to do.

So the butcher was fine.

I just try to make him specific, malicious, you know,

kind of a pleasure in hurting people, enjoying it, quiet.

And then for Millie it was really just kind of, you know,

studying girls of that age and then building a character

that was unique and specific.

Here's a girl with a turbulent home life,

and I think it's really relatable for all kids that age.

You're caught between

what your parents think your life should be

and what they want for you.

And sort of being able to say,

This is what I want, and both knowing what that is

and being able to give voice to it,

and she's someone I think we all can relate to.

She doesn't feel confident in school.

She's got a crush on someone

who she doesn't believe would reciprocate.

She's got a really nice group of friends

and some close relationships,

but she's sort of at that coming-of-age moment

where she's learning to own her own voice

and to have some belief in herself.

And again, for comedy, you're kind of,

I tried to keep the character grounded with real stakes,

but then in certain, you know, the overcommitment

to the absurd is sort of where the comedy comes from

at times, and that's really Landon and the writing

and the situations that he would put us in.