SANDRA BULLOCK IN “THE HEAT”

Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock stars in “The Heat” and tries on improv comedy for the first time under director Paul Feig.  

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

                Bullock stars as Sarah Ashburn, an FBI agent hoping for a promotion and high-tails it from her home base in New York City to Boston, to help solve the mystery behind several murders.  Standing in Ashburn’s way is a hard-hitting Boston police officer, Shannon Mullins played by Melissa McCarthy, who’s not happy that the FBI – especially the stuck-up Ashburn -- is treading on her turf.  Ashburn is determined to wrestle the case away from Mullins, but the disheveled, foul-mouthed, in-your-face cop is a formidable adversary.  They’ll soon discover they have more in common than they ever thought possible, including their misfit status and complementary skillsets. 

                “Ashburn’s effectiveness as an FBI agent comes from her meticulousness, stubbornness and thoroughness,” says Bullock.  “But she’s completely inept when it comes to any kind of social interaction.  She’s trying so hard to make up for that particular weakness that she becomes insufferably arrogant on the job.  Ashburn is respected but not liked because she isn’t a team player.  Every time she opens her mouth, people cringe.”

                The improvisational nature fueled the fun and on- and off-screen bonding. “It is great working with Melissa,” enthuses Bullock. “She comes through the door and improv is the way that she does things. Then we had a director who comes from that world too and nearly everyone in the cast was also from that world. The world of comedy that I had been familiar with was always very controlled. There was the script and you had to go through 27 people and the studio before you could change a line.  I always wanted to do this kind of comedy that we have in THE HEAT (which I have done in real life, sort of free form,) but I was never really allowed to experience what it was like before on a film. 

Walking onto the set of THE HEAT it took me a couple of days to realize: ‘I’m allowed to do it.’ It was very liberating. When you are around that, you take it in and you want to improve your game. It is a muscle that you have to exercise and if you haven’t had much time exercising that muscle, it gets stale. Watching these people work is exciting and inspiring, but daunting sometimes too.”

“Melissa has great moves,” says Bullock,”discussing McCarthy’s comedic skills. “When I saw her dance, I knew we were going to be fast friends.We did the dancing with no practice whatsoever,” she continues.

“We said: ‘let’s not rehearse anything,’ ”interjects her co-star. “Let’s just be as terrible as we’re capable of being. Poor Paul turns around and we both have our faces taped,” laughs McCarthy,  “and he’s like, ‘What’s happening?’ It was a weird descent into controlled madness. It was really fun. There was a lot of ruined tape,” she says. McCarthy adds: “Yeah, I got the moves, but I don’t have the sense to stop whatever’s going on.”

“We really hit it off, she is like my sister,’’ adds Bullock. “I’d say it’s rare that actors get together and have the kind of chemistry and connection we have together. It somehow just works and it’s something inexplicable that is bigger than what is on the page.”

“The Heat” is distributed by Warner Bros.

Good Cop-Bad Cop Scenario in THE HEAT

Director Paul Feig reinvigorates the buddy cop genre by pairing Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock and breakout star Melissa McCarthy as law enforcers with wildly different styles in “The Heat.”   

Set in Boston, the movie follows Sarah Ashburn (Bullock), a by-the-book FBI agent forced to team up with Shannon Mullins (McCarthy), a brash undercover Boston street cop to track a ruthless drug lord.   This wildly dysfunctional duo must try to catch this high-powered criminal without killing one another in the process. 

Rated R-13, “The Heat” opens in cinemas on June 27 from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

“THE HEAT” IS ON

Budding comedy scribe Katie Dippold loved cop movies growing up.  Now a grown up, her love for cop movies continues and had successfully penned the latest Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy starrer “The Heat” directed by Paul Feig.   The estrogen-filled comedy features Sandra Bullock as the uptight FBI agent Sarah Ashburn and Melissa McCarthy as the unorthodox Boston police officer paired together to hunt down a ruthless drug lord.

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox

“The Heat” is the first produced screenplay by Katie Dippold, who has written for television shows like Parks and Recreation and MadTV.  The film was born from Dippold’s love of buddy-cop movies.  She has many favorites, but singles out the 1986 comedy-action film Running Scared, starring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as wisecracking Chicago street cops.  “I’ve always enjoyed those kinds of movies,” says Dippold, who recently signed a deal to write another comedy for director Paul Feig.  “The characters and actors always seemed like they were having so much fun.”

Dippold’s love of buddy-cop films provided the foundation for a script that ultimately transcended the genre with outrageous humor and heart.  Feig sparked to the script, calling it “one of the funniest I’ve ever read.”

“It turns the genre on its head by adding some breasts,” jokes Bullock.  “It’s gonna surprise people what women with breasts can do.”

