On Nov. 1 2013, Rooster was asked to participate in a conference call interview with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd to promote Anchorman 2. About 150 colleges participated in the call and only 14 schools were called upon to ask a question. We were one of the 14. These are the events that followed.
– By Isabelle Kohn, aka Dear Ibby
On Nov. 1 2013, Rooster was asked to participate in a conference call interview with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd to promote Anchorman 2. About 150 colleges participated in the call and only 14 schools were called upon to ask a question. We were one of the 14. These are the events that followed.
By Isabelle Kohn, aka Dear Ibby
October 20th, 11:21 a.m.
I am sitting at my desk, writing about juggaloes. I glance up, and see my editor walk out of his office. He is walking towards me. I quickly close a web browser window I have open on the original Space Jam website (copyright 1996), to make it look like I'm actually a valuable employee. He sits down.
"There's something I'd like you to work on," he says.
"I'm listening."
"We've been invited to participate in the Anchorman 2 press tour. I want you to interview Steve Carell and Paul Rudd over the phone tomorrow."
I stare in awe. This man has just uttered 20-ish words that are about to change my life. I don't need to tell you that interviewing Steve Carell and Paul Rudd would catapult my writing career into hyper-space.
"And you want me to do it?" I just want to hear him say it again.
"Yep. Think of some questions to ask them, and send them over by tomorrow." He stands up and walks away, leaving me in the wake boundless opportunity. I start right away.
At this point, please press 'play' on the following song to enhance your reading experience.
October 20th, 8:35 p.m.
I'm in my room, alone. I've canceled my meetings for the day, ruined dinner plans with my boyfriend, opted not to attend a concert I already bought tickets for, and forgotten that I've had to pee for like, eight hours. I'm hunched over my computer, on my sixth straight hour of feverishly researching everything that there is to know about Steve Carell and Paul Rudd so I can ask the best questions they've ever been asked. Are they married? What movies have they been in? Are they funny in real life? Have they been in anything with Zach Galafanakis that I can make fun of them for? Do they mess around with reporters in interviews, or play it straight? What questions have they never been asked that I can ask them so they'll remember me for the rest of their lives? I'm going for originality. I'm going for "unique." I am not going to ask them some lame questions they've been asked before. I am going to surprise them with my thoughtful, humorous questions which simultaneously allow them to show their true personalities and open the door for them to say things they want to say, not have to.
October 21st, 2:30 a.m.
"Go to bed," my boyfriend says. But I hardly hear him. I'm going the distance.
October 21st, 4:10 a.m.
The list of questions is complete. I laugh manically. I am an interview-question genius. Before me sits 50 perfectly crafted questions that I will ask Steve Carell and Paul Rudd tomorrow morning, my favorite being one I created especially for Paul: "How will your role as Brian Fantana differ from your previous role as Celery Man?" Look it up. They're clearly questions that really matter.
October 21st, 7:03 a.m.
My alarm goes off. I spring out of bed like my house is on fire and I have a family to save. I have to drive from Denver to Boulder, in rush hour, to be at my office by 9:00 a.m. for the interview. I can hardly wait.
October 21st, 9:00 a.m.
I strut into the office, nervous but confident because I've researched everything there is about these men, and I think I might know them better than they know themselves. Totally not creepy. I walk into my editor's office to announce that I'm ready when-
"Oh," he says. "It's not happening today."
"…Wait, w-w-what?" I stammer. I'm already pale, but I become more so as the blood leaves my skin and pulses into my heart because I'm having a flight-or-fight reaction to this.
"Yeah, it's happening on November 1st. And we get to ask them one question."
"One question? No, you don't understand. I have fifty questions." Not to mention I spent 14 straight hours researching these people, hardly slept, and ditched a concert I paid to go to.
"Sorry," says my editor, who is no doubt looking at boobs on Google image during our conversation. I am not mad, just disappointed.
We spend the next 10 days thinking of one, perfect question to ask Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. We spend hours poring over various options, because it's a shit load harder to think of one great question than it is to think of fifty mediocre ones. We settle tentatively settle on "You guys have been on a lot of the same projects. What are some pros and cons to working together?" It's a good, solid question that we legitimately want to know the answer to, and we're sick of thinking about it so that's what we go with. That couldn't be further from what happened.
November 1st, 10:01 a.m.
