The scene-stealer wants to be more than just a smartass. He wants to be the King of Pop...Culture.
Story by Justin Monroe; Photography by Chris McPherson; Styling by Kelly McCabe
Jonah Hill is a control freak—or at least he’d like to be. Though he’s only 25, the L.A. native and member of Judd Apatow’s comedy crew has been in the game long enough to see through the glitz and tits of Hollywood—and to realize that what really matters is making flicks that he’d actually want to see. After his work in Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, he stepped back from the spotlight and focused on writing and producing so he could achieve the kind of career enjoyed by mentors like Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen. Now, the results of his apprenticeship are in: He’s acting alongside Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen in July’s Funny People, the new Apatow-directed dramedy about stand-up comedians, and receiving producing and writing credits for his work on Cohen’s Brüno, which follows the comic’s flamboyant Austrian fashionista alter ego. Complex traveled to the faraway land of silicone and spray tans to talk with the rising star about what really matters to him and why Hollywood is so damn funny-style.
The Michael Jackson homage was your idea. How old were you the first time that MJ touched you…musically?
Jonah Hill: I’ve been obsessed with Michael Jackson, even the Jackson 5, since I was six or seven. The whole sound, the vibe, everything.
As a celebrity, are you inspired by his ability to avoid prison with his fame, money and power?Jonah Hill: [Laughs.] Hopefully, I’ll never do anything that would put me in a position to go to jail. Is this whole interview gonna be about Michael Jackson?
Uh, no. What was it like to go to Crossroads High School with all the children of celebrities and not be famous or have famous parents?Jonah Hill: A lot of great people I work with and know went to school there; three of my five best friends were in my grade, and my girlfriend was a grade below me. You did see the kids of celebrities get very special treatment, which kind of made you annoyed sometimes.
How has that affected your view of celebrity now that you’re famous?Jonah Hill: It’s funny, because never once in my life was I like, “I want to be famous.” I’d say that’s the absolute worst part of my job. The best part of my job, the reason I’m so lucky and grateful, is that I get to make movies. And now I’m in a position where I get to make movies that I like as opposed to doing any movie that’s thrown my way. To me, that’s the dream—acting in stuff that I wrote, and producing—’cause then, whether I fail or succeed, I fail or succeed on my own terms. If it’s a huge piece of shit, it’s my huge piece of shit as opposed to someone else’s piece of shit with my face on it. [Laughs.]
So the 21 Jump Street movie that you’re developing is gonna be your vision?Jonah Hill: [Sony execs said] they were gonna let me make my kind of movie—an R-rated, insane, Bad-Boys-meets-John Hughes-type movie—and I told them the second they don’t, I’m not gonna be involved anymore.
Seriously though, is that project just an excuse for you to buy a 21 Jump Street box set and watch it at home naked for two weeks?Jonah Hill: Yeah, to go to town on myself. Whacking it four times a day to Holly Robinson Peete. [Laughs.]
And here we had you pegged as a Dustin Nguyen guy. You didn’t have his Tiger Beat posters on your wall?
Jonah Hill: I liked Growing Pains a lot. Someone should make that into a movie and…I’m kidding. No one should make that into a movie.
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