Tagline: To leave the nest, some men just need a little push.
Failure to Launch movie storyline. Tripp (Matthew McConaughey), 35, has never been able to leave the nest. Now, his desperate parents have had enough. They hire the gorgeous and talented girl of his dreams (Sarah Jessica Parker) to get him to move out of the house.
According to Matthew McConaughey, the star of the new romantic comedy “Failure to Launch,” his character, Tripp, has practical reasons for being a 35-year-old, all-American guy who’s never moved out of his parents’ house. “As far as Tripp’s concerned, you don’t fix what isn’t broken,” he says. “It’s free, he’s got a great room, and mom does the laundry. It’s a great hotel.”
Everything changes for Tripp when he meets Paula. She’s everything that Tripp’s looking for: smart, funny, talented, and beautiful. What Tripp doesn’t know is that there’s a good reason she’s so perfect: a professional consultant, Paula has been hired by his parents to lure him out of the house.
“On paper, Tripp’s case seems open-and-shut,” says Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Paula. “Of course, when she meets him, that proves not to be the case. She finds a well-adjusted, educated, perfectly normal guy who’s 50 billion times more handsome than her other clients, but for some reason, he just can’t get out the door.”
Recently named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive, McConaughey notes that his character’s predicament reflects the reality for many twenty- and thirtysomethings in America today. “It’s a social phenomenon: even though kids are getting older, they aren’t moving out,” he notes.
“I read a lot of articles about this trend before making the movie,” says director Tom Dey. “It was very funny to discover these new sociological terms that apply to adult children still living at home: `adultescents,’ `the boomerang generation,’ `failure to launch,’ etc. I also like the fact that it’s a universal phenomenon – everyone knows somebody who’s still living at home well past the age when most people move out. My hope is that we’ve been able to tap into the funny bone of this familial trend.”
“I have several neighbors who have adult children who now live with them,” remarks Ember. “I found it interesting and was surprised when I found out that it’s becoming the norm.”
“We started talking about this idea of adults living at home with their parents and how the situation would impact everyone involved,” adds Astle. “We always wondered how would you get them out of the house. Then, we complicated matters by introducing the haphazard world of dating into the mix and it worked. It turned out to be a funny, timely idea for a comedy.”
For Dey, “Failure to Launch” presented a great opportunity to make a romantic comedy that could work on several levels at once. “It has a very classic, almost Billy Wilder-esque set-up in that the central relationship is based on a deceit. But there’s a turn in the movie where it begins to operate on a deeper emotional level. These variations in tone from comedy to drama make for a very enjoyable story to watch. For example, toward the end of the film, there’s a scene at a dinner table in which Tripp has a bomb to drop. The tension and humor builds; as Tripp pulls the rug out from underneath the people who have deceived him, his emotional pain registers underneath the comedy.”
Battle of the Sexes
Director Tom Dey says that much of the fun of “Failure to Launch” stems from the chemistry and confrontations between Tripp and Paula. “Tripp isn’t passive about the fact that he lives at home – he champions not having left the nest! Conversely, Paula knows that `failure to launch’ is a real problem – and she’s the cure. The more each character is convinced of his or her point of view, the more sparks fly between them.”
“Tripp and Paula are like two heavyweight fighters,” says Matthew McConaughey. “These two spar, they dance around, they give as good as they get. For Tripp and Paula, they like to make the other the butt of the joke, but they also like to be the butt of the joke.”
Sarah Jessica Parker agrees. “They’ve both found a way not to let love in,” she says, “so it’s only right that these two should have to duke it out.”
McConaughey notes that while it’s never a good plan to build a relationship on a lie – like, for example, you’ve been hired by your boyfriend’s parents to get him to move out – it does provide an opportunity to surprise your significant other. “She keeps the honeymoon period going,” notes McConaughey, “which is exactly what Tripp is looking for. Everyone else he’s ever taken home has been out the door the moment they see the parents. Because she needs to keep the relationship going, she doesn’t let it faze her. That knocks Tripp off-balance and intrigues him – right up until he finds out her secret.”
Parker adds that it’s Tripp and Paula’s attempts to out-maneuver each other that causes their mutual attraction to snowball. “In some ways, the romance is effortless,” she says. “They’re each trying to one-up the other, show the other the best they have to offer – in other words, dating. Up to this point, both have been experts in keeping their attractions in check, but this time, it gets completely out of their control.
“Both characters have fabricated elaborate lifestyles in order to protect themselves to being hurt again,” adds Dey. “That’s what makes them so perfect for each other – they’re cruising through life thinking they have it all worked out, until one day they collide and expose each other’s blind spot. They’ve pushed aside the possibility of ever falling in love again, but that’s the one thing in life that can’t be pushed aside. By the end of the film, they’ve forced each other to take that leap.”
McConaughey always saw Tripp as a fun-loving character, not as an anti-social loner or slacker mooching off his parents. A big-hearted, red-blooded guy, Tripp’s got it all figured out, from a career that allows him to indulge in his passion for sailing, to living at home, which allows him a nice place to live and home-cooked meals with his parents. “There’s no reason to change,” says McConaughey.
