TO SAY Jason Segel was in his element while providing a lead voice for the 3D animated family film Despicable Me is, he admits, something of an understatement. ”Animation and puppetry and kids’ stuff with a little edge has always been right in my wheelhouse, so this was a treat,” he says with glee.
In the film, Segel lends his voice to evil mastermind Vector, the even-more-evil rival of the nasty Gru (voiced by Segel’s comedy friend, Steve Carell). Vector is a short, nerdy, bespectacled, tracksuit-wearing bad guy whose mastery of technology draws immediate parodic comparisons with Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.
Any resemblance is purely coincidental, as it turns out. ”I’ve been asked that before,” Segel laughs.
As for the snivelling voice he developed for Vector, inspiration was close at hand and required no deep digging into the shady side of his psyche.
”Actually, it was really easy,” he says. ”I just figured this guy was super, super insecure and while he is really short and nerdy I’ve been six-four [193 centimetres] since I was 12.
”I was, like, six-four and 100 pounds [45 kilograms] for a couple of years, just this weird, gangly kid who was like ET trying to figure out how his limbs worked. So that’s what I drew on: the insecurity of my childhood. I’m, like, the least masculine man of all time. I happen to be gigantic but I’m pretty soft.”
The film has proved a huge hit, having taken more than $330 million worldwide, outdoing other 3D epics such as Monsters vs Aliens, How to Train Your Dragon, Ice Age 3 and Clash of the Titans. And it’s the latest feather in Segel’s increasingly weighty cap. As well as being a regular on popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother, the 30-year-old starred in hit bromance I Love You, Man and is best known for writing and starring in the neo-classic chick flick for guys, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
There is some irony that Universal, the studio behind Despicable Me and Sarah Marshall, initially thwarted his ascent. Comedy uber producer-director Judd Apatow wanted Segel cast in The 40-Year-Old Virgin but the studio deemed him to be too much of a – well – a nobody. Despondency followed.
”’You know what?” Segel says. ”To be honest, yeah, that was an unpleasant time for me when 40-Year-Old Virgin didn’t work out.”
His career ”started out with a bang” on Apatow’s TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Though the programs were short-lived, Segel’s comic potential was evident to Apatow and his colleagues.
”We kind of thought I was about to be America’s next great superstar,” Segel jests. ”Then, next thing you know, I didn’t work for five years. It was very, very tough but it drove me to write Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
”Then I started doing my TV show [How I Met Your Mother] and everything really changed in the next few years.”
Indeed they did. Segel has now been on HIMYM for six years, ”couldn’t be more proud of” Despicable Me, is set to appear in Gulliver’s Travels at Christmas, has just wrapped the drama Jeff Who Lives at Home opposite Susan Sarandon, stars in the romantic comedy Bad Teacher with Cameron Diaz and is planning to shoot another comedy with Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller next year, titled Five-Year Engagement. ”So I’m a happy dude,” he chirps.
Furthermore, Get Him to the Greek, which Stoller directed, features Russell Brand reprising rock star Aldous Snow, who Segel created for Sarah Marshall. At the risk of being nosey, does Segel get royalties for that? ”You bet your ass I do,” he says with a distinctly hearty laugh.
He credits much of his success to the work ethic instilled in him by Apatow. There ”absolutely” is an Apatow school of comedy, Segel says. ”He taught us about hard work and about how, if you’re willing to put in the effort and pay your dues and do a ton of writing and a ton of acting, he’ll be there to support you. He’s really the best mentor someone could hope for.”
The man/child theme common to many Apatow comedies is something on which Segel was eager to put his own stamp, first with Sarah and then with I Love You, Man.
”One of the things Judd really taught us is to write from the truth we know,” Segel says.
”It’s such a broad thing to say but I really am interested in exploring the gritty, gritty truth of what’s going on with me … When I get to the point where I have kids, I’ll probably write a movie and explore that.”
Meanwhile, Segel is busy preparing to make a movie for children – the much-anticipated new Muppets film, tentatively (and modestly) titled The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made.
”The Muppets were legitimately my first comic influence,” he says. ”This movie isn’t like retroactive love. Any of my friends will tell you I’ve had Muppet figures and Muppet puppet replicas in my house for 20 years. I just love them and I’ve been making short films with puppets for a long time.”
While preparing the puppet sequence for Sarah, Segel worked with the company of late Muppets creator Jim Henson. He asked to see Kermit and Miss Piggy and was told Disney now owned them.
”Something clicked in my mind. ‘Oh. Got it.”’ Segel says, before pausing. His tone now becomes very serious. ”I felt like the Muppets had changed at some point and I think I know why. So I went to Disney and pitched an idea for a new Muppet movie that was in the spirit of the late-’70s, early-’80s movies and The Muppet Show. Now, three years later, we’re getting ready to start making this movie at the end of the year.”
