Jason Sudeikis The Campaign Manager of Will Ferrell in "The Campaign

After starring last year in two ensemble comedies “Horrible Bosses” and “Hall Pass,” comic actor Jason Sudeikis will be seen next in Warner Bros.' “The Campaign.” He plays Mitch, the loyal but increasingly overwhelmed campaign manager, of incumbent congressman, Cam Brady (Will Ferrell).

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

             In the film, as Cam Brady brazens through an embarrasing sex scandal with his usual flair, the seasoned politico prepares to segue unopposed into his fifth term in office. But this time, to his astonishment, a challenger appears out of nowhere: local tour operator Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) — a dumpy, soft-spoken, cardigan-wrapped, fanny-pack-wearing oddball with zero political experience. As Election Day closes in, the two are locked in a dead heat, with insults quickly escalating to injury until all they care about is burying each other. 

             It’s not the first time Cam has been caught with his pants down, though, and he’s sure he can put the incident behind him with an appropriately staged public apology, a wide smile and some fancy footwork from his faithful campaign manager, Mitch. 

             “You can’t teach charisma and Cam Brady is charming as hell. He’s been relying on that for years,” says Jason Sudeikis. “Mitch is not only Cam’s campaign manager but closest friend, the guy who knows him better than anyone and is always there to cover his tracks and put out the fires he sets.”

             Adds Sudeikis, “Mitch runs the gamut from enabler to straight man, to the voice of reason, to a cohort, depending upon what’s needed. Mostly he protects Cam from himself and his own appetites and delusions and, at the same time, truly likes him and believes in him.” 

             “Overall, I think if you threw Mitch into DC or a bigger arena he’d get chewed up, but for the 14th district of North Carolina, he’s the man,” says producer Chris Henchy. “It helps when there’s no one running against your candidate.”

             Mitch’s loyalty and creativity are perhaps most evident when Cam is pressed to recite The Lord’s Prayer in public and must rely on his manager’s elaborate back-of-the-room pantomimes to piece the words together, a hilarious performance that Sudeikis ad-libbed in rehearsal. “That was my improv instinct kicking in,” he says. “While Cam is sweating it out on stage, he looks toward Mitch for support and I just wanted him to have something to respond to. From there it grew, with [director] Jay Roach adjusting the focus and the writers giving it more context. You never know if that sort of stuff will make it into the movie but it’s a good sign when you see the director laughing.” 

             Next year, Sudeikis' upcoming projects are the feature films “We’re the Millers,” which re-teams him with “Horrible Bosses” co-star Jennifer Aniston and Adam Shankman’s drama “This is Where I Leave You” based on the best-selling novel of the same title.

“The Campaign” is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

DYLAN McDERMOTT, THE MEANEST “CAMPAIGN” MANAGER

Golden Globe-winner Dylan McDermott (TV’s “The Practice,” “American Horror Story”) stars in Warner Bros.’ new comedy “The Campaign” as Tim Wattley aka The Terminator, the baddest, toughest, meanest and winning-est campaign manager who ever whipped a candidate into shape for success.

             In the film, as Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) brazens through an embarrasing sex scandal with his usual flair, the seasoned politico prepares to segue unopposed into his fifth term in office. But this time, to his astonishment, a challenger appears out of nowhere: local tour operator Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) — a dumpy, soft-spoken, cardigan-wrapped, fanny-pack-wearing oddball with zero political experience. As Election Day closes in, the two are locked in a dead heat, with insults quickly escalating to injury until all they care about is burying each other. 

On Marty’s side is political operative Tim Wattley. “Political operatives and consultants are like samurai warriors,” director Jay Roach explains. “Tim Wattley is a dark, Rasputin-like character—like an assassin who just happens to be a political consultant. He’s one of those guys who work below the surface and get passed down from one administration to another for whoever needs them, left or right, and is willing to pay for their services. They’re essentially hired guns, but instead of people, they assassinate character. And Dylan is great in the film. He brings some odd chemistry to the mix, which is exactly what we wanted.”

As the laser-focused Machiavellian, McDermott developed an even more severe take on the character than was originally conceived. “Wattley arrives on the scene like a commando and assesses the situation, sees what needs to be fixed and fixes it,” the actor outlines. “He’s not afraid to get his hands dirty, which is good because he’s dealing with a guy who looks like a gnome. He gets Marty botox’d, gets his eyebrows trimmed, his teeth whitened, his hair styled and his entire wardrobe overhauled. He gets Marty to the gym, teaches him how to walk, how to talk, and what to say. He cleans out the house and puts the whole family on notice. He even replaces their dogs.”

Under Wattley’s tutelage, Marty also adopts a catch-phrase of his own, “It’s a Mess,” aimed at anything and everything his opponent has supposedly mishandled—without, of course, detailing any actual solutions.

“Wattley takes over Marty’s life and Marty trusts him because he believes that if he does as instructed, he can win this election and make his town a better place,” says Galifianakis. 

At least that’s part of the plan. But what Marty doesn’t realize is that, for all his keen attention, Wattley doesn’t have the slightest interest in him or his potential constituents. McDermott acknowledges, “Wattley is maybe the craziest person in the movie, in his own way. His job is to get someone elected, period. He couldn’t care less about this candidate or the one on the other side, or the communities they serve or what they stand for, or any of that.” 

 “The Campaign” is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, THE ODDBALL CANDIDATE IN “THE CAMPAIGN”

             “Hangover” alumnus Zach Galifianakis plays Marty Huggins, the unlikely challenger to Will Ferrell's incumbent Congressman Cam Brady in Warner Bros.' new election-themed comedy “The Campaign.”

