“Cop Out” may be being panned by the critics, but stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan (“30 Rock”) are clearly still happy with the film, as was obvious from their interview with Cinema Blend.
“I’ve done a lot of cop pictures,” Willis notes. “Other actors have too. Kevin (Smith, the director) will come in and tell you its 60% action, it’s a throwback to “Lethal Weapon”, an homage to the action movies of the 80s, but its’ not that.” He also notes, proudly, that “Cop Out” “may be the first film, the first mixed race buddy cop film that made the choice to avoid the whole racial issue. We never played it. Never thought about it, it was never written in the script, it was never done. We just played it like friends.”
Improvisation was the key to making the film funny, the actors believe. “We just rolled the dice,” says Willis. “We improvved in almost every scene, every day. That doesn’t mean the improvs we did on camera are what the film is comprised of. We could always go back and look at the tape. A lot more thought went into it than just flying through it – except for that scene with Seann William Scott in the back of the car. No one could write that.” And that willingness, coupled with the actors’ chemistry, is what makes the film work, Morgan believes. “Had there not been chemistry the very first take, we would be having a different conversation.”
