Justin Timberlake Interview For ‘Bad Teacher’

Some teachers just don’t give an F. For example, there’s Elizabeth (Cameron Diaz). She’s foul-mouthed, ruthless, and inappropriate. She drinks, she gets high, and she can’t wait to marry her meal ticket and get out of her bogus day job. When she’s dumped by her fiancé, she sets her plan in motion to win over a rich, handsome substitute (Justin Timberlake) – competing for his affections with an overly energetic colleague, Amy (Lucy Punch). When Elizabeth also finds herself fighting off the advances of a sarcastic, irreverent gym teacher (Jason Segel), the consequences of her wild and outrageous schemes give her students, her coworkers, and even herself an education like no other. Check out what Justin Timberlake had to say about the film below. ‘Bad Teacher’ is in cinemas June 17th in the UK, and June 24th in the US.

You got to work with some great actors on this film, and you all worked so well together on screen, how was that ?

Justin Timberlake: It’s really fun to see Cameron in this part, she’s done a lot of films, had a lot of memorable comedic moments on film. But none of them have been in this tone. It’s REALLY fun to watch her play this character, simply because it’s just something people haven’t seen her do. It works for Cameron because she’s so innately lovable, there’s almost this getting away with being so brash and hardcore. It’s perfect for her, already I look at her role and think that’s going to be a classic Cameron Diaz character, when you look back at her catalogue.

Jason Segal is great, I’d met him before but with this obviously we got to hang out a bit more off camera. We don’t actually have a lot of scenes together….actually the writers added to the original screenplay so that we’d have some scenes to play off each other. They were awesome scenes really funny. I am on the Jason Segal train…toot, toot (laughs).

On set, when I watched a couple takes of what Phyllis Smith was doing, it might seem that she’s playing it a certain way, but there is a lot more to what she is doing. I think that her character, when you watch this movie a third or fourth time, I think characters like that really stand out. I think Phyllis is brilliant. A job like this is a no-brainer, the cast was so good, I had a ball making this film, it was awesome.

How does your character link to the story?

Justin Timberlake: I feel like Scott is the centre piece between Elizabeth’s and Amy’s competition, and their contest to one up each other. He becomes a sort of prize, more so than them genuinely being interested in him because the more you get to know about Scott, the more you dislike him (laughs). All the characters are sort of on their own island, that’s what makes it work in my opinion. You have somebody like Jason’s character, who’s so dry, then you have my character and he’s so weird, but subtle in a way.

When I first read the script I was very apprehensive because I was like, “This character is absolutely transparent, I don’t know what is happening with him, I don’t know what is going on with him, I cannot put my finger on it.” Then I read it again and I was like, “Also……that’s kind of funny!”

When I spoke to Cameron she was saying that the writing was one of the main reason why the film was so funny, what do you think helped with the humour?

Justin Timberlake: This movie is just funny on many different levels. There’s the right amount of physical comedy, but really a lot of what’s funny revolves around what’s written. It’s a testiment to Lee and Gene the writors, and Director Jake. It’s like a fantastically baked cake, as an actor you just feel like you’re spreading the icing on it.

How was it working with Jake Kasden?

Justin Timberlake: This was my first time meeting Jake, working with Jake. He’s the perfect comedic director in a sense that he has a very specific direction. You can jump around that path as much as you want, but he doesn’t let you vear too far off of it. He keeps it very focused. I’ll be there, whenever he needs me (laughs).