He's With Him

By Joel Stein

It's hard to be funny alone. First, who's going to laugh at the jokes? But it's also just not natural; comedy is inherently competitive and interactive. And although the idea of comedy duos seems antiquated--from the black-and-whiteness of Laurel and Hardy to the '60s snobbery of Elaine May and Mike Nichols--Ben Stiller, 38, and Owen Wilson, 35, have resuscitated the concept, playing off each other in a series of six simultaneously smart and stupid films, including The Royal Tenenbaums, Zoolander and Meet the Parents. Stiller, whose parents Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara were a comedy team in the '60s and '70s, updates Lou Costello with an agitated everyman, while Wilson does the smartest dumb guy ever, thanks to a slacker knowingness.

For their new film, a campy remake of the campy '70s cop show Starsky & Hutch, Stiller and Wilson play their set roles broadly. They sat down with TIME for a chat about the film, the pressures of being a comedy duo and hitting on women. The suitable-for-a-family-magazine parts appear below:

STILLER: I wanted to ask if we might have a cover shot with this.

TIME: No.

WILSON: You did a Miami Vice cover: COOL COPS, HOT SHOW. I loved that show.

STILLER: I was on a Miami Vice episodelate in the series, when they were saying Crockett wouldn't come on the set until Tubbs was on the set.

TIME: Do you guys do that?

WILSON: I like to keep things loose when I perform. Ben has a really different approach.

STILLER: I read the script. Owen likes to use the call sheet as a starting point as to when to show up on the set.

TIME: This is good. You have tension.

Wilson: We're both up-and-down personalities. We've been friends for a long time, and we have a similar sense of humor, but [to Stiller] you're pretty sensitive to stuff. Sensitive to me. On the Zoolander DVD commentary, they start slamming the way I look, saying "What's the deal with his nose?" And I could hear Ben try to defend me.

STILLER: People are obsessed with your nose. I don't get questions about my nose, and I have a huge nose.

WILSON: This whole story was about your sensitivity to me, and now you're talking about my nose?

TIME: When did you figure out that you were a comedy duo?

WILSON: People ask if we have chemistry. You have to wait to see what the public says.

STILLER: I think that's a weird thing anyway, chemistry.

WILSON: Every movie I've been in, they say, "You have great chemistry," whoever I've been with. Sort of the way I've never worked on a movie where the dailies haven't been "incredible." And I always fall for it.

STILLER: Owen describes us as Hope and Crosby without the huge following.

WILSON: Martin and Lewis without the fans. That makes us more authentic, I think. Or more committed to being a duo.

STILLER: I think there are certain similarities to Bob Hope as far as his onscreen persona.

TIME: The nose.

STILLER: Well, the nose. But Owen does that lovably, rascally coward type of guy.

WILSON: Let me refer you to a movie called Behind Enemy Lines. There's a guy who had the chance to run and jump on the helicopter but chose to go back into a hail of bullets.

STILLER: That's when I realized we were a comedy duo, when I saw Behind Enemy Lines. I realized Owen should never be alone.

TIME: Why'd you let Ben drive the car in the movie? He grew up in Manhattan.

WILSON: I was disappointed to show up on-set and see that Ben was doing all the driving.

STILLER: Again, if you read the script, you can see what is actually going to happen in the movie.

WILSON: It was three weeks into the movie before I found out we weren't doing Dukes of Hazzard.

TIME: As kids, when we played Starsky and Hutch, we always fought over who had to be Hutch.

WILSON: I don't know if this is a controversy, but I liked Starsky as a kid.

STILLER: We can't dis David Soul, though. I think they're a duo. When those guys came out to do the movie, they went right back into it.

TIME: Maybe that's because they haven't done other characters since then.

STILLER: Starsky is a director.

TIME: And David Soul made that beautiful song you sing in the movie.

WILSON: Don't Give Up on Us, Baby.

TIME: It didn't sound at all like you were singing that. It sounded as if it had more computer-generated effects than Shrek.

STILLER: It's Owen's voice put through that auto-tunes thing. He broke two of them.

WILSON: They said, "You're going to take some guitar lessons and sing." And I'm not musical at all.

STILLER: That and your predisposition against preparation.

WILSON: I saw the hard work you put into driving the Gran Torino paid off great. You're one of the worst drivers I've ever seen.

STILLER: What did I do wrong? I hit all my marks. I did power slides.

WILSON: Ben always had a technical term for every mistake he made. If he hit the wall, it was a power slide.

STILLER: There's a fine line between aggressive driving and bad driving.

WILSON: Ben and I used to do some brainstorming. You've never heard two guys less interested in another guy's idea. We had a tape recorder. We walked around New York with it. I'd get excited about one of my ideas, and Ben would click it off, like he was worried about using up tape.

STILLER: Remember the girl?

WILSON: We were standing on the corner of the street and talking about our ideas, as a shortcut to avoid working, like we found a way out from having to actually sit down in a room for three months and write. And we see this incredible-looking girl walking her dog, and we both trail off. And after she goes by, Ben says, "I'm tired of letting my insecurities rule me." And I'm like, "I know. Why didn't we say hello to that girl?" Then we both start bucking each other up.

STILLER: We have successful careers. We should be more self-confident. Then she turns and comes around the corner again, and we do the same exact thing.

WILSON: Right after saying that was the last time we'd let that happen.

TIME: You know what? We all feel much better knowing that you guys do that.