Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce Talk Results
The actors play personal trainers in Andrew Bujalski’s latest indie comedy.
In the new indie comedy Results, Trevor (Guy Pearce)—a fitness guru and founder of Power 4 Life—and Kat (Cobie Smulders)—one of his most no-nonsense trainers—find their lives inextricably changed when they take on wealthy, dysfunctional schlub Danny (Kevin Corrigan) as a client. Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce talked to Maxim about starring in Andrew Bujalski’s indie comedy, getting in shape, and working together.
You’re both actors, so I’m sure you have to be in great shape all of the time, but how did you get in shape for a film that required you to play personal trainers?
Guy: I’ve done a lot of fitness stuff over the years, some quite intense, others not so intense. So I knew I had to get back into the most intense stuff I could, without killing myself. It was really just about ramping up the running. I got my cardio up, because I knew we had some running scenes and I didn’t want to get exhausted.
Cobie: For me it was really an education because I…
Guy: You had to stop taking drugs.
Cobie: [Laughs] Step one: Detox. I’ve always been more into team sports. I played soccer for 12 years, I like to go to classes—yoga, Pilates, all that stuff. I’ve never really been a big weights girl. I really started doing that: lifting weights, bulking up muscle. I felt great. When you feel strong, you feel so much more capable and like you can take on the world.
Guy: Just start punching people.
Cobie: Yeah, just punching people in the streets of Austin to see what would happen.
What attracted you to the roles of Kat and Trevor in the first place?
Cobie: Guy Pearce attracted me to this role of Kat.
Guy: It’s just the way they’re written. The unusual way that [Director] Andrew [Bujalski] constructs a story and lets you see the awkwardness between people. He was always one of those people I’d wanted to work with.
Cobie: It comes down to character, script, and director. Even on set, when we would do scenes, he [Bujalski] would just watch it all happen and let moments have a breath. That was really interesting to me, being able to play out these scenes and taking as much time as you need. And trying it out in different ways, he was very open to that.
Guy: It’s funny how on most films, in any given scene, the director will go “can you tighten it all up?” And Andrew would quite often go “I’ll chop it out if it gets too long.” So you felt like you could be here and be awkward. It’s a nice reminder that he’s looking for what’s really going on in life rather than in film world.
What were some of your favorite scenes to film together?
Guy: The diner scene was one of them. [Spoiler: Kat freaks out when a waitress tries to charge Trevor extra for egg whites.]
Cobie: I also like the dinner scene with Anthony.
Guy: I was really nervous about that. I didn’t really get it together in my head.
Cobie: It was really fun, we did this road trip to Marfa. I drove with four people in my car and we all did this caravan out to the desert, to this little hipster town built by artists and all spent a couple days there. That experience was really lovely to me. It was beautiful, there were so many stars there.
Guy: It was like camp.
Cobie: Nothing was open. There was a Boyz II Men food truck, but it was never friggin open. It was just so cool.
Would you guys hire your characters as personal trainers?
Guy: Definitely not.
Cobie: No.
Guy: [To Cobie] Yours maybe.
Cobie: I don’t know. I’m more connected to Kat’s clients. I’m guilty of going like, “if I start talking to her about her weekend and her boyfriend situation, that’s going to knock out 10-15 minutes of the workout, that means we’re only going to do 45 minutes.” I’m always trying to weasel my way into an easy workout. And I just don’t think Kat would tolerate that.
What’s next for both you?
Cobie: I’m doing this movie coming out in July called Unexpected with Gail Bean. It’s set an inner-city high school. I find out that I get pregnant accidentally and at the same time, one of my students does too. It shows these two women going through the same thing, but under very different circumstances. It’s from the female point of view, since most pregnancy films are from the male point of few. And it’s always about the labor scene, that’s all they show.
Do you have a labor scene?
Cobie: Oh yeah, and I was actually pregnant at the time.
Guy: You have to be careful not to actually push it out. I did a film after this one called Equals, starring Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart. It’s a futuristic love story. Then I did Genius, but I’m only in that for two seconds. It follows Tom Wolfe and his character. I just play F. Scott Fitzgerald. I actually don’t know when those are coming out, [to Cobie] you probably know more than I do.
Cobie: Am I your assistant?
Guy: Actually I wanted to talk to you about that.
Cobie: I’ve been doing a terrible job.
Photos by Photo: Ryan Green
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