Jason Segel Interview For ‘The Muppets’

On vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino house band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate. In the addition to the Muppet gang, ‘The Muppets’ features an all-star cast in the likes of Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, Emily Blunt, Zack Galifianakis, Ken Jeong and Ricky Gervais. ‘The Muppets’ is out now in US, and is set for release Febuary 17th in the UK.

As a writer how did you conceptualize the storyline? What was your inspiration?

Jason Segel: The idea of the movie was actually fairly simple. What do the Muppets do best? They put on a show. So I knew ultimately the movie was going to be about putting on a show, that’s the real spirit of the Muppets. They always had a great villain so we thought of Tex Richman, this evil oil baron. And then once Chris Cooper came into our minds, it was very simple. And then what occurred to me was that it’s been 12 years since the Muppets were last on the big screen and I wanted to acknowledge that this movie was bringing them back to the forefront of comedy where they belong, because they should have been making movies this whole time – grand, big dance movies with song and dance numbers like the old MGM style musicals. It was about getting the Muppets back together, sort of as a metaphor of getting back onto a big screen where they belonged.

Reviews for the film have been remarkable, what were your goals when you went into making this movie?

Jason Segel: It was always about doing justice to how amazing The Muppets are. Our whole goal was to make sure that if we were going to do a new Muppets movie, that it lives up to the expectations that everyone feels about a Muppets movie. Whenever I told my friends, anyone, about doing a Muppets movie, they’d always say, “Oh my God, that’s awesome,” then they’d all follow that up with, “You better not mess it up!” (Laughs).

What was it like doing the big finale on Hollywood Boulevard?

Jason Segel: Well, the dance number came very naturally. You can see by my body that I’m made for dancing (laughs). I’m very alive and agile, and I was happy to be able to help Amy Adams sort of get her footing. That was actually a special night for me too. We filmed that the night of my birthday and Hollywood Boulevard was filled with thousands of extras. I walked out and all of the Muppets sang me ‘Happy Birthday,’ which was like the greatest moment in my life. It was fantastic, it was very surreal.

Of the older Muppet films, do you have a particular favourite or one that maybe inspired you more than others for the themes for this particular film?

Jason Segel: Sure. Well, the first three are the ones that I grew up on. And I think there’s something about them that’s lodged in my brain and a sense of humour somewhere. ‘The Muppet Movie,’ ‘The Muppet Caper,’ and ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan,’ they each influenced it a little bit. I kind of borrowed one of my favourite jokes from ‘The Great Muppet Caper,’ in terms of Walter and I are brothers and we don’t really feel the need to explain it. Just like we never explained that Kermit and Fozzie Bear are identical twins. When I was growing up, I thought that was one of the funniest jokes I’d ever heard. And then you have the idea in Manhattan Melodies that they’re putting on a show in ‘The Muppets Take Manhattan.’ That was part of the putting on a show element. The meeting the gang along the way came very much from the original Muppet movie. So it really is sort of a mix and paying homage to those three films.