What’s new at the movies
How would you react when faced with a near-death disaster? Downhill marries comedy and drama to explore how life can change in just one moment. Stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell tell Gemma Dunn more
You’d be forgiven for thinking Julia LouisDreyfus and Will Ferrell’s paths had crossed.
Yet amazingly the comedy titans - who have many colleagues in common and have even worked at some of the same places over the years (including stints on Saturday Night Live) - hadn’t even met. Until now.
Righting their wrongs, the duo’s first outing comes in the form of Downhill: a distinctly American remake of Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure.
“We immediately were making each other howl laughing,” LouisDreyfus, 59, recalls of their first meeting. “I felt like we must have known each other in another life. It was totally bizarre, but it was a very happy reality.”
“It’s incredible to have gone on this journey with her; I feel like I’ve known her for 20 years,” agrees Ferrell, 52.
“She’s obviously brilliantly funny, [but] she’s an incredible producer in terms of always having really great questions for our directors and making sure we’re on the right track with our storytelling.
“She was incredible to act with, and at the same time, she could not have been more down to earth and self-deprecating in the best possible way.”
The biting comedy-drama - led by Oscar winning writing-directing duo Nat Faxon and Jim Rash - sees the pair take on Pete and Billie Stanton, a long-married couple who embark on their dream vacation in the Austrian Alps. With somewhat disastrous consequences.
For what was set to be a delightful week of skiing with their two boys soon becomes a series of awkward and emotionally fraught moments, as a near miss with an avalanche leaves them re-evaluating their lives. It’s Pete’s response to the disaster that proves most regrettable, Ferrell teases.
“I like how pathetic Pete is in his own way,” he sympathises. “Yet I think when you watch the movie, you’re also kind of sympathetic to him. He’s made the most egregious error he could make, and he’s so sorry, but he’s just too childish to admit it.”
“There are no good guys or bad guys in this movie,” adds Louis-Dreyfus, who with 11 Emmys to her name is one of the most awarded actresses in American television history.
“Maybe there are good people making bad decisions, but even then, they’re questionable decisions...”
“I hope the audience goes, ‘Oh this should be fun, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell’,” Ferrell reasons. “But then you get to go on this journey, which is even kind of heartbreaking and a real dramedy.”
It’s almost a classic dinner party question: “What would you do if you were faced with this sort of event? How would you react?” the Californian asks.
Skiing on camera was pretty memorable, too, the Anchorman actor quips.
“One day that I’ll never forget when we were almost at the end of the day and our second-unit ski
said, ‘You know what, we’re just going to film you guys skiing all the way down the mountain’,” Ferrell remembers, having been lucky enough to shoot on location. “We were just kind of joyously
at the fact that here we were in the middle of a movie being filmed skiing, which will never happen again, for me, unless I only make ski movies from this point on!
For Louis-Dreyfus, Downhill was also a dream realised - if for other reasons. “I’ve been involved with this project for several years,” she admits, the film having premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
“It was a great opportunity for me, not only as an actress, but also as a producer,” she adds. “I’d never produced anything that was as joyfully arduous as this project.”
Yet it was the premise that hooked her in, explains the New Yorker: “What appealed to me was the idea that a person can be viewing their life through a certain lens, and what happens when that lens is taken off - what’s different? And is, in fact, anything different?”
“It’s a very big crisis, and it’s a big actual event that happens in the film,” muses Louis-Dreyfus. “But the fallout from it is seemingly small at first. And then it, dare I say, snowballs.” Downhill opens in cinemas on Friday
We were just kind of joyously laughing at the fact that here we were in the middle of a movie being filmed skiing, which will never happen again