Murder Mystery 2 director Jeremy Garelick has revealed information about working with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler on the Netflix mystery-action caper sequel, as well as how new cast member Mark Strong helped them “really shine.”
Following the success of the 2019 original film, the Hollywood heavyweights and buddies, who both served as producers on the film, are back for a second serving of hilarious intrigue as amateur-turned-pro sleuths, Nick and Audrey Spitz.
Garelick is a novice to the series, but it didn’t take long to persuade him to join.
“Do you want to do Murder Mystery 2 with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler?” I was asked. I didn’t really need anything else!’ He explained in an interview with Metro.co.uk.
‘I’ve worked with Jennifer before, I worked with her on a movie called The Break-Up, and I’ve always wanted to work with her again. And I’ve been a fan of Adam Sandler’s for 30 years, so the opportunity to work with Adam – I jumped at it.’
Mélanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Mark Strong join returners John Kani, Dany Boon, and Adeel Akhtar in the sequel’s ensemble cast.
Garelick lauds Strong, 59, who plays former MI6 hostage negotiator Connor Miller, who is brought in as a professional to try and solve the case when Nick and Audrey’s billionaire pal Maharajah Vikram Govindan (Akhtar) is kidnapped in the middle of his wedding celebrations and held hostage for a $50 million (£40.9 million) ransom.
‘Mark is such an incredible actor. He’s so versatile, but also, we really wanted somebody who could bring a gravity to that to that role and to the movie – somebody who could really make the film feel like a strong movie, and Mark was just the perfect actor to do that.
‘Every scene with Mark and Jennifer and Adam, it’s just such a funny dynamic. His timing with them just was so brilliant,’ the writer and producer, who made his directorial debut with 2015’s The Wedding Ringer, added.
Strong, he believes, is the ideal straight guy counterweight to Aniston and Sandler’s sometimes chaotically funny coupling.
Garelick revealed: ‘What’s interesting about when Jennifer and Adam are together is that there really isn’t a straight man there. They’re both kind of the funny one, so when they’re on screen together with a straight man, like Mark Strong, that’s where they really shine.’
So much so that the director often found himself swept up in the moment when shooting.
‘There was for sure lots of improv, but we always got what was on the script and then we would do alts [alternative shots]. They’re brilliant actors who are bringing so much to the role that for me, I would just enjoy watching them often to the point where they would turn to me and be like, “Are you going to call cut?” And I’m like, “I was just kind of enjoying watching you guys!” It’s so fun.’
Murder Mystery was directed by James Vanderbilt, and with Garelick’s fresh perspective on things, he decided he wanted his film to be able to stand on its own.
‘The fact that there had already been a film made, I looked at the second one as an opportunity to create something really from scratch. I wanted this movie to stand alone, so that you don’t necessarily have to watch the first one in order to enjoy this one. I went back and I watched the first one, but when I sat down to write my version of this film, I thought about it [like], “Okay, here’s this couple going on this journey from scratch.”
‘I didn’t want to make references to the previous movie. I didn’t want people to have to depend on the previous movie. Once I wrote that first draft, we were able to bring in a lot more of the references from the first film to honour it, but I believe that you can watch this movie without ever seeing the first one.’
That solves one major question.
Garelick also disclosed that films like The Thin Man (1934) and its sequels, featuring William Powell and Myrna Loy as an investigative duo, and Charade (1963), with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, served as inspiration for arguing wannabe private detectives Nick and Nora.
One of the most critical things for the filmmaker, though, was that they be a “grounded, real couple.”
‘A lot of times I took stuff from my own life, my relationship with my wife [and] how I would react, if I was in this situation, arguing about mundane things like taking Ambien and not being able to sleep.
‘When I started writing this, Nick and Audrey were married 16 years [and] my wife and I were married 16 years.
‘Then I try to put ordinary characters in extraordinary situations and try to figure out what I would do in the situation – in a life for death situation – and I try to keep it all super real, so that the danger feels real.’
Fortunately, Garelick’s wife is unconcerned with his drawing inspiration from their real-life interactions, since he said that in their early days together, he would try to invent disputes with her to utilise in his plays.
‘In the film The Break-Up, Vince Vaughn basically said to me, “I want to do a movie about a break-up but it starts as a couple breaks up” – and I had no idea what that movie was but I, of course, was like, “Yeah, let’s do that. That sounds great!” And I went to New York and I started dating my now-wife, and I would just pick fights with her all day.
‘We’d start fighting and then I’d be like, “That’s great! Hold on one second,” and I’d go in the other room and write down the fight and then I would print it out and bring it to her! She’s used to it.’
Murder Mystery 2 is streaming on Netflix from Friday, March 31.
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