PAIN & GAIN’s Ken Jeong and Tony Shalhoub Interview: ‘Michael Bay’s Best Film Yet’
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Published: Friday, 26 April 2013 12:57
- Written by Lupe Haas
PAIN & GAIN stars Ken Jeong and Tony Shalhoub consider Michael Bay’s departure for this black comedy the director’s best film yet.
Aside from praising the Transformers director’s adaptation of the true story into a motion picture, the PAIN & GAIN stars also reveal their own harebrained ideas. Mark Wahlberg plays real-life bodybuilder turned extortionist Daniel Lugo in PAIN & GAIN, who masterminded the kidnapping and torture of a self-made millionaire in Miami in the 1990’s. Lugo then recruited other bodybuilders (Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie) to join his knucklehead quick rich scheme, which becomes the basis of Michael Bay’s PAIN & GAIN.
Ken Jeong, Tony Shalhoub, and Bar Paly tell CineMovie’s Zay Zay they are all guilty of knucklehead ideas, of course, they don’t compare to the character’s insane plan in the movie. The Israeli-born actress Bar Paly, who plays Dwayne Johnson’s girlfriend in the film, says she committed a few of them during the press interviews when she said something out loud she shouldn’t have. Tony Shalhoub’s character Victor suffers at the hands of the bodybuilders, but he admits he’s had a few harebrained ideas of his own, although he wouldn’t fess up to what they are.
Ken Jeong’s true rag to riches story certainly makes him guilty of what some would say is a foolish decision. Jeong practiced medicine as a doctor while developing his own stand-up comedy. He left his full-time practice after his breakout role in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, playing what else but a physician. He’s gone on to star in some of the biggest movies like The Hangover franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and as a regular on the television show Community. He agrees during out sit down that he too thought “it was a numbskull idea” at the time, but luckily it paid off for him. “To work is a big reward. I’m very lucky.”
When asked if Michael Bay’s reputation for being a tough director is true, Tony and Ken had nothing but praise for the blockbuster filmmaker. “He’s all about energy and bringing your A-game,” Ken said of the PAIN & GAIN director who worked with him previously on the third Transformers movie. He went on to say that he considers PAIN & GAIN one of Michael Bay’s best films.
There’s no doubt PAIN & GAIN is quite the departure for the 48-year-old music video director turned filmmaker. Tony Shalhoub, best known for playing Monk on the long running television series, credits Bay with handling the subject matter of PAIN & GAIN very well. “Michael did a great job of combining both the manic quality, craziness of the story, the comedy that’s inherit in it and the sort of brutality of it, the sort of darker aspects of it…all mixed into one,” he told Zay Zay while visiting Miami for the round of press events.
Many would agree PAIN & GAIN is a welcome relief from Bay’s usual pompous outings.
PAIN & GAIN opens in movie theaters April 26, 2013.
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