I walk into the office, well-rested, and go to talk to my editor about the protocol for the interview. It's a conference call interview over the phone, and it's specifically for college publications (which we are not). Here's how that works: a bunch of colleges call in to one line. Steve Carell and Paul Rudd get on that line. A moderator calls on each school to ask their one question at random. We get a transcript of the conversation at the end. Everyone gets on with their lives. Easy enough, right?
Wrong. I get on the line, and there are representatives from 200 colleges on it. I can hear them all. Two-hundred people across the country are coughing, sneezing, and giggling into the phone, trying their hardest to be silent because the moderator warned that everyone on the line can hear you, but clearly not everyone heard that. The moderator tells us that Steve Carell and Paul Rudd are on their way and will be there shortly. She also chooses this time to let us know that the interview will only be 30 minutes long, so not everyone will be able to ask a question. There's a 1 in 200 chance that we'll even be able to ask the question we've slaved over creating for the last week and a half. This whole thing could be pointless. We all think about that and get really nervous as we wait for the two superstars to show up.
Five minutes goes by. They're late. The moderator tells us they're running a little behind. It's cool, they're celebrities. Ten minutes passes. Not as cool. People start to get antsy. If the interview is only 30 minutes long, and 10 minutes are gone, does that mean it's only a 20 minute interview? It does.
Fifteen minutes into waiting for Steve and Paul, Steve and Paul's voices crackle onto the line, and a collective sigh of relief passes through each of us. "Hello!" They say. "Hello!" say 200 people right back.
The moderator begins to call schools at random to ask their question. I am so nervous I won't be called to ask mine. If they don't call me, all that career hyper-space shit I was talking about earlier is dead in the water. I'll just be another writer writing about how semen cures depression. My heart rate increases as adrenaline starts to seep into my organs. What if this was all for nothing?
"Auburn University" says the moderator.
"How will Anchorman 2 differ from Anchorman 1 thematically?" says Auburn. I can't believe these questions. Don't these people realize Steve Carell and Paul Rudd have answered that question a thousand times? Don't they realize that their questions are stupid?
"University of Arizona" says the moderator.
I can hardly sit still.
"Connecticut University."
I think I'm going to throw up.
"University of Colorado." …University of Colorado? Is that me? It is me- OH MY GOD IT'S HAPPENING. They've called me. I am one of the 14 people they randomly chose, out of 200 people to ask a question. This is the climax of my life. I am peaking. I am Kate Winslet and Leonard DiCaprio in Titantic doing that arm pose thing on the front of the boat. My mind goes blank.
"University of Colorado?" says the moderator, because I haven't said anything. And in the microsecond between my mouth muscles moving to open my lips so a sound will come, and my brain sending signals to my tongue to form words, something comes out of me that I never, ever thought I would say.
Rooster: Say I'm lying on a table naked, covered in sushi. Where do you start eating first and why?
[I have just asked Steve Carell and Paul Rudd the weirdest question of all time. I cannot believe what just came out of my mouth. There's a brief pause, and then…]
Steve Carell: Boxer briefs.
Rooster: Why?
Steve Carell: Oh no because – no.
Paul Rudd: What was the – wait, repeat the question. And after you repeat it, I'm going to ask you to repeat it again.
Rooster: OK, are you ready for this?
Paul Rudd: I'm ready. Hold on, wait. I've got my pen. OK.
Rooster: OK, take note. So say I'm lying on a table naked, covered in sushi. Where do you start eating first and why
Steve Carell: Well, I can – I'll take a crack at this.
Paul Rudd: OK.
Steve Carell: The place I would start eating first is McDonald's because I don't – I don't eat sushi. Unless you have some tempura like laying on your foot, I might…
Rooster: Hey, we can get whatever you need.
Paul Rudd: And honest to god, I am not kidding here. The reason I asked you to repeat the question is because the first time I heard it, and I don't know whether or not it was the connection with this phone, I thought you said covered in feces. I don’t know what to say.
Moderator: Next question. Bowling Green?
And that, kids, is the story of how I ensured that Rooster will never speak to Steve Carell and Paul Rudd again. So if you're up late at night, wondering why this site isn't filled with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd interviews, and photos of us all laughing over a plate of sliders that are flanked by empty martini glasses, that's why. You can blame me for the absence of Steve Carell and Paul Rudd in your life. I'm happy to accept that responsibility, but I'm even happier to have wasted Rooster and I's one big opportunity to interview a celebrity on that sushi question, because when I told my senile aunt the story, she laughed, and that's what matters. The end.
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