Adam McKay Has Always Mixed Politics With Satire, Even With Will Ferrell

Despite a resume that includes Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers, writer/director Adam McKay preferred more than a little politics in his satire long before winning the Academy Award for adapting the screenplay for The Big Short.

On the phone with Decider to promote his new film, Vice, the darkly funny portrait of Dick Cheney that’s already the top nomination-getter at the Golden Globes, McKay reflected on his career choices.

Including a 1995 show in the very early days of the Upright Citizens Brigade improv company back in Chicago, where fliers promoted McKay’s planned suicide as part of the show. Not something top of mind when McKay, like his newest film subject, suffered a heart attack this year.

“That’s interesting,” McKay replied, laughing. “Now I think you’re operating on a subconscious level here. Subconscious artistic death wish? Is that a possibility? Well, you know, clearly, clearly interested in it. Clearly a part of some of the work I’ve done. God, I’ll tell you, though. When you get close to it, doesn’t seem as interesting. Maybe I’ll move away from that. But that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought of that.”

McKay’s sketches for The Second City in the 1990s commented on the darkness of the times he saw, however, as even now, he talks about soaring income inequality and a lack of resources for the mentally ill. “Stuff started to get weird,” he said. “It was very apparent. And yet there was also a part of our culture that was having a blast off the ’70s and ’80s that hadn’t quite caught up with the changes that were coming. I love to laugh. And when you can combine some really legitimately funny stuff with stuff that’s also got a little bite to it, about the world around you, then you’ve got the best of the best.”

DECIDER: Can you tell us about how your focus shifted after Step Brothers into more politically aware comedies starting with The Other Guys?

ADAM MCKAY: “First and foremost, I love movies. But I’ve always loved all different kinds of movies. So, it was like we were let out of the playpen for Anchorman and Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Will and I had been dying to do that kind of sense of humor in movies, and we finally had a chance. Right away, one of the fun things was getting to play with the visual style on each one. Like, Anchorman kind of had its own look. Talladega Nights, we got to shoot actual legitimate racing scenes. So that’s, I just started falling in love with these kinds of movies, and how you could make them look.

So the idea for The Other Guys. You shoot it like a real movie. You shoot it like The French Connection. We shot on film. No movie’s as good as The French Connection, but the idea is you shoot it as real as you can, and then you have some of our absurd comedy in there, what would happen if you blended those two. And then you had satire and social commentary in there. With each movie you get to try new stuff. It’s fun and cool, and there’s so many talented DPs and production designers and directions you can go.

I suppose winning the Oscar for The Big Short really helped sell you on the idea of continuing with alternative narrators as you did using Naomi Watts and Jesse Plemons in Vice?

Definitely. It gave us room to do more of that, that’s for sure. I knew that when I was writing the Vice script, I didn’t have to handcuff myself. If there was an instinct, I could go with it. That was exciting. Charles Randolph, who I co-wrote The Big Short with, he was the one who told me, ‘You shouldn’t stop using this kind of form you’re playing with. It’s got more life to it.’ He was one of the reasons actually that I went back to it. Yeah. You know he’s right! There is more meat on that bone.

How would you compare your current ensemble of leads (Christian Bale, Steve Carell) to your previous pair of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly?

Well, they’re all pretty damn good. I think the only thing I think do with Ferrell, there is this style to what we do that’s this hyper-American style that we always do. It’s always riffing on American culture, American men, and it’s slightly pushed. It’s always 10 percent more real than real.

I think what we’re doing with this group, who are all very funny as well, is nothing’s pushed. Nothing’s ever pushed. Everything is played 100 percent real. But you can obviously still get great comedic moments out of that.

Do you see a narrative through-line of what’s interesting to you and where your passions lie?

Yeah! Yeah! Like definitely, Succession is a show I’m very very involved in, very into, which definitely fits into what I’m interested in, as the world becomes more and more an oligarchy, and you see this crazy dynastic wealth, that is exactly the kind of thing I want to be making.

The idea of doing fun, kind of cool documentary-style stuff about these subjects that, once again, most people would consider boring but are actually incredibly cool, so yeah, there does seem to be a through-line. Drunk History definitely fits into that, too, even though that wasn’t my idea. That’s Derek Waters’ idea.

How has your opinion changed since Trump on the power of satire?

We’re definitely in this recalibrating phase with comedy right now. It’s very hard right now to react to this madness. The example I always give is when Trump was standing in the forest talking about how we have to rake the forests. It might be the single craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And it’s really funny. It’s so far beyond Being There. They wouldn’t have written that dialogue in Being There. And yet it’s really the president. And yet, global warming is real, so it’s also horrifying and really upsetting as well. I think in the comedy world, we’re trying to figure it out.

What we’re trying to do is just jump into the void a little bit, and say, we don’t know exactly where this is all going to go, but let’s try some stuff. I thought Succession was a really good attempt at that. Where it’s got a dark comedy to it, and I think did a great job of portraying how gross and extreme wealth can be. Yet it’s funny. Yet the characters are awful. Yet they’re vulnerable in a weird way. Black Mirror is another one getting in to that realm. The Death of Stalin did a little bit of that. We’ll see. It’s interesting, man. Comedy always has a place, but the world right now is moving so fast, and in such crazy unpredictable ways, I think comedy’s confused.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First. You can hear all of my conversation with McKay on the podcast!