Tim and Eric Stay Professional

Yesterday at the premiere of Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie at Williamsburg's Nitehawk Cinema, PAPERMAG had a bit of a chat with the wacky funnymen.  We were expecting Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim to bombard us with jokes, antics, and non sequiturs but instead we found ourselves conversing with two very professional gents (you can see they even wore suits for the occasion).  Were these really the same guys shaving each other in a bathtub and getting penis piercings in the first 10 minutes of the movie (which led to a handful of Sundance filmgoers to walk out)?  Though they played it straight during our Q&A, we still managed to get some goofy nuggets out of them including what they were like when they met in college ("we were alternative"), how they snagged Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis in their flick and what the hell happened at Sundance.   

First things first, what happened at Sundance?
Eric:  A couple people walked out but people walk out of every movie at Sundance.  We enjoy it, to be honest with you.  There are certain moments in the movie that are meant to be these nightmare, roller coaster, fucked-up moments and to see a bunch old-timers get up and pack their bags, we like that.
Tim: It was just some fuddy-duddies who walked into the wrong movie.

Where did the idea for the movie come from?  Were you guys high like you were in the movie's opening scene?
E: No, we're very sober writers.  We made 50 episodes of the TV show and we've made three short films and we've always wanted to make a movie.  That's always been the ultimate goal.  We sat down and work-shopped ideas, came up with storylines, characters and what we were going to do.  It's a pretty traditional writing process.

Tell me about how you guys got Will Ferrell, John C. O'Reilly, Zack Galifianakis and Will Forte to be in the movie.
E: We've worked with all these guys in our sketch show.  Will Ferrell's company, Funny Or Die, co-produced it and he asked us to write him into the movie, which was a really awesome thing.  A lot of the guys are our friends and we collaborated before so it was kind of natural that they would do it.

How did you guys meet?
T: We went to Temple University and were both in the same dorm floor together. We just had this community of dudes who had the same sensibility and we just kept doing little stuff together and working together.

What was Eric like in college?
T: He was a straight-edge, vegetarian hardcore dude.

What was Tim like?
E: Tim had longer hair, baggier clothes, a funky vibe.

Were you guys 'crunchy' guys?
T: We were alternative dudes.  Alternative. 
E: We were our own unique [people].
T: There were a lot of tough guys on campus and I said something like "We better be careful how obnoxious we get around here," and a friend said, "You don't realize--those people are so freaked out by us.  We don't have anything to worry about.  We look like freaks."

As comedians, who are your favorite people or stories in the news right now to riff on?
E: I want to say really inappropriate things right now but I'm not going to.
T: I always enjoy Pat Robertson.  I was watching his show today at the hotel and this woman he had on was this crazy lunatic Christian preacher who had a buzzer that would go off every 10 minutes that would remind her to praise God.  Every 10 minutes.  And treated that like, "Oh, that's a great idea.  Why didn't I think of that?"  Idiots.

I really enjoy the music videos you've made.  Do you have any new ones in the works?
E: [We have] two new videos in 2012 but they're Top Secret.  

No!  Tell us!
E: I can't.  I can't.  

C'mon!
E: I'm shooting one in Jamaica, I'll tell you that much.  You can probably figure it out.

Major Lazer!  So what was going on with the women in their video for "Keep it Goin' Louder" anyway?
E: I'm attracted to women who look like that.  They're regular girls and I like it.  They turn me on.