Greg Mottola Says ‘Paul’ Is A Talky ‘Five Easy Pieces’ Roadtrip… With An Alien; Will Probably Cast From The Apatow Universe To Round Out Film

We hung out and talked to Greg Mottola (“Superbad” “Adventureland”) about two weeks ago and did a little write up of our conversation for MTV.

While Mottola understandably couldn’t reveal many of the details about his upcoming roadtrip with an alien film, “Paul,” which stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (“Hot Fuzz,” “Shaun Of The Dead”), in discussing the project even vaguely he did seem to shed some light on the tone he’s aiming for.

For one it sounds like a classic, talk roadtrip film mixed with elements of a film with an alien and some, presumably fun action sequences.

” There will be some action moments, but a lot of it will be more handheld, low-key, conversational storytelling… for stretches at least. My joke is its [the classic Jack Nicholson ’60s film] ‘Five Easy Pieces’ with an alien,” Mottola said. “There’s a fun factor to the film because it’s an alien and you can’t escape that and it has to be satisfying, but my goal is to make the audience stop thinking about it ten minutes after they meet him and really start to think about him as a character and a performance.”

While no actor has been cast in the role of the alien’s voice yet, the filmmaker said he wanted a fully functioning and believable personality for the creature that will be a mix of puppetry and CGI. “Whoever plays the [alien] needs to do so like a three dimensional guy, he’s kind of like just another character in the story and he’s not just an [extra-terrestrial], I need a method acting performance out of this nonexistent person.”

Could maybe one of the Judd Apatow troupe members play the voice? “We’ll probably steal from the Judd [Apatow] Universe for some of the casting around [the lead parts], because we need funny people,” Mottola said.

Maybe? Wouldn’t Martin Starr make a good alien? A commenter says Bill Hader, which is probably the smart choice, but they’re already working on two projects (“Dog Of The South“, and an untitled vigilante doorman comedy), would that be two much or would it simply help those two smaller projects get off the ground? Time will tell.