“Tripp doesn’t want to leave the cushy nest,” says Oscar-winner Kathy Bates, who plays Sue, Tripp’s mom. “Sue does everything for him: she fixes his breakfast every morning, she does his laundry, she keeps his room clean. He’s really got it great.”
Tripp’s whole point of view changes when Paula enters his life. “This is uncharted territory for Tripp,” explains McConaughey. “He’s intrigued by Paula. It’s the first time in a while that he considers the possibilities beyond this stage and is open to whatever happens.”
“There are not a lot of actors who would embrace this situation as Matthew did,” says Dey. “He’s brings a unique skill set to the equation, in that he’s an ideal romantic leading man who’s not afraid to embrace a kind of Huck-Finn boyishness. That was essential for making Tripp a believable character. His embodiment of the role also creates an interesting question: why is the `sexiest man alive’ still living at home?”
“Matthew’s the handsomest guy in the world,” says Justin Bartha, who plays Tripp’s friend since childhood, Ace. “Every woman in the world wants to be with him and every guy wants to hang out with him. But he’s also a really interesting actor – he really gets into this guy; you feel for his character, even though he still lives at home.”
“Matthew has that easy-breezy attitude – he loves life and loves people,” says Parker. “His attitude is perfect for Tripp, a guy who just rides the wave, finding everything suitable, until he realizes that he could have a lot more.”
Parker’s character honestly believes that she’s contributing to “the greater good, if you can believe that,” says the actress, who recently completed a seven-season run in the critically acclaimed HBO series, “Sex and the City.” “She thinks she’s this prudent, wise businesswoman, but she finds that love can sometimes get in the way of career opportunities.
“It’s something of an epidemic – young men and not-so-young men living at home,” says Parker of the film’s central concept. “I enjoyed the fact that the comedy in this movie stems from that real phenomenon.”
Parker was also attracted to the role by the chance to do something different: in this case, ditch her Manolos for a black bodysuit and the chance to show off her paintball skills. “Actually, I’ve never played paintball before, and I’ll never do it again,” she laughs. “It’s the great part of my job – you can try something once and you never have to do it again.”
“Sarah Jessica does it all so effortlessly,” says Matthew McConaughey. “She is clever with her choices and has great comedic timing. It’s been an amazing experience for me.
“She can do it all,” McConaughey continues. “She’s very girly and sophisticated, but she also smart and clever when it comes to comedy. She’s manicured and mischievous.”
“Sarah Jessica is a master of the craft,” says Dey. “She’s incredibly gifted as a physical and verbal comedienne, and her confidence lends utter credibility to this crazy job she has. She’s one of the few actors who can walk this tightrope of farce and still keep it funny and real.”
Together, says Dey, the chemistry between the two leads is palpable. “Matthew and Sarah Jessica are very bright lights,” he says. “When they’re on screen together smiling, you want to smile too. It’s an involuntary response that speaks volumes about their likeability.”
Meet the Parents
Tripp comes from good stock: playing his parents are Pro Football Hall of Famer and co-host of “NFL on Fox” Terry Bradshaw and Academy Award-winner Kathy Bates. “Kathy and Terry are a dynamic pair,” says Matthew McConaughey. “They got along so famously that you couldn’t help but get caught up watching them interact onscreen and off.”
“When you see them together in the movie, you believe right away that they were high-school sweethearts who got married and have been together ever since,” says Dey. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he’s from Louisiana and she’s from Tennessee – at times I had to really watch the those southern twangs from getting out of control!”
“I was in a couple of movies 25 years ago, and tried out for other roles, but I was always typecast as Terry Bradshaw, football player,” says Bradshaw, who plays Tripp’s dad, Al. “I thought, if I ever did a movie again, I wasn’t going to be playing myself. I’m 56 years old and acting in my first movie in 25 years, since `The Cannonball Run.’ I wanted to do something different.”
That was the key for Bradshaw: the role required that he not play himself. “On the Fox pre-game show, I have this overbearing personality,” says Bradshaw. “In this role, I had an opportunity to be a low-key guy.”
For a former marine with his own printing business, Al is content to let his wife, Sue, “run the show,” in Bradshaw’s words. “He’s a good guy, real laid-back, uncomfortable with confrontation.” Which leads to Sue and Al’s passive-aggressive approach to getting their son out of the house: instead of talking to him about it, which might have been a prickly conversation, they hire Paula to get him to move out.
“This turned out to be one of those times when you have a hunch about casting and it works out even better than you could have imagined,” says Dey. “Terry is so big-of-heart, so energetic, and yet so down-to-earth that he immediately fleshed out the character of Al. And Kathy was a major ally from the beginning; she embraced the idea immediately and really helped Terry fill those shoes. By the end of our first rehearsal she was calling him `Sup’ for his Superbowl wins and he was calling her `Osc!’”
“When I heard that Terry Bradshaw was going to be playing the dad, I thought, `That sounds like fun,’” says Bates.
