<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" John C. Reilly has the rare freedom to hop between blockbuster comedies like Step Brothers and stark dramas like We Need to Talk About Kevin, which he just wrapped. But his current film, Cyrus (in theaters), defies both genres \u2014 too absurd to be a drama, too uncomfortable really to be a comedy. Reilly plays a film editor stuck in a serious romantic rut until he meets a free-spirited single mother (Marisa Tomei) with a twistedly close relationship with her live-in 21-year-old son, Cyrus (man-baby Jonah Hill). After dropping off his own kids at school, the low-key Reilly sat down to talk over pancakes and a side of thick-ass bacon.  ESQUIRE: I don&amp;#039;t want to give too much away, but the first scene of Cyrus is pretty \u2014  JOHN C. REILLY: Oh, yeah, it&amp;#039;s a shocker. Part of me felt like, man, I don&amp;#039;t want my ass flying around on camera like that. But it&amp;#039;s very effective. It gets your attention. ESQ: I mean, normally you&amp;#039;re at least in your underwear. JCR: Great, now I&amp;#039;m starting to get that reputation? Everyone always asks Will [Ferrell], &amp;quot;So is it like in your contract that you have to be naked or in your underwear?&amp;quot; I remember when we were doing Step Brothers, we had a discussion where we were like, &amp;quot;Now are we both gonna be in our underwear?&amp;quot; Will was like, &amp;quot;I think I&amp;#039;ve done enough underwear for a while. Why don&amp;#039;t you take this one.&amp;quot; ESQ: How did you get involved with the &amp;quot;mumblecore&amp;quot; guys?  JCR: None of those guys use the term mumblecore, by the way. I mean, it&amp;#039;s out there \u2014 that&amp;#039;s what everyone calls it. But I&amp;#039;ve met a bunch of people who are identified with that movement and not a single one of them will identify with the label. I&amp;#039;d met directors Jay and Mark [Duplass] and we decided we wanted to work together, and they wrote Cyrus with me in mind. I mean, everybody says, &amp;quot;I wrote this for you,&amp;quot; but I think they actually did. ESQ: Is that insulting, since your character is sort of pathetic? JCR: Nah, I don&amp;#039;t take that stuff personally. Besides, he ends up being the romantic lead, and not many people are sending those parts my way.  ESQ: The movie is so naturalistic. How much is improvised? JCR: We did the plot of the movie, pretty much, but we improvised our way through each scene. They would say, &amp;quot;Just speak from the character&amp;#039;s point of view,&amp;quot; which is hard the first couple of days. ESQ: I imagine these characters took some time getting a handle on. Both are pretty emotionally stunted. JCR: Yeah, these guys are pretty extreme. But there are some universal elements in the film. A lot of people have parents that are divorced. And when your mom&amp;#039;s dating someone, it&amp;#039;s strange. It&amp;#039;s just weird when some dude comes over to bone your mom.  ESQ: Were you coddled as a kid? JCR: My relationship with my mom was very close, but nothing like Cyrus&amp;#039;s. My mom loved me and was my biggest fan, but I had five brothers and sisters.  [A teenage fan passing by our table shouts to Reilly, &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re a funny guy.&amp;quot;] JCR: I&amp;#039;ve done 50 movies. He&amp;#039;s seen three of them. So I&amp;#039;m a funny guy. ESQ: Does it bother you when people know you for only the broad comedies? JCR: No. Not at all. [Director] Paul Anderson used to get kind of ticked off when Talladega Nights first came out and people were like, &amp;quot;John C. Reilly is funny. What a revelation!&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Didn&amp;#039;t you see fucking Boogie Nights?&amp;quot;  ESQ: Talladega Nights wasn&amp;#039;t your first Nascar movie, right?  JCR: Right. Days of Thunder. It was at the height of the Simpson-Bruckheimer juggernaut days. It was a very Nascar-approved movie. We were building this mythology. I was looking around and seeing this crazy redneck smash-&amp;#039;em-up derby sport, but we were giving it the Greek-god treatment. I mean, Robert Duvall gives a monologue to a car. He&amp;#039;s caressing it, whispering to it. Talladega Nights was the sweetest revenge on that experience. ESQ: What about your miniseries on Cartoon Network&amp;#039;s Adult Swim, Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule? Where&amp;#039;d you come up with the assertive, borderline mentally retarded character you play as the show&amp;#039;s host? JCR: I just showed up with my costume and started channeling that guy. I don&amp;#039;t know where he came from. I find the less I say about Steve Brule the better. I think of him as real, and anytime I start to analyze him, it just gets really boring. ESQ: And it&amp;#039;s entirely improvised? JCR: Yeah. Are you getting the sense I don&amp;#039;t want to talk about Steve Brule? ESQ: Yeah. Why is that? JCR: Some things are just better left mysterious. I&amp;#039;m not really interested in picking it apart. ESQ: Okay. Why is it always John C. Reilly? Why the C? JCR: It&amp;#039;s a union thing. When I first joined SAG, there was another John Reilly. My dad was John Reilly, too, but growing up I was John John. Nobody in life calls me John C. It&amp;#039;s more like, &amp;quot;Hey you, Step Brother!&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a7805/john-c-reilly-quotes-0810/>