Hart, Cranston find an Upside to unlikely pairing
Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston form unusual friendship in The Upside
Kevin Hart is hoping to change the conversation in 2019.
After a recent uproar over past homophobic tweets that led to him exiting as Academy Awards host, the 39-year-old comic is now co-starring alongside Bryan Cranston in the feel-good dramedy The Upside.
Based on the 2011 French-language hit The Intouchables that stars François Cluzet and Omar Sy, the heartwarming film finds Hart playing a parolee who strikes up an unusual friendship with a paralyzed billionaire (Cranston) after he is hired to be his caregiver.
Their characters are at the end of their ropes, but their bond gives them a new outlook on life.
Q What helps these characters connect?
Cranston The thing about these two characters is that they’re both damaged to a point where they don’t know what the solution is. But the other character, unbeknownst to them, offers a way out of their current condition. It gives them both the hope of the possibility of a brighter future.
Q The 2011 original was a hit worldwide. Why do you think audiences around the world connected with the story of Philippe and Driss?
Hart I’m going to let Bryan take this answer because you need to hear how amazing Bryan is.
Cranston This was a great story in its original form 10 years ago or so. The way that these two men could become friends is beautifully scripted because it’s not natural.
Men don’t seek out to be friends with other men; it just happens. You’re in the same circle and you have things in common and maybe you get together. You kind of have to read between the lines when friends gather to see if it will happen. You prod a little bit, but not too much. A man has to have his own time to come out of his cave and be able to say, ‘I’ve got something on my mind.’ Women are much more in tune with one another and they can openly talk about their emotions.
So this film catches you by surprise.
Two very different men, who meet under these unusual circumstances, strictly by accident and there’s something about them that oddly attracts the other and vice versa. They kind of tiptoe around each other and they’re not quite sure and then they fall into that position of becoming friends and it’s quite by accident.
Q You both have great chemistry in this movie. How did you guys establish the easy rapport you have onscreen?
Hart There’s no systematic approach to bonding. You either hit it off or don’t. You either click with an individual or you don’t. And when you do click, like we did, it’s effortless. In this particular case, Bryan and I talked beforehand and I think we both saw that there was an eagerness to take this project on. I think he saw how serious I was about this and when we got to the set, and we started doing rehearsals, we met each other’s expectations and then some. We were in this for the same reason and that was: to make a good movie.
Q Were you looking to do something a bit more dramatic?
Hart I think it was definitely time for me to look at some more serious material. I have a lot of movies under my belt and I’ve had some box office success. But you want to make sure that you’re always challenging yourself. It doesn’t mean you go crazy with the challenge, but it’s good to take a step in a direction that’s a little out of the norm. This was a project that wasn’t necessarily what I was used to doing, but that’s what attracted me to it. And when you’re in the company of people like Bryan and Nicole (Kidman), that’s amazing company to be in. So I jumped at that opportunity.
Q The guys you play in this movie — Phillip and Dell — give each other a second chance at life. Who’s the person who gave you the first chance in your career?
Cranston Well, the thing is, everyone needs a champion. You get that from your family members or your wife, but everyone needs that. And along with that, you need someone who’s going to hold the door open for you. Hopefully now, with Kevin and I in these positions, we will in turn do that for the next generation of actors. We’ll say, ‘C’mon in.’ For me, there were people like Linwood Boomer, who gave me a shot in (the TV series) Malcolm in the Middle. I was told afterward that Fox was considering replacing me in that role. I had four or five lines in the pilot and the dad role was something they didn’t really know what they wanted to do with it. But Linwood Boomer said, ‘No, I’m not replacing him.’ And you need that. You need someone to step up and fall on the sword for you. But when that happens, you need to be a champion to them as well and prove that they made the right decision in sticking with you and giving you a shot. It’s all about getting the opportunity and then creating more opportunities for the younger generation, and that includes you, Kevin.
Hart Yes, I’m definitely part of the younger generation. (laughs)
Q So who gave you your first big chance?
Hart For me, it came from Roca-fella producer Damon Dash and it was a movie called Paper Soldiers. He saw me perform at Carolines on Broadway and they were putting together that movie and he gave me a part. I’d also say Jessy Terrero, who put me in a movie called Soul Plane. Now both of these movies were bootlegged heavily, but these were opportunities that I will never forget because they helped me be able to book standup shows on a headlining level, which led to more roles.
Q There have been some rumblings about a Breaking Bad sequel movie. What did you think when you heard about that? Cranston I said, ‘What? Really?’ That’s what I’m still saying.
Q So you don’t have an idea of how they’re going to resurrect Walter White?
Cranston I have no idea. I haven’t read a script or seen a script. So I’m just as curious about a sequel as everyone else.
They’re both damaged to a point where they don’t know what the solution is.
Back in 2011, France released The Intouchables, a buddy comedy in which a rich white quadriplegic hires an unqualified black ex-con as a live-in caregiver, and subsequently learns to loosen up, smoke weed and live a little.
It was adored by audiences and fretted over by critics. Sample think-piece headline: “The Intouchables — Racist Or Cheesy?” So why not have The Weinstein Company remake it in English, set it in the racially charged present-day U.S. and release it in 2019?
This just after the Golden Globe went to the “is-it-racist?” Green Book, while Black Panther and Blackkklansman came home empty-handed, and If Beale Street Could Talk was beat out by Bohemian Rhapsody? I mean, what could go wrong? Turns out, quite a bit, in director Neil Burger’s adaptation, which closely follows the beats of the original.
The biggest addition, aside from a bloated, two-hour-plus running time, is an ex-wife and son for the character of Dell, played with relative restraint by Kevin Hart.
Oh, and Dell steals a book and spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to give it back.
For this they needed a new screenwriter?
Bryan Cranston takes up the role of Phillip, who was paralyzed in a paragliding accident and subsequently lost his wife to cancer.
It is suggested, with far less subtlety than in the original, that he hires Dell because he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. An early scene has him explaining his do-not-resuscitate order to his new caregiver.
A similar obviousness goes into crafting the characters of Dell and Phillip. One likes opera; the other Aretha.
One can quote Yeats; the other falsely claims to know who that is.
One considers himself a ladies’ man, in the #Pretoo sense of the word; the other fears intimacy. No points for guessing who’s who here.
For all its racially charged setup, The Upside doesn’t completely crash and burn, mostly thanks to Cranston’s and Hart’s efforts to dance around the worst of their characters’ clichés. Phillip’s world includes thinly sketched employees played by Nicole Kidman (as his executive assistant), Suzanne Savoy (the cook) and Julianna Margulies (physical therapist), while Dell spars with ex-wife Latrice (Aja Naomi King).
There’s also Tate Donovan, wasted in the role of Phillip’s grumpy downstairs neighbour.
There’s a real Phillip — Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, the son of a French Duke who hired Algerian ex-con Abdel Sellou back in the ’90s.
The two remain friends to this day.
So The Upside is based on a true story but also based on a previous movie, which involves quite a drift from the original truth.
A 2003 hour-long doc, À la vie, à la mort, tells their tale, but I’d recommend The Intouchables. Sure, you’ve got to track it down and it’s got subtitles, but that’s just the kind of message The Upside is clumsily peddling: Vive la différence!