In the new movie Why Him?, James Franco plays Laird Mayhew, an Internet gazillionaire who tries to win over his girlfriend’s parents by doing and saying things that no reasonable human being would ever do or say. (We’ll avoid spoilers here, but just know that this movie has a well-earned R rating.)
This comedy is a unique spin on the classic boy-meets-girl, boy-meets-girl’s parents-and-all-hell-breaks-loose structure, but it really grabbed our attention for its portrayal of that new breed of young entrepreneur who has crazy money in their pockets and crazier ideas in their heads.
Entrepreneur spoke by phone with the film’s director John Hamburg (who wrote Meet the Parents, Zoolander and I Love You, Man, to name a few modern comedy classics) and discussed technology, working with Elon Musk and, of course, the haunting beauty of humping animals.
The main character Laird is “eccentric” to put it mildly. Was he based on anyone in particular?
No, he wasn’t based on one specific person. It was more reading stories and watching YouTube clips of a lot of people who have achieved massive success in the digital realm at a very young age. You hear these stories like Sean Parker’s wedding where I think they turned the place into a medieval forest or something. When you have more money than you could ever spend in many lifetimes, you do some crazy stuff. But we weren’t passing judgment on people who are young and super successful for inventing things. It was more like, these people exist and they’re running the world — let’s explore that!
Real-life tech billionaire Elon Musk makes a cameo. Did he teleport to the set or was there anything particularly Musk-ian about his day?
He was scheduled to shoot on one day, and he had to cancel because apparently one of his rockets didn’t launch properly. So when he did come to set, I said, “Elon, this is definitely the first time in the history of my career that I’ve had an actor canceled because of a failed rocket launch!” I must admit I was a little nervous for Elon’s day. I’m a big fan, I think he is one of the great geniuses of our time, one of the great innovators. But he was so nice, really low-key. His main thing was that he was happy to do a cameo, but he didn’t want to come off like he was this big shot. He did roll in a Tesla, which of course I’d expect. If I saw him rolling up in a Kia, I would have been a little shocked.
Among the things in Laird’s high-tech home is a smart-ass version of an Amazon Echo that is voiced by Kaley Cuoco. Do you have lots of gadgets in your house?
I’m not really tech guy. I don’t think I’d be able to work one of those things. I would have a hard time ordering a new toothbrush or whatever with that thing. I was scared to buy a Roomba to replace my vacuum cleaner. But if I could have an Echo voiced by Kaley Cuoco? Sure, I might invest in the technology.
When you were filming this, where were we in terms of the presidential election?
Really last spring, so things weren’t really as heated up as they became.
