Broadside Interviews: Clark Duke of Hot Tub Time Machine

Starring alongside best friend Michael Cera in the Internet series Clark and Michael is only the beginning of Clark Duke’s story.

With the underappreciated Sex Drive and hit television show Greek under his belt, not to mention the highly anticipated film Kick Ass on the horizon, Duke is proving himself to be one of the most promising up-and-coming actors in Hollywood.

Broadside recently chatted with Duke about his new movie Hot Tub Time Machine and the difference between television and film.

What attracted you to the Hot Tub Time Machine script?

Clark: It was funny. I got involved with it because the guys who wrote Sex Drive had written the draft of Hot Tub and wanted me to play this part and I just said “yeah” because I really love those guys.

They ended up not directing it, but I still stayed on because there was Corddry, Craig and then Cusack. I think Cusack being in it makes it really weird and meta because he’s such an ’80s icon himself.

And in the movie, these guys go back to the ’80s and the whole thing seems like it’s coming out of him a little bit, which is cool.

Since you mentioned your co-stars, after seeing the movie, it seems like John Cusack is being billed to sell the movie.

Clark: John is sort of the straight man to some extent. He’s still the lead in the film, but Corddry has the wild character like the one I had in Sex Drive, the really fun one to play. So Johnny’s stuff is a little more understated, but he’s great.

It was just really cool working with him because High Fidelity and Gross Pointe Blank are two of my favorite movies. And the guy who directed Hot Tub wrote those.

Working with all of those guys was pretty amazing. Chevy Chase was my highlight because he’s my hero.

All of our scenes were together pretty much and he was next to me at the hotel, so every night he would come knock on my door, call me and mumble things, so we’d go eat dinner and get drunk every night. It was the best week of my life. It was pretty surreal.

You’ve also done a lot of work on television, on the show Greek. I know this is a question you’ve heard a thousand times, but do you prefer the slower pace of film or the faster pace of television?

Clark: Film for sure. TV is brutal, man. You’re going through eight pages a day and it’s rough. I mean it’s not rough, but compared to shooting a movie where you’re shooting one page a day, TV’s pace is just so much different.

So, on average, how many takes does it take to get something done in movies and TV?

Clark:On TV you’re doing one or two takes because there’s just no time.

On movies you can take all the time you want more or less because you’re shooting a page or two a day compared to six to eight pages, so it’s pretty bananas.