Interview: Harold and Kumar’s Enigmatic Superfreak Neil Patrick Harris

Watch the cast and crew of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay talk about the film at SXSW.

Neil Patrick Harris was mostly known for playing the teenage wunderkind with a heart of gold named Doogie Howser, M.D. [watch full episodes of Doogie] until Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg wrote an insanely oversexed, overdrugged version of Neil Patrick Harris himself into their script for the stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle [watch the trailer if you missed it]. Now that Hurwitz and Schlossberg are in the director’s chairs for the sequel due out this weekend, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay [watch the trailer], they took the chance to bring him back in the same context, as the completely out-of-control maniac he was before, with a creepier craze to him this time around. This NPH isn’t likely to realize that stealing someone’s car is a “dick move” on his part.

The real NPH, a much nicer fellow, told us how he credits this role with revitalizing his career, as well as sharing his initial concerns when he was first approached with the idea.

What do you like about playing this character?

NPH: It’s intriguing because my real life is relatively tame, so it’s nice to be playing a cameo that far exceeds my own personal expectations about my actual life. So I think it’s hilarious that Jon and Hayden have this whole weird back story of what went on, what got me high on ecstasy and thrown out of a car in the first movie and why I have a jar of hair in the second. They know these answers. I don’t. I just go along for the ride.

How much did it help your career?

NPH: It ramped me on to a darker, edgier list of actors, or parts I can play. I don’t think How I Met Your Mother [watch full episodes] would have come about without the first film. It’s been great. You want to keep acting and stay out of any kind of box that people want to put you in. That’s your job as an actor, your goal, is to try and play all kinds of different parts. I had a really interesting ramp of fame and notoriety at a younger age, which was a sort of Middle-American, square good guy part. So I wanted to break that, but how do you break that without finding some casting director or producer who is willing to have you do interesting roles. For a while I did the evil kid in TV-movies and things, but that’s certainly not at this level. I think the passage of time helps, and then when some people like Jon and Hayden come along and think that I’m cool enough to maybe do this movie that they write, and I’m gung-ho enough to play it that it’s a good match and it opens the world up for other kinds of roles like this. They’re the best roles to play, no doubt.

Were you flattered at first?

NPH: Flattered and a bit reserved. I didn’t want to be agreeing to a movie and find out that in turn I was making fun of myself, being the butt of the joke. I didn’t want to be Carmen Electra in those comedy movies that they do [watch Carmen in a clip from Epic Movie]. No disrespect to Carmen Electra, but I think part of that is them making fun of her. I didn’t want that, and I didn’t want to disrespect my previous roles. I didn’t want to sign on and have them rewrite the script and rewrite it again and I’m the butt of these jokes. I was concerned that their intentions were square and I wasn’t getting punked. They were, and I wasn’t, and it’s been great.

I think maybe there’s something karmic about that. It’s nice to be able to not take yourself so seriously all the time and think that you can only be treated a certain way. It’s nice the way it’s all handled in this movie.

Since the first movie, there’s been a major change in public knowledge of your personal life. Did you think the writers would address your coming out in the sequel?

NPH: I was wondering about that myself, but Jon and Hayden have created their own little fantasy world of how it all went down and that happened long before they knew anything about me. So I respect the fact that they’re just keeping true. This comedy level is lowbrow for sure, but it certainly doesn’t just try and milk any laugh it can find. It’s not looking for current movies to spoof or current political jokes – well, it’s got the Bush stuff in there, but that’s more the climate and less about the specific gags, like “let’s throw in a Condoleezza gag.” So I’m glad they didn’t go there.

Would you come back for a third go-around? [Note to Audience: stay until after the credits are over]

They could certainly mine more out of it. I don’t know how much people would be interested in that, but they have a whole story of what happened in Neil Patrick Harris’ life that led him to this point where he is now. I think that would be funny to investigate, but worth its own film, I don’t know. Maybe if there was a prequel or something, it’d be fun to be a part of.