DANNY McBride talks about recommending David Gordon Green as the director of Pineapple Express, getting into acting and what’s coming next…

Q. Weren’t you responsible for recommending David Gordon Green as the director?
Danny McBride: Yeah, I went to college with him and he was my next door neighbour in my first year of school. We’d been good friends for a long time and all of a sudden, once outside of school, he did more dramatic stuff [All The Real Girls, Undertow]. But when I met Seth [Rogen] and Judd [Apatow] to talk Pineapple they said they were looking for a director and I recommended David because he was so funny. They’re all actually very similar in terms of how they handle the vibe of the set and how they make it free for you to improv. It just felt like he’d be a good fit.

Q. Isn’t he also responsible for getting you into acting?
Danny McBride: He was. We’d just act in each other’s films all the time because the drama school that was at the college didn’t really encourage the students to work with the film department. They didn’t want us to ruin it… So we did them ourselves. But I was in his movie, All The Real Girls. He had an actor who pulled out just days before they were going to shoot it, and I had written with him before and he knew that I’d get what he was going for. So, he gave me my acting break and I recommended him for his Hollywood break, I guess. Thinking about it now, maybe I should get a finder’s fee from him.

Q. There’s a little touch of homosexuality in your character in Pineapple Express…
Danny McBride: I like to think that Red transcends homosexuality. He’s kind of above it. But that was one of the things that David [Gordon Green, the director] would suddenly suggest. I’d do a scene and he’d be like: “Now do it as a feminine black man.” There’s definitely some mystery to him.

Q. Were you worried about offending Hollywood’s less liberal side by making a stoner movie?
Danny McBride: Well, to me it seemed like it had been done before. There have definitely been stoner movies before. I guess in a lot of the pot movies, there’s a more goofy approach to how they handle it. This is a little more real in the way the guys talk about weed and selling it to kids, etc.

Q. You’ve also had two successful comedies come out back-to-back in the States, with Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder?
Danny McBride: Yeah, they came out within a week of each other over there, which means I’ve beaten my own ass.

Q. What’s next for you?
Danny McBride: I’ve just finished Land of the Lost with Will Ferrell and Anna Friel. That comes out next summer. And I did this independent film called The Foot Fist Way, which actually comes out over here in September. It’s the reason why I got hired for these two jobs.

Read our review of Pineapple Express

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