Of course by now all of you have seen at least one of the classic Farrelly Brothers comedies like “There’s Something About Mary,” “Dumb and Dumber,” “Kingpin,” “Me, Myself & Irene,” “Shallow Hal,” “Stuck On You” and “Fever Pitch.”

Anyway, this new one is the first one that Ben Stiller has done since “There’s Something About Mary,” but unlike that one which had one female lead, this new one has Malin Akerman as his new wife and Michelle Monaghan as the woman he falls for on his honeymoon. Come on…it’s a Farrelly Brothers movie.

So while most of us thought the Farrelly’s would be paired together for the roundtable interviews, for some reason each was put with one of the female leads… and this interview is with Malin Akerman and Peter Farrelly. During the interview they talk about everything… from why they remade the movie to filming some of the crazy sex scenes.

As always you can either read the transcript below or download the audio as an MP3 by clicking here. And since I know some of you are fans of Carlos Mencia, you can click here for his interview and you can click here if you’d like to hear the interview with Jerry Stiller, Rob Corddry and Danny Mcbride.

Finally…if you missed the movie clips click here. “The Heartbreak Kid” opens this Friday at theaters everywhere.

Peter Farrelly: These are vibrators by the way so don’t even think about stealing them. (referring to the tape recorders)

Malin Akerman: Oh well that one really looks like it is.

Question: You followed the 1972 film closely until a certain point and then you depart from the film and make it your own. Can you talk about remaking the original?

Peter Farrelly: Somebody asked us to make that about five years ago. They came to us and said, ‘do you want to do a remake of the ‘The Heartbreak Kid?’ No, why would we, it’s classic. Then about two years ago, someone came back and said there’s a new draft of ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ because they really did something smart. It was written by Leslie Dixon and Scott Armstrong at separate times. What they’ve done is flip the original. The original was a very spunky girl who goes on this honeymoon and meets Cybil Shepard. This one he marries Cybil Shepard woman and goes on his honeymoon and meets a more down to earth girl. It really opened the door for us because first it of all it was a different movie. We didn’t just want to remake ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ as it was. It also helped the likeable factor. In the first one, as funny as it is, it’s a masterpiece, Charles Grodin was a cad. He’s just dumping the homely wife for the beautiful girl. Cybil Shepard is a sociopath. He tells her I’m on my honeymoon and she’s like, ‘yeah, I don’t care.’ So there’s a point where you don’t know what you’re rooting for. Once the wife is out of the picture you don’t really care if you get together. You follow it through because you’re curious, but you really don’t. This one, the likeability factor helped make it a fuller story for us and permitted us to put our kind of humor on it. If you don’t like out characters, our jokes don’t work. That’s one thing we’ve always known and go out of our way to set up these people. Also you said we departed at a certain point, well actually the first act was the departure. The original opened with them getting married and we felt we had to rewrite the entire opening to find out who he was. What was his background and really make him likeable. If you like him we can get away with stuff.

Q: Malin, those looked like the most strenuous sex scenes ever.

Malin Akerman: They were quite acrobatic. Peter actually performed them for me before because I did not understand what he was saying. He’s like, ‘so Malin I want you to get on the bed and upside down with your head hanging down and your feet.’ So he got on the bed and showed me.

Peter Farrelly: You were trying to embarrass me though.

Malin Akerman: Of course I was. It was really sexy when you did it. They were definitely some crazy positions that I’ve never tried myself and I don’t think I would.

Q: Was that real sweat?

Malin Akerman: Was I sweating? I don’t know. I didn’t even see the sweat. Wow. What cut did you watch? I don’t know. I guess it was. It was hot on set.

Peter Farrelly: They were moving around. It was a workout.

Malin Akerman: It was a workout, definitely.

Peter Farrelly: It was funny. It wasn’t like when you’re shooting a sex scene, we’ve never done it before, but when you are I imagine on a regular movie they’re tension. ‘Wow it’s sex.’ But this was so funny that it didn’t even seem to be about the sex. It was about the humor. We closed the set and just had a couple of people on there as a courtesy, but it really wasn’t about the sex.

Malin Akerman: No, it was too funny. We’d call cut and we’d all start cracking up. It was too funny. It’s like you’re in a really funny scene and you just happen to be having sex in it. So that wasn’t the initial thought. But of course it is awkward there with Ben and you’re like, ‘so how’s your wife?’

Peter Farrelly: By the way, it also got better and better because the more comfortable they got as we were shooting it the more they got into it to the point where they were hitting each other, they’re hitting each other. They were batting each other around. They were really whacking each other there. It was fun to watch.

Is nudity something you’re comfortable with?

Malin Akerman: Comfortable enough. It’s never completely comfortable. I’m definitely not prudish when it comes to those things. If the scene requires it and it’s for a reason and it’s not gratuitous, then yeah. It’s gotta be real. In Europe and Sweden we see boobs on TV and it’s not a big deal. Everyone has them, everyone has seen them. They’re they are. Not completely comfortable. It’s not the first thing you want to do. I’m not like, ‘hey let me take my top off.’ If the scene requires it then of course.

Q: How sympathetic are you to this character?

Malin Akerman: She’s not a mean person. She does pull herself back and apologize so you she knows she’s out of control sometimes.

Peter Farrelly: Well that’s the trick. The trick is to love her and then you are kind of annoyed by her, then you start to hate her, then you start to like her again, then you kind of find the sweetness. That was the balance. We never wanted to lose her. We never didn’t ever want her to come to the point where you don’t give a shit about her. Even at the end you do. It doesn’t work if you don’t do that. That was the real acting trick there because she has to show us. It’s not what she says or what she does; it’s just in her face. When she’s in bed looking at him like, ‘I love you Eddiebear,’ you feel like this is a human being and despite everything, she’s going to be hurt and this isn’t good. We didn’t want to let Eddie off the hook. Forgive me if I’m repeating myself because you do so many rooms you can’t remember what you’ve said, but there was an earlier draft where she became a racist down in Mexico. She became a complete racist. We said, ‘what are you doing? No. That’s too easy because you’re like fuck her. Go to the other girl.’ We didn’t want that. Eddie should be in a tough position so we dropped that. We always tried to keep her in the game.

How much did that make you think what guys have perceived as being crazy behavior?

Malin Akerman: I do think it comes from the truth. I’ve watched it myself where a guy can give a compliment to a woman and she takes it as like, ‘what you think I look fat in this?’ It’s not at all what they said. Women have a way of contorting things sometimes. We all have our moods, ups and downs. Or if the guy doesn’t say anything when you walk out with a new top and the guy has no idea why you’re mad at him. So of course, women are complicated. I think there is some truth. There are different stereotypes and truths that you put into scripts and of course she has a lot of them in this movie just to make her more of a character. I don’t mind it because I think there’s a truth to it.

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