When the filmmaker told Dippold that “The Heat” was going to be his next film, the neophyte screenwriter was flummoxed. “I thought I was being pranked,” Dippold admits.  “I got an email saying that Paul wanted to have lunch with me.  After reading the email, I sat there frozen for several minutes.  Then, I thought it was a joke.”  “Well, that’s Katie,” says producer Jenno Topping.  “She’s incredibly humble and real.”

With Dippold’s first draft in hand, Feig moved at warp speed to cast the film, a task facilitated by his visualizing his “dream team” in the script.  “I’ve always been a fan of Sandra Bullock, and as I was reading I was just like, okay, Ashburn is Sandra.  Ashburn felt like her.  Sandra is so funny in movies and in real life.  She’s confident and cool, but she’s also analytical about things to a point where it’s comical, and which I love.  And that’s how I felt about the Ashburn character.”

“Sandra brings a sweet quality to what could have been an unlikable character,” adds Katie Dippold.  “She really nails that ‘A+-student’ vibe, and she’s hilarious.”  And McCarthy notes that, “Sandra is great, funny and weird.  We are very much in sync.”

It didn’t take much convincing to bring Bullock aboard. She was a big fan of “Bridesmaids,” and eager to work with its director, Feig.  “Watching Bridesmaids was one of those rare moments when I thought to myself that this is a person [Feig] I want to work with because you know he is going to make you better – and that he could turn “The Heat” into something memorable.”

The strength of the Bullock-McCarthy dynamic, evident even then, inspired additional script fine-tuning.  “By the end of that first read, it was obvious that Sandy and Melissa really inhabited these characters, and that it was up to Katie Dippold and me to take all that magic and get it into the script – and really let the women fly,” says Feig.

               

For Dippold, the process was liberating.  “Sandy and Melissa took what was on the page and made it funnier than I thought it could ever be,” she says.  A particular favorite came during a Mullins’ tirade against her captain (played by Tom Wilson) – accusing him of lacking a set of testes – when he refuses her demand to boot Ashburn from the case.  “Melissa really ran with the one scripted line, ‘Have you seen the captain’s balls?’ and turned it into something spectacular.”

Rated R-13, “The Heat” opens June 27 in theaters from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

ACTION AND COMEDY SIZZLE IN “THE HEAT”

Director Paul Feig reinvigorates the buddy cop genre by pairing Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock and breakout star Melissa McCarthy as law enforcers with wildly different styles in “The Heat.”   Set in Boston, the movie follows Sarah Ashburn (Bullock), a rigid FBI agent forced to team up with Shannon Mullins (McCarthy), a brash undercover Boston street cop to track a ruthless drug lord. 

Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox

Director Feig enthused on Bullock’s and McCarthy’s pairing, “I’m excited about doing a female buddy cop comedy because I can only think of a couple that have come along in the last 20 years and I don’t think they were particularly great. To me, though, I’m not looking at it as two women - it’s just two of the funniest people I know. Melissa, who I’ve worked with and is hilarious, and then Sandy who I’ve always been a fan of who is also hilarious. What I like is they have two different senses of humor and two different styles of comedy and the two complement each other.”

In a genre mostly dominated by men, Feig shares that the pairing is an ideal mix.  “Sometimes you come up with these combos in your head and then you put them together and they don’t work at all. But we had a little rehearsal down in Atlanta when Melissa was doing another movie, and the minute they started reading together, I thought, “Okay, this is funny.”Now they’re actuallythe best of friends and onscreen the chemistry between them is great because of this, and they both bring aspects of themselves to each of their characters – they balance each other out great. Sandy’s so funny at playing the uptight nerdy-but-officious person and then Melissa’s character is just all street smarts and brawn and force. I set them loose and then just get to sit behind the monitor and laugh – I’m amazed at what they’re discovering and coming up with,” Feig continues.

Directing the raucous comedy that is “The Heat” has its unwritten rules too according to Feig.  “My criteria for comedy is it has to have an emotional core, first and foremost.  It also has to have believable characters, even if they’re doing big crazy things or they’re big personalities. It’s not necessarily about jokes – it’s the behavioral aspect of it, and the way they’re reacting off each other. Jokes sometimes land like lead because they just sound very written, but a funny reaction to something makes it funnier. With the Internet and YouTube we’re seeing so much real live comedy just in these videos of people with their friends - that is funnier to us than a very overwritten story. So we have our great script, and although we don’t deviate from it too much, we try to do it in a way where the actorsmake it their own and they’re talking like people do to each other in real life,” shares Feig.

“The Heat” opens June 27 in cinemas nationwide from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros