Hollywood Popular Artists

Aug 13th 2013, 18:11, by Kevin P. Sullivan

"Prince Avalanche," the new movie from director David Gordon Green and starring Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, is not like any other film out this summer. First of all, two characters take up most of the screen time, and they spent the movie painting stripes on a burnt out highway in central Texas. Yet "Prince Avalanche" is one of the funniest and oddly fascinating movies of the year.

When MTV News sat down with Hirsch to discuss the movie, he revealed that the "project," as Green called it originally, came together in an appropriate unique fashion.

"I was working on a script of my own that I was thinking about trying to make micro-budget style, so I called David, and I asked him a couple of questions about it," Hirsch said. "I hadn't talked to David for years. I've known David for eight years. David calls me back the next day and says, 'Hey, by the way, I'm just putting together this random movie at the last minute.' He didn't even call it a movie. He said 'random project.' He goes, 'Would you maybe want to do it?' "

What followed was no less confusing for Hirsch. The script that Green sent him was about 30 pages short of being a normal, feature-length screenplay, and there was even a question if "Prince Avalanche" was actually a movie.

"[Green] sent it to me, and it was like 65 pages. I was like 'Yeah, this is awesome.' Like immediately, within three or four weeks, we're shooting it. He came together just unbelievably fast," he said. "The whole time I was making it, I didn't necessarily know if it was going to be a movie or not because it was such a short shoot. It was only 16 days. Sometimes, I'd ask David, 'Is this for sure going to be a movie?' He said, 'Maybe we'll show our friends and family at a barbeque.' I was like 'What? Paul Rudd's in this thing.' "

A big part of what makes "Prince Avalanche" so special is how well Rudd and Hirsch work off of each other. The actors formed that bond over a couple beers. "I met him in Austin about a week before we were supposed to shoot. We had a bunch of beers, and we were hanging out together," Hirsch said. "He's just a really cool guy. He's a lot more of a badass than he can sometimes come across on a red carpet, when he's all in a good mood and stuff. I actually think he's pretty edgy in a good way. It's just a way that he is. He's just a tough dude."

"Prince Avalanche" is in select theaters now and is also available on VOD.

Media files:
Prince-Avalanche-70x53.jpg (image/jpeg)