From the team that brought you Neighbors and This is the End comes Long Shot, a story that includes an unlikely romance, women in politics, and pop music.
Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) is a gifted and free-spirited journalist with an affinity for trouble. Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) is one of the most influential women in the world. Smart, sophisticated, and accomplished, she’s a powerhouse diplomat with a talent for…well, mostly everything. The two have nothing in common, except that she was his babysitter and childhood crush. When Fred unexpectedly reconnects with Charlotte, he charms her with his self-deprecating humor and his memories of her youthful idealism. As she prepares to make a run for the Presidency, Charlotte hires Fred as her speechwriter, much to the dismay of her trusted advisors. A fish out of water on Charlotte’s elite team, Fred is unprepared for her glamorous lifestyle in the limelight. However, sparks fly as their unmistakable chemistry leads to a round-the-world romance and a series of unexpected and dangerous incidents
We had the opportunity to chat with actors/producers Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen about the film. Check out our chat!
The Knockturnal: Congratulations guys on this film. I watched it last night and laughed the entire way through it. And one of the things I was laughing at the most was your physical comedy. So what was it like working together in terms of, falling down stairs, dancing, hitting desks, those kinds of things.
Seth Rogen: I think it’s nice when you can make people laugh through ways other than just talking. When we can come up with ways to you know have the audience laugh and you know, move the story forward and inform on the characters and their relationships, that’s when it really functions the best, I think.
Charlize Theron: I started as a ballerina for the first part of my life and I told stories by not saying, not uttering one single word.
Seth Rogen: They can’t talk. They don’t talk?
Charlize: Theron: They don’t talk.
Seth Rogen: It’d be a funny thing if they did.
Charlize Theron: Ballerinas don’t talk.
Seth Rogen: “Hey, what’s up?”
The Knockturnal: It’d be a different show then.
Charlize Theron: Yeah, I like physical storytelling. I mean Mad Max I think I have 70 lines in that movie, that’s it. Yeah, in a three hour, over three-hour movie.
The Knockturnal: And you guys are both producers of this film, so congratulations on that as well. Why was it important for you to produce this as well?
Charlize Theron: It was a project that was with Seth’s company.
Seth Rogen: We brought it, we were like “We can’t do this on our own.” I think both, in the actual making of the movie we felt really strongly that Charlize was the person we wanted to make it with and we also knew that the best way to make a movie like this was to really develop it and spend a long time talking about it and to get as much input as possible and to not pretend that, like, me and Jon Levine know how to, you know, make a movie about a woman running for president.
Charlize Theron: But it turns out they actually do.
Seth Rogen: We do but we need a lot of help.
Charlize Theron: Turns out they’re actually very enlightened.
Seth Rogen: We outsourced a lot of it.
The Knockturnal: We’re also treated to a very sweet duet, and I mean sweet in like it is awesome between the two of you. If your characters had to do another singing moment, what would it be? Which song would you choose?
Seth Rogen: Probably just a different Roxette song, maybe. Just more good Roxette songs.
Charlize Theron: We have really very similar taste in —
Seth Rogen: Taste in 90s music?
Charlize Theron: Taste in 90’s music. Yeah. And so every time Seth would sometimes just pull his phone up and put a song on and it was definitely one of those, like, you realized … I’m older than Seth but I was raised in South Africa and sanctions —
Seth Rogen: They got everything a little while after.
Charlize Theron: Sanctions held us back a little bit so really we are the same generation. We definitely, we have the same reaction when a good 80’s, 90’s song comes on.
Seth Rogen: It’s just beautiful.
Charlize Theron: It is a beautiful thing.
The Knockturnal: And it was a beautiful thing to watch.
Charlize Theron: And I don’t just sing for anybody.
Seth Rogen: No, it was hard, hard to get that out.
Charlize Theron: It was very special.
The Knockturnal: Well we feel lucky then, so thank you for your time.