Anthony Anderson and Simon Rex: Very "Scary" Dudes

You've seen rotund comic actor Anthony Anderson on his t.v. show, "All About the Andersons" and at his hilarious best in films like Malibu's Most Wanted, Kangaroo Jack and Cradle 2 the Grave. The jolly actor will next be seen in the sequel to Agent Cody Banks with Frankie Muniz. Now, Anthony co-stars in Scary Movie 3 doing a wacky send-up of Mekhi Pfifer in 8 Mile complete with rasta curl dreadlocks!

Anderson is buds on and off the set with Simon Rex whom you probably remember as a boyfriend on the WB's "What I Like About You" or as a hot art student on "Felicity". Rex was an MTV vee-jay, performed in comedy sketches and did stand-up comedy as well as interviewing music celebs before turning to the big screen in The Forsaken and Unleashed. In Scary Movie 3, the tall, good-looking actor does a great take on the Joaquin Phoenix character in Signs (that is if the character were to drop baseball and take up whiteboy rap!).

When we interviewed the duo recently in L.A., the comedy just continued with crazy interruptions and buddy humor

TeenHollywood: How hard is doing this kind of broad, silly comedy?

Anthony: I think comedy's just comedy, man. People laugh at people falling down, people laugh at spit takes. Comedy is timeless; what's funny is funny. Physical humor and things like that, those are things that people just respond to over time.

Simon: You can tell Anthony is funny at seven in the morning on Sunday. He can't help himself. I think we both look for jokes no matter what, and we're always trying to make each other laugh, so for us this just comes naturally.

TeenHollywood: Simon, did you have to train in rap to play your character?

Anthony: No, see Simon's really a black man, he's just an albino. Don't let the white exterior fool you. Outside of work, Simon has a lot of rhythm and a lot of style, so it was kind of hard for him to portray the off-beat, non-rapping white man.

Simon: It wasn't really that I had to listen to Eminem as much as it was to watch the tapes of 8 Mile for the physical spoof. I mean the physical gestures he was doing in the rap scene. They gave me the tape on set, and they'd tell me to take it home and right before we'd shoot, they'd say look what he's doing right here, try to mime that movement. But as far as the rap goes it wasn't really miming Eminem's style as much as it was trying to deliver those jokes. They were real specific about getting laughs. David Zucker has a real formula for his comedy, and he wants joke after joke, and I tried to rewrite the rap a little bit to make it a little more soulful, but he said 'no, it's going to miss the joke. Stick to this and don't worry about sounding like Eminem, just do this'.

TeenHollywood: So they didn't want you to rap too well?

Simon: I think they wanted it to be somewhere in the area of all the jokes in the rap had to be good enough to where I could believably win the rap battle but I think watching it, Fat Joe is obviously a much better rapper, but I think I surprised everyone with the jokes so I think they just did a happy medium of jokes and a little bit of rhythm, but David Zucker doesn't know how to write a rap- he just knows how to write jokes. It was a process- we'd go in the studio and record it over and over in Brian Adams' studio in Vancouver, and we did like four versions of the rap until we got it right.

Anthony: Before the rap was written the script literally said, 'he raps,' and it was blank. That's exactly how it was.

TeenHollywood: How was it working with the real rappers?

Simon: Oh, Fat Joe was like the Godfather. We went out to dinner with him one time, me and Anthony sitting at the table like this [crosses arms] and at the end we tried to pay for it and he said 'don't insult me'.

Anthony: It was a ball, you know, Master P, Macy Gray, the whole Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man, Redman, it was just fun. They were all in great spirits and they wanted to be a part of it.

TeenHollywood: What did they talk about off camera?

Anthony: Umm, bling bling, and 'I wouldn't be drivin' no shit like this! You see the rims on that car. Look at this bullshit they got me driving'- that's basically what the conversation was.

TeenHollywood: Anthony, do you know Mekhi?

Anthony: I know Mekhi. Mekhi is a friend of mine, I don't even know if he knows that I am spoofing him in this film because you can't get that from the trailers that you've seen or that I've seen. But we'll see. I'm pretty sure he'll be at the premiere.

TeenHollywood: Were you both fans of David Zucker movies and t.v.? (the "Airplane" films, "Police Squad" and Naked Gun).

Simon: I was. I remember when I went in to the audition I thought it was a Wayans brothers movie. I had no idea- they were keeping it real secretive- and I go to the audition and I'm sitting in the waiting room and I'm looking at these "Airplane!" and "Naked Gun" things on the wall and I call my friend and say, I'm in David Zucker's office. I'm like, I'm glad I didn't know for the last week 'cause I would have been a lot more intimidated. He was great. He allowed us the freedom to play and to improvise and to just have fun as actors on set.

TeenHollywood: Why didn't the Wayans brothers do this film? No hard feelings I hope?

Anthony: I think with the success of the first one and the second one they wanted to move on. They were already in the process of writing another script that they're actually filming right now and I don't think they could have possibly done both of them at the same time. I think it was just a creative thing for the Wayans brothers. We really haven't spoken about it. Marlon sent me a message yesterday as a matter of fact and I haven't gotten back to him- that he just wishes me luck with the film and the television show, and I need to stop being an ***hole and call him back.

TeenHollywood: Anthony's got a t.v. show loosely based on his life. Any plans for more t.v., Simon?

Simon: I just sold a pilot to MTV called "Channel Surfing" that I created and I sort of wrote, produced and edited on so hopefully you'll see it. It's a show me and my friend Jordan Rubin from "The Man Show" and Craig Kilbourne, he writes on it, we took the idea of watching the TV with the sound off and doing the voices of the characters that you see. It's sort of been done. It's not like "Mystery Science Theatre 3000", we actually do the voices of the characters for the MTV generation. We take random public access channels or footage from old fifties sex education movies- the more odd the better.

TeenHollywood: In Scary Movie 3, were there any fave scenes that they cut out?

Simon: Yeah. You remember the scene where we're driving down the street in the 8 Mile spoof with our friend in the back with the paint gun? Well, in the beginning of the scene there's smoke billowing out of the windows as if we're smoking marijuana but then you realize that we're not smoking. He lifts up a George Foreman grill and we're making [burgers]. We loved that but it didn't quite make the cut. There's three movies that they shot worth of film, and it's ridiculous. They were just shooting and shooting and then reshooting and testing it and they did this whole Matrix thing with Queen Latifah and Eddie Griffin that they just axed because the audience didn't get it so they had to redo it.

TeenHollywood: What's next for you guys?

Simon: Now I'm back to auditioning. Hopefully this pilot will get picked up and that'll mean I'll be working on that and maybe part four for this if it's received well.

Anthony: The television show and another Miramax film coming out in January called My Baby's Daddy with me, Eddie Griffin and Michael Imperioli. And Agent Cody Banks 2. Me and Frankie Muniz. I replace Angie Harmon. You should see me in red leather and a push-up bra!!

Right, Anthony...we'll make sure to catch that!!

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.