Page 50 - Peter Farrelly Issue

Farrelly: I know. When I’m around Woody, I smoke a lot of weed. But he’s not a big drinker. He’s got a bal- ance. Woody smokes weed all day long, but he’s never really—he’s got a balance in his lifestyle. He does yoga, he works out. He’s always working on his brain in one way or another. He’s not just a degenerate weed smoker. He’s the healthy kind.
Cooper: You can’t be at that level. There’s a number of people who are doing very well, in whatever industry they’re in, who smoke regularly.
Farrelly: It’s one of those things. Weed’s a slippery slope, too. When I write a script, after I’m done with it, I could never write a script stoned. But after I’m done with it, I will smoke a joint and read it, and I kind of see things. I think that weed basically just affects your memory. That’s why everything seems cool or different. You see the sunset high, and you’re like, “Oh, my God! It’s incredible.” You don’t remember the thousands of sunsets you’ve seen before. Whatever it is, it’s all better. But when you see a script that you’ve written, when I smoke a joint and read it, I kind of forget things, and I can see it better. But like I said, I could only do it after I’ve written it.
I know some writers who smoke joints all the time and try to write, and I think it dulls your skills a little.
Cooper: I saw recently how you just wrote something and sold it? Rick—what’s the name?
Farrelly: “Ricky Stanicky” is a project I’ve been work- ing on for many years. It’s a big comedy. It was just floating around. People don’t realize—I mean, I’m sure they do realize, that it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, it’s very hard to get any movie made. Even if you’re coming off a big hit, the next one isn’t guaranteed. There’re a million questions. What’s the budget? Who are the people? What’s the thing? It’s just never easy.
No matter who you are–I’m sure there are movies that Tom Hanks couldn’t get made at some point.–There are so many things that go into a movie, and this is one of those that we just couldn’t get made for a long time. And finally, we did. And we’ve got John Cena and Zac Efron and William H. Macy and Andrew Santino and Jermaine Fowler—just a bunch of good people. It’s a big, broad, balls-to-the-wall comedy.
Cooper: The way I read this article, it said that you sold
50 ABILITY