“Sue is a stay-at-home Mom; she’s taken care of her boy for years and years and years,” she says. “Deep down inside, she’s concerned for him, because she realizes that he needs to get out and start his own family, but she doesn’t want to see him go.
“My mother used to say that if you’re a good parent, you work yourself out of a job,” laughs Bates.
“It has become a cliché, but Kathy is just a tremendous actress,” says Dey. “The fact that she agreed to participate in this film inspired us to expand Sue’s character, which deepened the resonance of Al and Sue’s relationship and made for a much better film overall. Her ability to swing from vulnerable to domineering is always a pleasure to watch. The bottom line is: you couldn’t ask for more generous and able collaborator than Kathy Bates.”
The Best Friends
Rounding out the cast are Justin Bartha as Ace and Bradley Cooper as Demo – Tripp’s friends since childhood – and Zooey Deschanel as Kit, Paula’s sarcastic roommate.
“Besides the fact that this was a very funny script, I was also attracted by the presence of such colorful and idiosyncratic supporting characters,” says director Tom Dey. “Not merely window dressing, the friends play a crucial role by slowly tightening the screws on Paula and Tripp until they are forced to take the leap.”
Deschanel describes her character as “picky,” and that might be putting it mildly. “She’s sassy and too smart for her own good, too sarcastic,” the actress continues. “She has trouble finding friends because a lot of people seem stupid to her. She has to learn to give up a little bit of that if she’s going to find happiness.”
Deschanel was thrilled at the opportunity to work with McConaughey, Parker, Bates, and Bradshaw. “Matthew is so charming,” she says. “He really is an old-fashioned kind of movie star. Sarah Jessica’s a generous, sweet, caring, playful person; it’s a pleasure to work with her. And to hang out with Kathy and Terry is unbelievably amazing. They’re so nice, sweet, and cuddly… I only got to do one scene with them, but it was a lot of fun – they were obviously having so much fun with this movie.”
“It’s always a pleasure – and a challenge! – to put together a strong ensemble,” says Tom Dey. “It’s like choosing a palette – you have to assemble enough different colors, but they also have to complement each other. I’m big on juxtaposition. Once we knew that Sarah Jessica was playing Paula, we tried to find a Kit with a very different energy. Kit is a larger than life character, and Zooey Deschanel is the perfect foil. When it comes to comedy, I’ll always be drawn to opposites. In general, the more conflict you can create the funnier it will be.”
For Tripp’s two best friends since childhood, Dey continues, “We were just trying to create a merry band of brothers – both Bradley and Justin are very funny, gifted actors who have distinct styles and are believable as Tripp’s contemporaries. They were able to riff with Matthew immediately, and we encouraged them to hang out together as much as possible prior to filming. We also gave them physical activities during rehearsal week, including clinics on paintball and rock-climbing.
Cooper, most recently the star of Fox’s “Kitchen Confidential,” takes on the role of world-wanderer Demo. “He’s one of those guys that has an anecdote for every situation,” says Cooper. “You might think he’s not really focused, but then, out of nowhere, he’ll say something so wise and perceptive about the situation. He’s a student of cultures.”
Cooper says that his character, McConaughey’s, and Bartha’s are all completely different from each, other, linked only by the common denominator of all still living with their parents. Still, Cooper, says, this rings true: “I’m completely different from all the friends from childhood that I’ve kept in touch with – the one thing we share is that we grew up together. Objectively, you would think that they’d never get along, but when you see them interact, you get it: `Oh, they grew up together.’ It’s the bond that old friends have.”
“I love the fact that these three guys are all living at home for different reasons, but they’re all totally fine with it. That they celebrate the very idea of it is funny and silly.” adds Dey.
“Actually, I still live with my parents,” jokes Bartha, who was recently seen opposite Nicolas Cage in the action-adventure “National Treasure.” “I see a lot of myself in Ace. Mom still cooks me pancakes every morning. Never gets it right.
“And, in fact, I wish they would hire Sarah Jessica Parker to get me out of the house,” he says, continuing to kid around. “I’m imagining it right now.”
For Dey, finding the right mix of actors was essential. “People have remarked that they really like these characters because they seem so real and yet so quirky,” Dey concludes. “I love the fact that actors as diverse as Zooey Deschanel and Terry Bradshaw can exist together on screen in this movie- to me, that feels fresh and funny. Any time you can bring together an ensemble of actors as idiosyncratic as this one and have them come alive in a way that is credible, funny, and moving, that’s a very satisfying experience for a director.”
Failure to Launch (2006)
Directed by: Tom Dey
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Justin Bartha, Kathy Bates, Zooey Deschanel, Kristi Evans, Bradley Cooper, Terry Bradshaw, Katheryn Winnick, Patton Oswalt
Screenplay by: Tom J. Astle, Matt Ember
Production Design by: Jeremy Conway
Cinematography by: Claudio Miranda
Film Editing by: Steven Rosenblum
Costume Design by: Ellen Mirojnick
Set Decoration by: Cindy Carr, Leslie Pope
Art Direction by: Kevin Constant
Music by: Rolfe Kent
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, partial nudity and language.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: March 10, 2006
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