Jason Sudeikis on 'Fletch' Reboot and His Dramatic Turn in 'Tumbledown'

Jason Sudeikis at last year’s Sundance Film Festival (Getty Images)

Jason Sudeikis has been everywhere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York. The former Saturday Night Live comedian stars in a sketch that runs before every film at the festival, including his wife Olivia Wilde’s movie Meadowland and two of his own movies: Leslye Headland’s rom-com Sleeping With Other People and Tumbledown, a charming romantic dramedy that made its world debut on Saturday.

The movie stars Rebecca Hall as Hannah, the widow of a recently deceased folk musician named Hunter Miles, a Jeff Buckley-type who fell off a mountain near their rural Maine home. Sudeikis, 39, plays Andrew McDonnell, a New York City professor who is obsessed with the late singer’s music and demise and travels up to Maine to coax Hannah into an interview for a book he’s writing. Hannah is still grieving and assumes Andrew is a city slicker looking to exploit her late husband. Soon enough though, they grudgingly begin working together.

The film is mostly sweet and satisfying, but also tackles the appropriation and interpretation of artists’ work by critics who might not really know the intent behind it. Andrew makes a lot of assumptions about Miles — primarily that he committed suicide — but that may just be him projecting his own issues on a target who can’t respond. It makes for a nuanced performance from Sudeikis, who generally plays the part of the funny man. Of course, he’ll be returning to comedy in the upcoming reboot of the beloved ‘80s film series Fletch, taking on a role of an investigative reporter that was made famous by Chevy Chase.

Sudeikis spoke with Yahoo Movies about Tumbledown, life after SNL and his hopes for Fletch earlier this week.

Tumbledown seems to be pushing back against critics’ assumptions and putting words in an artist’s mouth.
But it also speaks toward the erudite, arrogant nature that the character hides behind. He’s not really who he is, and we discover that as the film goes. Certainly it speaks to the assumptions that Hannah makes of him and the assumptions people in the small town make of the city of tall buildings, and the assumptions we make of anyone who chooses to not live here.

You were on SNL for 10 years, and now there is instant reaction to sketches and episodes online. Did that get frustrating when people would misinterpret something?
I never spent too much time with it, because in comedy, you get that all the time. It’s one of the bigger differences with the experience of performing comedy-specific material: You know when something is working or not working. The conventional wisdom is that SNL has been bad since the second episode, so it’s just as much the fabric of it as anything.

You’ve had some big movies since SNL like Horrible Bosses and We’re the Millers. Do you have a larger game plan for your career?
I have no [plan] one way or another.… When I was doing Second City in Las Vegas, someone said, “Would you ever audition for SNL?” And I said “No way.” And I know now, as a grown man, that was like if someone had asked me, “Would you ever want to date Olivia Wilde?” I’d say no, but what I’d really be saying is that there’s no way in hell that she’d want to date me. I don’t want to act like I do, so when it doesn’t happen, I’m not hurt twice. So when you’ve only had your heroes and none of your peers at that point on SNL, you say, “No, I don’t want to work on that show [because] they don’t want me.”

You’re going to do a Fletch reboot soon. You were at the SNL 40th reunion with Chevy Chase — did you speak with him about it at all?
Not about Fletch. We’ve spoken about other things — it’s always good to see him. He’s one of those fellas that raised me like an uncle. And I have great uncles, but he and Tom Hanks and Michael Keaton and numerous other people were guys who made my dad laugh. You always hear that Chris Farley did what he did because John Belushi made his dad laugh, and I think that’s a very common experience.

But to play that part — it is as daunting and potentially rewarding as being a stage actor and hearing, “So they want you to play Hamlet,” or to play Willy Loman. We’re dipping back into the source material of the books. [The Fletch movies were inspired by the Gregory Mcdonald mystery novel series.] To simplify it, it would probably match up more in line with the original Beverly Hills Cop than necessarily the original Fletch — which I love and was raised by and I wanted to be him when I grew up.

It’s a weird thing that it may actually happen, and by saying “may” I’m just being humble toward the process of the way things come and go. I make no assumptions. I don’t talk during no-hitters, so we’ll see what happens. But I understand people’s enthusiasm or concern.

Rebecca Hall and Jason Sudeikis in ‘Tumbledown’ (Tribeca Film Festival)

Like with the new Ghostbusters reboot, it’s funny that people are so concerned and say it could “ruin their childhood.”
The old one still exists! You can still watch that any time you want. I mean, I’m all for the notion that “can’t Hollywood do anything original anymore?” Well, they do all the time, but there’s also an opportunity to reinvestigate these characters that might be more of the time now. An investigative journalist who happens to be a smart ass and has a little bit of an anti-authority streak: Is that not relevant still? And if a ghost took over town, who are we going to call? We need them to have cell phones, which they didn’t have in ‘84. Let’s use our imaginations to “yes and” and support these notions rather than merely be condemning the overall idea that nothing original exists anymore. “Ugh, another C sharp in a song?”

There are many different versions of that specific character. And I’m enthusiastic about the point of view of that character [Fletch] that I see and feel. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. It’s not a paycheck, it’s not a lark, it’s not a masturbatory endeavor to play a childhood hero.

Which would also be fine.
But I wouldn’t put people through that. I would just go do that in a home video with my son and wear a Batman mask and pretend to be the Caped Crusader. This is something I believe has an opportunity to be unique unto itself. And yet at the same time incredibly reverential to the books and film.

Is it going to reference the first two films?
Not many people talk about [1989′s] Fletch Lives. No, it would be a completely different storyline. [The reboot is reportedly going to be based on the novel Fletch Won.] I think the book is actually the sixth or seventh in the line of books that Gregory Mcdonald wrote and it’s actually a prequel in its conceit. Again, once the final draft comes out, any of these elements can change.

Now maybe Fletch will be a blogger.
Well, now there are more mediums and outlets than ever. In the same way there are more outlets to tell the truth, there are just as many more mediums and outlets to disguise it and keep us from getting to it. So it’s as prescient now as it was then.

So other than Chevy Chase, who did you want to speak to that night of SNL’s 40th anniversary?
Eddie Murphy. Flat out. I went to the Tower Heist premiere in hopes of getting to meet him, and I didn’t that night. I enjoyed seeing the movie, but it was swing and a miss there. And then there were rumors that he was going to come back and host [SNL] around the time he was going to host the Oscars, but it was a swing and a miss there. And then sure enough, it was right before Chris Rock introduced him, he was standing in this area [backstage] called Paint Cans, where I had been half-naked many times as a cast member changing from one sketch to another, and I went over and introduced myself. I was so glad that he was back. That’s a top three guy, definitely in my Mount Rushmore of influences. That was definitely who I wanted to be — and probably still do — when I grow up.

Watch the ‘Fletch’ trailer below: