CATCH THE GOLDEN-SNITCH-MAN IN “THE INTERNSHIP”

 

The world over have seen the airfield battle to capture the golden snitch in one of the most phenomenal (recently) wrapped-up teen-wizard movie “Harry Potter.”  In another universe called Google campus where great thinkers converge to create something new being  featured in the movie “The Internship,” they have found a way to reinvent the game of quidditch on ground.

Starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, “The Internship” finds Nick (Owen Wilson) and his partner Billy (Vince Vaughn), as two newly unemployed watch salesman trying to find employment with a limited skill-set in a world that appears to have passed them by.

“As salesmen they are incredibly good at what they do,” says director Shawn Levy, “but the whole profession of selling in person, in an age where most people are increasingly buying their goods on the Internet, is on the wane. So they are downsized, suddenly unemployed, and Vince’s character comes up with this idea of applying for an internship at Google, a company that represents the vanguard of the new economy. It’s a long shot, but this possibility of self-reinvention is exciting to Billy and Nick and they take their shot.”

It required a certain amount of Googliness on the part of Levy and production designer Tom Meyer to reimagine a world where innovation intersects with fun and purpose.  “We scouted Google a number of times.  It’s quirky, idyllic, strange, and very specific,” says Levy.  “But, it was clear to us that there’s no way the production could shoot at Google for an entire month and a half, because they’re an ongoing business.  So we needed to find a way to replicate Google in Atlanta, which I initially thought would be impossible.”

But infrastructure alone does not a Google campus make. “When you go to Google, the most important thing that you take away from it is its non-traditional aspect and out of the box thinking,” says Meyer.  “Google reps said to me when I was trying to recreate it, ‘Do it, but keep the spirit of what Google is about.’”

“For each one of the sets we did a photo-real illustration, or a model, or both, then sent it off to Google, and had conversations back and forth,” adds Meyer.  “I tried to capture that feeling that you take away when you’re an employee or visitor there.  There’s a huge sense of playfulness.  And the idea of a healthy body and mind is central to Google.”

“This isn’t Owen and Vince being interns at Corporate Office Number 5.  This is Google; this is Oz,” adds Meyer.  “So, the film starts off in the first act at a normal, almost retro-office environment, which we call Kansas [as in the “Wizard of Oz” setting], our black and white atmosphere.  And then, when you go to Google, you hit those primary colors, the clean glass, white walls, and wacky, crazy objects, which provided a real sense of a pop and wonder.’”

Ultimately, “The Internship’s  Googliness is that it’s not just about life at Google.  “It’s about every one of us who’d like to believe that another shot is possible,that another kind of chapter in the story of you is possible,” says Levy.  “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t relate to that; whether you’re 16, 22, or 40, we all want to believe that we can change our lives – that it’s never too late.  And so, the movie is really about possibility.”

In other words, we must dare to search.  Billy and Nick remind us that the best is yet to come, and that old dogs are capable of learning new tricks.  With guts, grit and Googliness, everyone has a chance.  So, dream big, dream again, dream some more.  Because the world loves second acts.

“The Internship” opens August 14 in theaters from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

trailer link:

 

NEW+GOOGLE = NOOGLERS OF “THE INTERNSHIP”

Both trying to catch up with the digital world, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn did not look far for reference in the tech-comedy “The Internship.” Instead, admittedly they drew from their own experience how it’s like to swim in the digital age.

“This was not a difficult role to prepare for.  I don’t know that much about computers, only in the past few years, I discovered how to work the internet,” says Wilson.  “And Vince had to be one of the last people in the world to get a cell phone, so he might be even further behind than me.We’re both trying to catch up with the digital world.”

                Confronted with that world’s lightning-fast pace, Billy and Nick must somehow excel at Google amidst an army of today’s breed of geeks and super-achievers.

Up and coming young star Dylan O’Brien portrays Stuart, a Noogler who is too cool for school.  “Stuart is the cynical one,” says O’Brien, who recently landed the central role in 20th Century Fox’s thriller “The Maze Runner.” “He doesn’t want anything to do with the life around him. At the beginning, he is very much only involved in his technology,” says O’Brien. “Bill and Nick teach Stuart to live amongst the world and everyone around him.”

One Noogler with a keen disinterest in Billy and Nick (apart from his quest to humiliate them) is Graham.  Everyone loves a juicy antagonist, and Graham is as opportunistic, if not downright mean, as they get. “He is the kid in class who is the know-it-all,” says Wilson. “Graham is the evil intern who is trying to sabotage their plans,” says Max Minghella, who portrays Graham.

