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Murder Mystery 2 director on Mark Strong being ideal ‘straight man’ foil to Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler-Tori Brazier-Entertainment – Metro
Jeremy Garelick would often enjoy their dynamic together so much when filming that he would forget to call cut.
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Murder Mystery 2 director Jeremy Garelick has spilled the details about working with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler on the Netflix mystery-action caper sequel, and how new cast member Mark Strong helped them ‘really shine’.
The Hollywood heavyweights and pals, who both acted as producers on the flick, are back for a second helping of comedic intrigue as amateur-turned-pro sleuths, Nick and Audrey Spitz, following the success of the 2019 original flick.
Garelick is a newcomer to the franchise, but it didn’t take much to convince him to come onboard.
‘I got a call to say, “Do you want to do Murder Mystery 2 with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler?” I didn’t really need much beyond that!’ he explained, speaking exclusively to 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.’
The sequel sees a refresh of some of the ensemble cast, with Mélanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith and Mark Strong joining returners John Kani, Dany Boon and Adeel Akhtar.
Aniston and Sandler reunite for the sequel and their third movie together, following Just Go with It in 2011 (Picture: Scott Yamano/Netflix)
Garelick is full of praise for Kingsman and Cruella star Strong, 59, who portrays former MI6 hostage negotiator Connor Miller, 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 to a $50million (£40.9m) 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.
He sees Strong’s particular talent as being the ideal straight man foil to Aniston and Sandler’s often chaotically amusing couple.
Mark Strong makes a splash (in more ways that one) as former hostage negotiator Miller (Picture: Scott Yamano/Netflix)
Audrey and Nick Spitz are trying to make a go of it as a professional detectives with their own agency (Picture: Scott Yamano/Netflix)
Strong’s gravity was a real selling point for Garelick, who loved the dynamic he had onscreen with the more kooky Aniston and Sandler (Picture: David M. Benett/Getty Images for 101 Studios)
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.’
Writer and producer James Vanderbilt helmed Murder Mystery, and with Garelick a fresh pair of eyes on everything he decided he wanted his movie to be able to stand up on its own.
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‘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.’
So that answers one big question.
Garelick also revealed that his inspiration for bickering wannabe private detectives Nick and Nora included films like The Thin Man from 1934 and its sequels, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as an investigating couple, and 1963’s Charade with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.
One of Nick and Audrey’s inspirations was sleuthing couple Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man films (Picture: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images)
Another cited by Garelick for the sequel was Charade, which is also based largely in Paris (Picture: Universal/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock)
However, one of the most important details for the director 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.’
Luckily Garelick’s wife is pretty relaxed over him mining their real life together for inspiration too, as he shared that he would try and manufacture arguments with her in their early days together to use in his scripts.
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‘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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