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What’s the history behind this
project?
JOHN HAMBURG:
There was a
story that Shawn Levy and Dan Levine,
the producers, sent to me of a tech
mogul who falls in love with a woman
from a normal background, and conflict
ensues once her family comes into the
picture. The details of the story were
quite different from where we ended
up in
Why Him?
, but the concept spoke
to me.
Having worked on
Meet the Parents
and the two sequels, I knew that
territory, but I thought that the world
had changed a lot since we made
the first
Meet the Parents
, in that, in
essence, the kids were in charge now
whereas back then, the grown-ups
seemed to have had all the power.
I thought it would be interesting to
explore those power dynamics, because
it’s still the idea of a young woman
having her first serious boyfriend and
having that nervousness of introducing
him to her family. And the family going
into this foreign world, which is Silicon
Valley, in this case. That felt very of the
moment and interesting and that there
could be a lot of comic fireworks, as
well. At that point, I had worked on
several scripts with my co-writer, Ian
Helfer, and together, he and I developed
the premise Shawn and Dan brought to
me, into our own story.
The movie seems perfectly cast.Were
Bryan Cranston and James Franco
your first choices?
Absolutely. Bryan Cranston and
James Franco were the only two guys I
ever wanted for the parts. Bryan, I had
known his comedy from
Malcolm in the
Middle
, and of course, like everybody
else, was obsessed with
Breaking
Bad
, and thought it was the greatest
performance I’d ever seen, in anything.
I like making movies with actors
4 3 2 1
Bryan Cranston
and James Franco
were the only two
guys I ever wanted
for the parts
Director John Hamburg
James Franco, Zoey Deutch,
Bryan Cranston, Megan
Mullally and Griffin Gluck