Holding her own against Graham, as well as her own teammates, Neha Patel, played by Tiya Sircar, is a closeted nice girl with a deceptive naughty streak.  “Neha tends to say things that make people raise their eyebrows,” explains Sircar.  “She says some pretty crazy things, but it’s all talk.  Neha is actually a good, studious girl.” Like her counterparts, Neha, is displeased when the team is saddled with the technologically inept salesmen.  “The younger members of the team feel like they are working with two dead weights,” she points out.

Another teammate of Nick and Billy’s is Yo-Yo Santos, played by (Fil-Am) Tobit Raphael in his film debut.  Yo-Yo is an anxiety-riddled perfectionist and a dutiful son. “He has a very oppressive Asian mother who wants him to succeed and wants him to have that perfect job,” says Raphael. “And he takes out a lot of it on himself.” Through Yo-Yo’s relationship with Billy and Nick, he conquers his inner demons to emerge as a confident young man.

The filmmakers selected the young actors who would reflect the generational divide, embody the Google personae, and possess a comedic constitution that complements Vaughn’s and Wilson’s improvisational dexterity.

“The Internship” is also about these two generations melding and the culture of Google.  We wanted a supporting cast that adds strength to the duo at the center,”says Vaughn.

                Take a peek into the world of Google when “THE INTERNSHIP” opens August 14 in theaters from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

Check out the Nooglers video here

 

 

DIRECTOR SHAWN LEVY REVEALS GOOGLE FOUNDER CAMEO IN “THE INTERNSHIP”

From his blockbuster works such as “Real Steel,” “Cheaper By The Dozen,” “Night at the Museum 1 & 2,” and “Date Night,” filmmaker Shawn Levy brings in the outcasts, the obsolete and the nerds in the upcoming comedy movie “The Internship” starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

“The Internship” finds Nick (Wilson) and his partner Billy (Vaughn), as two newly unemployed watch salesman trying to find employment with a limited skill-set in a world that appears to have passed them by.

“As salesmen they are incredibly good at what they do,” says Levy, “but the whole profession of selling in person, in an age where most people areincreasingly buying their goods on the Internet, is on the wane. So they are downsized, suddenly unemployed, and Vince’s character comes up with this idea of applying for an internship at Google, a company that represents the vanguard of the new economy. It’s a long shot, but this possibility of self-reinvention is exciting to Billy and Nick and they take their shot.”

“If you’re going to team Owen and Vince, a duo that is arguably one of the most special in comedy, you need to build characters that exploit their natural personalities. So you haveOwen’s character Nick, who is a bit more laconic, very positive, very much – to quote his character – ‘a blue sky artist’. He’s an optimist, but we meet him in a moment when he’s been thrown back on his heels. Although he is working for a rather unlikable character, he is still soulful and has an original perspective on life. Vince, meanwhile, plays Billy who is a fast talker, a big dreamer, makes lots of plans, has alot of big ideas, but can’t always put it all together. They’ve been friends since they were kids, and we get a real sense of that history, and they have a very easy rapport that mirrors the chemistry and rapport between Vince and Owen in real life,” narrates Levy of the duo’s characters.

Director Levy further reveals that Sergey Brin, founder of Google made cameo appearances, “I’ve got him in there twice. The cameo that everyone recognizes is at the end when he says, ‘Congratulations boys,’ to Owen and Vince. But if you look closely, when Vince and Owen arrive at Google and they’re looking around at this fantastical strange workplace, there’s a point of view shot showing a man in yoga clothes on an elliptical bicycle wearing big neon green fluffy slipper shoes and a pair of futuristic glasses with a computer screen above the eyebrow. That too is Sergey Brin.”

“Here’s more, we had a sign-up sheet for real Googlers – which is what they call themselves – to be extras in the movie and we had hundreds of people who wanted to play background performers. So most of the extras you see in the exteriors at Google are real Googlers, and they were the most directable and intelligent extras I’ve ever had in my life. Probably because they were wildly over qualified and over educated,” enthuses Levy.

“The Internship” will open in cinemas starting August 14 from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

40-YEAR-OLDS IN THINKING PLAYGROUND: “THE INTERNSHIP” @ GOOGLE CAMPUS

Looks like comedy duo and friends Owen and Vince have found a new thinking playground at the Google campus as featured in the upcoming hilarious movie “The Internship.”

