STACK #139 May 2016

CINEMA NEWS

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SISTER ACT If Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen thought the frat boys were bad, then they’ve got nothing on the girls in Bad Neighbours 2 . After a sorority moves in next door, they enlist their original nemesis, Zac Efron, to help oust Chloë Grace Moretz and her bad girl posse. By Gill Pringle

and I would work with her on a hundred more.” Bad Neighbours 2 mirrors where Stoller, 40, is at in his own life. “It’s increasingly difficult to tell these stories because I’m getting farther away from that time in my life," he says. "My way in is really through Seth and Rose and the issues they’re going through. They’re scared they’re going to be bad parents and scared their daughter is growing up too quickly – all stuff that I’m dealing with right now, compared to the quarter-life crisis stuff that Zac’s going through.” Since graduating from High School Musical , Efron, 28, has devoted himself to comedy between the first Bad Neighbours , That Awkward Moment , Dirty Grandpa, and upcoming movies Baywatch and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates . “Zac has this vulnerability that makes him really funny and awesome in comedies," notes Stoller. " Baywatch is potentially more of an action comedy and our movie has a fair amount of action and you’ll see his skills. I see it with a lot of actors, for example with Chris Pratt who was very boyish and I think he needed to grow a little bit. People want their action heroes a little older and more grizzled, so I think that’s what’s going on with Zac. The minute he decides he wants to do action he’ll be able to do it. "He has the whole thing. He even runs as intensely as Tom Cruise,” says the director who surprisingly left the two funniest women in comedy, Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer, on the cutting room floor. “They get it. They make movies and TV, so they understand when stuff doesn’t work. The worst thing you can do to an actor is put something in a movie that doesn’t work. That would have just sucked for everyone and I didn’t want to do that to them.”

CINEMA

I n Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising , Byrne and Rogen’s Kelly and Mac have given up trying to be cool, resigned to the fact they are married with a kid and another on the way, courtesy of Byrne’s own real-life pregnancy during production. Director Nick Stoller can’t get enough of Australia’s beautiful Byrne, having first cast her in his comedy Get Him to the Greek . “When she first came in I only knew her from

Damages and I was like, ‘Why is Rose Byrne here? She’s a serious actor’. But she was just absolutely hysterical and Paul Feig cast her in Bridesmaids immediately after,” he says. “She has the face of a silent film actor. Her eyes are really big and expressive and she’s always reacting and doing something funny. She’s pretty quiet on set but she knows exactly what the deal is and can do an impression of everyone. This is the third movie I’ve worked with her on

Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising is in cinemas on May 5

MAY 2016

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