In theaters on June 19, Year One is a comedy starring Jack Black and Arrested Development's Michael Cera as two hunter-gatherers who find themselves on an epic journey. You may recognize the names of some of the people they encounter along the way: they're all characters from the Bible's Book of Genesis. (Watch for David Cross and Paul Rudd as Cain and Abel.) Produced by Judd Apatow, Year One is written and directed by Harold Ramis, most famous to those of us in the Hulu office for playing Egon Spengler in Ghost Busters and Russell Ziskey in Stripes. Hulu recently spoke to Ramis about Year One, and those Ghost Busters III rumors, too. See what he has to say below. — Rebecca Harper, Hulu.comHulu: You were just on Jimmy Fallon, weren't you?
Harold Ramis: I was, I was very briefly I'd say. It was weird. He's a huge fan, but he spent more time with some animals than with me or Mary J. Blige. I don't go on national television that often, so it's always weird for me. It feels very strained, and time is so compressed. You know, there's something frantic about it that I don't love.And now for Year One. I read that, sort of like Monty Python and Life of Brian, you were inspired by the Bible and wanted add a bit of comedy to the Old Testament.
To some extent. The Old Testament's long. I just took some of the first few stories. I didn't want to have to read the whole thing. [Laughs]So you focused on the Book of Genesis. How do the stars, Jack Black and Michael Cera, fit into this story?
Someone said it was like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Genesis. They aren't the characters in the Bible; they're characters that intersect with real characters from the Old Testament. I was thinking about the Garden of Eden story and Adam and Eve, and I thought "Well, what do [Zed and Oh] really represent in real terms of the evolution of civilization?" I thought they represent hunter-gatherers living in a state of nature, where everything is kind of provided by nature. Then someone makes the mistake of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which I interpret as awakening to existential consciousness. It all sounds pretty heady for the comedy, but basically it's about the fact that, when we're children, we're innocent. And then we decide to break a rule and suddenly we're responsible. Once you're responsible, the world is no longer perfect, and you're kicked out of the Garden of Eden. That's how our story begins. Once they're kicked out of the garden, the very next people you meet in the Bible are Cain and Abel. The second story in the Bible is about murder.How about the casting? You worked with Jack Black in the past, but why him? And why Michael Cera?
Well, I got to watch Jack as an actor when we both performed in the movie Orange County. It was so good watching him work; he's such a great guy. And I'd loved him prior to that, in High Fidelity. I just really like his style. I thought he was so sharp and bright and funny and physical. He reminded me of John Belushi, even though he never probably ever thought of copying anything Belushi did. But he physically reminded me of him to some extent. He has John's lightness, he has this really mobile rubber face. And smart and healthy! So I thought all right, this is a really good guy. I put it on hold for a while and did some other stuff, and when it came time to cast Year One I thought Jack would be so funny in this part. He plays these kind of lazy rascals really well, and that's exactly what the character is. And then [Year One producer] Judd Apatow suggested Michael Cera, who I'd not seen except for his work in the ensemble cast of Arrested Development. So Judd said, "No, you've got to see him in Superbad. The movie wasn't out yet, so we went to the editing room and the director let me watch some scenes from the film. Michael was great, just really great. We put them together for a table reading for the studio and it was hysterical. Everybody loved it immediately and there was no doubt that they were the team.I think Michael's a great straight man to Jack's "lazy rascal."
Yeah, but Michael gets laughs. He's so subtle and sweet and endearing.While you were watching Superbad, you also found someone else...
Chris Mintz-Plasse. Love him. I have to say, when I think of Isaac, he doesn't immediately come to mind. What brought that on?
In the story of the sacrifice, I think Isaac is probably like 8 years old when Abraham is about to sacrifice him. I just thought, you know, what if Isaac was kind of a whiny, kind of annoying teenager? A lot of parents might want to sacrifice their kids if they act like Chris acts in the movie. In fact, Jack later says "I can see why the kid's dad wanted to kill him. He's kind of an obnoxious kid." So I thought Chris can pretend to be — he's not really an annoying person at all, he's really a nice kid — he can play annoying really well.Now the film has two screenplay writers for Year One: Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, who write for The Office. You've known them since the beginning of their careers. How did you meet them?
Gene came to us as an intern. He graduated from the University of Iowa and always loved my work, and he knew I work in the Chicago suburbs, where I live. He knew where my office is; I don't hide it in my neighborhood. He came and said "I want to be an intern." We engaged him — I can't say we paid him. [Laughs] He's a great guy and so eager to help and smart. Then he actually did odd jobs for me and friends of ours. He called himself "the manny," he was like a male nanny. He kind of took care of our older kids. No diapering involved, it was almost like being a camp counselor. In the meantime, we had met Lee Eisenberg when he waited on us at a restaurant on Martha's Vineyard. He was bright and funny and engaging, and had just graduated from film school. I was going on, at the end of that summer, I was doing the film Bedazzled. Lee moved out to L.A., showed up at our offices at 20th Century Fox, and got on as a production assistant in the office there. In the meantime, Gene had come out to L.A. working on other projects of mine. They met and started writing spec scripts together. It was like they were kind of like protégées. I'm really happy whenever anyone can build a career under our auspices, working for us. I think they've succeeded beyond anyone who'd worked for us, in a creative sense, once they got hired to The Office. It's like everything really took off for them.From what I've heard, Year One has a lot animals in it. Did the resulting barnyard lead to any interesting stories?
With all the farm animals, you can imagine. You know, oxen, sheep, goats and cattle. Even a zebu, an exotic Asian ox. And we had camels. But then we had gibbon monkeys. We had predators: we had a cougar and a lion and a tiger. We had a hawk. We had all kinds of things going on. But you know, working with animals is always a problem. We had a cougar who was afraid to climb a tree. We had oxen that were actually too lazy to pull a wagon. It was one problem after another. When they were available on Hulu last summer, Ghost Busters I and II were probably among our most popular films. You're kind of a hero around here. Now is there a Ghost Busters III in the works?
Well there's a possibility of a Ghost Busters III. Gene and Lee are working on the script. I wrote a story with them. Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd are consulting on it; Bill Murray has agreed to be in it if the script works. So you know, we're all just waiting to see if we get a great script. No one wants to do it just to do it. It will take great execution to get everyone involved again. But then there'd be new Ghost Busters, also. We would all act in it as the old guys, but then some new guys would come in.Do you guys have anyone in mind at this point?
There are so many good people who could do it, it's crazy to speculate at this point. There have already been rumors. You know, there was a rumor that Judd [Apatow] was going to direct it, and you know, no one had ever, ever talked to Judd about it. Seth Rogan was interviewed and said that someone heard he was committed to the new Ghost Busters, and Seth kind of torpedoed that rumor. There's no one committed right now beyond the original Ghost Busters and Ivan Reitman, and even we're not that committed. We have no obligations. It's just an opportunity. Going back to Year One, I heard you were interested in doing it as something a family would enjoy…
Not little kids. But yeah, it's a way for people to talk about their religious beliefs. I don't think Fundamentalists or Orthodox people are going to see this film at all. They're not coming; some of them aren't even able to go to the movies. I think anyone who has kind of a modern religious sensibility may enjoy the film.Aside from the humor, do you think any parts of the film are going to raise some controversy?
I tease certain ideas in Judaism, but I'm Jewish. I'm allowed to. [Laughs.] But I even ran those ideas past the Defamation League. I showed the scenes to the young leadership of the ADL in Chicago and they thought they were hysterically funny. I consulted with important rabbis. It's not a renegade... Orthodox Jews, they won't be concerned with it. Most modern Jews will think it's funny.