In an interview with EW on his upcoming true-to-the-times relatable comedy “The Internship,” Vince Vaughn admits that there wouldn’t be any film had Google said no to the concept in the first place.

Vaughn, who serves as co-writer, producer and star of “The Internship” reunite with Owen Wilson about friends in their 40s who get laid off from their jobs. Convinced they’ve gone about managing their careers entirely wrong, they resolve to become interns at a tech company and start anew. Hijinks ensue when Vaughn and Wilson compete against wily, fresh-faced 22-year-olds to advance in the company.

“The Internship” sees Nick (Owen Wilson) and Billy (Vince Vaughn), two old-school salesmen who use old fashioned charm and brilliant sales techniques to sell watches. On the night that they try to close a big sale with a client, to their shock, they find out that their company has been shut down because kids don’t wear watches anymore. Suddenly, they find themselves unemployed as two dinosaurs in the digital world.

To make the situation worse, Billy goes home to find a foreclosure sign on his front lawn and his girlfriend packing her bags to leave him. In the meantime, Nick’s sister offers him a job at a mattress store and he takes it out of despair. After an exhaustive job search online, Billy has Googled everything he can Google. He finally gives up by typing just “Google” into the search box, and finds an opportunity for them to reinvent themselves – with an internship program at Google.

The guys arrive at the Google Campus in Mountain View, California – a world away from anything they have seen before – and are in awe. All the food and drink is free so they load up on coffee and donuts at the “free” coffee cart as if it’s their last meal on earth. On the first day of their internship, they find themselves in a sea of tech-savvy 20-year-olds who they need to compete against to win a full-time position at Google. They team up with Neha, a sexually curious nerd, Stuart, who is obsessed with his cell phone and won’t get off of it, Yoyo, a genius Asian kid that lacks social and common life skills, and Lyle, who is an underdog who wants to fit in. They also meet their nemesis – Graham – an arrogant and aggressive college student who will stops at nothing to win the competition and get the job at Google.

Vaughn wrote the original draft of the story when the US economy was in shambles and most of the people he knew had lost their jobs.  It was that generational sentiment that the skills they have are not significant as it used to be.  And when he saw a portion of what goes inside the Google ‘campus,’ “I thought of taking the characters to this place and give them the chance to work at Google – that felt relatable and rootable,” shares Vaughn.

Google cofounder Sergey Bin checked on the film’s set every now and then which Vaughn is very grateful for – “Everyone at (Google) was very nice and gracious.  But that’s what Google does: You search for something and you find it,” Vaughn concludes.

“The Internship” opens June 7 in theaters from 20^th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.

LATEST TRAILER SHOWS 40-YEAR-OLD GOOGLE INTERNS @ “THE INTERNSHIP”

Nick (Owen Wilson) and Billy (Vince Vaughn) battle it out with the techies in “The Internship” as two old-school salesmen in their 40s who use old fashioned charm and brilliant sales technique to sell watches.  On the night that they try to close a big sale with a client, to their shock, they find that their company has been shut down because kids don’t wear watches anymore.  Suddenly, they find themselves unemployed as two dinosaurs in the digital world.

After an exhaustive job search online, Billy chanced upon an opportunity for them to reinvent themselves – an internship program with Google.

20^th Century Fox now brings the latest trailer of “The Internship” tracking the misadventures of Wilson and Vaughn as they try to pass an internship interview at Google.  As seen on the trailer, the interview is conducted via Google Hangout and the two being first-time online interviewees get too close to the camera and shout loudly into the microphone.  As luck would have it, the two passes the internship interview through common sense, imagination and charm.

At Google, where it’s worlds away from anything they have experienced before, they find themselves in a sea of tech-savvy 20-year-olds who they need to compete against to win a full-time employment at Google.

They eventually team up with a sexually curious nerd, a mobile phone obsessed geek and Yoyo (Raphael) a genius Asian kid who lacks social and common life skills and Lyle who is an underdog who wants to fit in.  Going through training and competing with kids half their age, they are hell-bent to prove that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.  The movie also stars Rose Byrne, John Goodman, Dylan O’Brien and Josh Gad.

“The Internship” opens very soon cinemas (Philippines) from 20^th Century Fox.

Check out “The Internship’s” latest trailer here at 20^th Century Fox’s YouTube channel