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

             In the film, as Cam Brady brazens through an embarrasing sex scandal with his usual flair, the seasoned politico prepares to segue unopposed into his fifth term in office. But this time, to his astonishment, a challenger appears out of nowhere: local tour operator Marty Huggins—a dumpy, soft-spoken, cardigan-wrapped, fanny-pack-wearing oddball with zero political experience.

             As Election Day closes in, the two are locked in a dead heat, with insults quickly escalating to injury until all they care about is burying each other. It’s a mud-slinging, back-stabbing, home-wrecking comedy that takes today’s political circus to its logical next level. Because, even if you believe campaign ethics have hit rock bottom…there’s still room to dig a whole lot deeper. 

             “Marty is a bit of a simpleton,” says Galifianakis. “He runs a tourist office in a town that gets maybe four visitors a year. But he’s very happy with his life, and he’s proud of his town. He’s a little weird, too, in ways that are probably better left unexamined, but you sense that he has a good heart.” 

             Marty may have started out with some good intentions but soon adapts to reveal a talent for treachery that just needed some focus—which his backers are happy to provide. “I’ve followed politics all my life and I’m still amazed by the amount of puppeteering that goes on behind the scenes in the making of a politician, and how the public can be duped by that,” says Galifianakis. “We’re just showing, in a fun and funny way, how the sausage is made.”

             Director Jay Roach agrees that “Marty is a little off-center. He loves his community, his pugs, and then his wife and kids, probably in that order. What immediately sets him apart from Cam, besides his total lack of polish, is that he genuinely cares. For reasons that have nothing to do with his qualifications, he is suddenly tapped to run for Congress and, because he really wants to make a difference, he accepts. But he clearly has no idea what that involves and, seeing that, you kind of start rooting for him to figure it out and make the most of this great, unexpected opportunity.”

             “You see what’s going on in the political arena now, watch the election ads, listen to the rhetoric, and it’s a wonder that we could even keep up,” says Galifianakis. 

             Timed to open as the 2012 American election race is powering into the home stretch, “The Campaign” casts a vote for comedy. “By the time it’s released, I imagine the 2012 campaigns will have amplified and accelerated in very interesting ways,” Roach predicts. “People will either be on the edge of their seats over what’s going to happen next, or more than a little burnt out, and looking for something that lets them laugh about it.” 

              “The Campaign” is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

WILL FERRELL VOWS TO GET ELECTED AT ALL COSTS IN “THE CAMPAIGN”

Will Ferrell stars as long-term Congressman Cam Brady who commits a major public gaffe before an upcoming election, in Warner Bros.' “The Campaign,” a mud-slinging, back-stabbing, home-wrecking comedy.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

             When Brady's scandal exposed his vulnerability, a pair of unscrupulous power brokers plots to put up a rival candidate and gain influence over their North Carolina district. Their man: naïve Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis), director of the local Tourism Center. At first, Marty appears to be the unlikeliest possible choice but, with the help of his new benefactors’ support and a cutthroat campaign manager, he soon becomes a contender who gives the charismatic Cam plenty to worry about.

             After four consecutive terms with no opposition, Cam Brady has embraced his lifestyle as a career Congressman with a great sense of ease and entitlement…and every expectation of sliding into a fifth. Says Ferrell, “Cam’s a pretty lazy politician. He’s been touted as a possible vice presidential candidate, which shows how high his aspirations go, but that’s only because he imagines the job as a lot of ribbon-cutting, fancy balls, celebrity perks and kicking back. He’s also morally corrupt.” 

             Moreover, Ferrell adds, “He’s an expert at saying nothing, with that super-polished way politicians have in responding to questions with statements like, ‘Thank you very much for your concern,’ or ‘I appreciate your carving out 15 minutes of your day to come down here to speak about the problems we all face,’ and then not actually providing an answer. It was so much fun to adopt those speech patterns.” 

             When in doubt, Cam employs the guaranteed crowd-pleaser “Support our troops!,” with the hope that the ensuing applause will drown out any inconvenient follow-ups. 

             But even with such an undistinguished record, Cam might have easily ridden the wave of public indifference into another term if he hadn’t gotten sloppy. “He leaves a salacious message on what he thinks is his mistress’s voicemail and it turns out to be the home of a very respectable family with young children,” director Jay Roach reveals. “Suddenly it’s a huge story. His poll numbers plummet.”

            “The Campaign” also lampoons one of Roach’s favorite PR tools: the ubiquitous catch phrase. Says the director, “People are always reaching for catchy, meme ideas to carry the essence of who they are; loaded but largely meaningless phrases for the short-attention-span public, that we all seem to fall for, time and again. I’d love to be in the brainstorming meetings for some of these and see how they come up with a winner. For Cam Brady, we went with ‘America, Jesus, Freedom.’ Amplify and repeat. Because these are the words he believes Americans want to hear. It seems that candidates can’t get anywhere now without talking about freedom as if they invented the notion, and they have to paint themselves as the most patriotic of Americans—certainly more patriotic than their opponents, who they’d like us to believe are in league with terrorists.” 

             Notes Ferrell, “Cam’s big slogan isn’t really a slogan. It’s not even a sentence. It’s just words, like his other battle cry, ‘Cam Brady in 0-12,’ which doesn’t even make sense, numerically, but sounds powerful and decisive.”  

"The Campaign” is distributed in the Philippines by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.