Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub speaks with Back in Action director and co-writer Seth Gordon.

Starring Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx, the Netflix action-comedy is about two retired CIA spies dragged back into the fold who will stop at nothing to protect the life they’ve built.

In this interview, Gordon discusses working with Diaz on her first film in 10 years, her on-set chemistry with Foxx, and whatever happened to his WarGames remake and Uncharted.

Cameron Diaz is making her return to screen after 10 years and reuniting with Jamie Foxx for Netflix’s aptly-titled action-comedy Back in Action. In the movie, Diaz and Foxx play Emily and Matt, two undercover, long-retired CIA spies who’ve given up dangerous missions in exchange for a family life. Much like Diaz herself, Emily and Matt find themselves hurled back into the fold when their covers are blown, and their new lives are suddenly at stake.
At the helm of this epic team-up is director and co-writer Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), who’s previously served as director for a number of hit comedies, including Four Christmases, Identity Thief, and Baywatch (2017). He’s also worked on numerous series like Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, The Goldbergs, Parks and Recreation, and The Office, and is now officially the filmmaker whose script got Cameron Diaz out of retirement.
In this interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Gordon talks about how Foxx was pivotal in getting Diaz into the film, the chemistry the duo have on set, and how that Salt-N-Pepa scene was completely unscripted. The writer-director also revisits past projects that didn’t quite make it to screen (at least not how he’d first envisioned them) with his WarGames remake and Uncharted and shares details on the follow-up documentary to The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.
The Follow-Up to ‘The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters’ Is Coming

But whatever happened to the feature film adaptation of ‘The King of Kong?’

Image via Picturehouse

COLLIDER: Before getting into the movie, which is going to be a massive hit on Netflix, I want to go back in time and ask a few things. How close did a King of Kong narrative feature actually come to getting made?
SETH GORDON: I would say not that close in that the scripts that we developed — because there were a couple drafts — I felt were never better than the doc, so I just couldn’t get excited about making the same movie again. I tried to say, “Can we make it from Billy’s perspective,” or, “Can we think outside the box?” But they really just wanted to repeat what we had done, but on a bigger scale with a bigger budget, with famous people in it, and I just couldn’t get excited for that. So it’s kind of my fault, I guess, but at the same time, I stand by that decision. You’ve got to be passionate and excited about what you’re making or you’re going to just die.
Also, I dare someone to try to be Billy Mitchell and be better than Billy Mitchell in that.
GORDON: Totally. He’s one-of-a-kind. You’d end up being a cartoon. He’s a nuanced, complicated, incredibly compelling, real person. And by the way, you may not know this, we’ve got a follow-up that’s finished.
Oh, sir, I was about to ask what you can say about Arcades & Love Songs – The Ballad of Walter Day?
GORDON: What it’s really about is Walter spent his life putting others on a pedestal and bringing them shine and glory. Then, some people who were huge fans of the doc supported Walter in the making of his album because he was always writing songs, and he had, like, 100 songs. So we found the lady that he fell in love with and who was the one he lost and brought her back into his life during the making of this album. It’s a very touching, beautiful little story about Walter’s side of things 20 years after the doc. Fuck, I’m old.
Welcome. Hi. But for fans of The King of Kong, you have Steve [Wiebe] and Billy in this movie.
GORDON: Yes. It’s really inspiring in that those people are all still in each other’s lives, and there’s a bit of a check-in about the effect that the doc had on them, too, because it’s a mixed blessing for some of them. People made some assumptions about Billy, and some people said some nasty things at times. It’s complicated, and we don’t get too meta about it, but we acknowledged what it was and the impact that it had, and that was a challenge for some of them. In a way, we are owning that ourselves because we weren’t trying to cause trouble. We were trying to show what we saw. Anyway, Ed [Cunningham], who is the producer of the original, directed this one, and I supported him in that. It’s a great piece and it’s going to get out there soon.

Related

Billy Mitchell Reflects on THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS

Billy Mitchelle reflects on The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters in a recent interview. Despite mixed feelings, he doesn’t regret the experience.

Do you consider it a sequel to King of Kong, or is it sort of like a cousin?
GORDON: Cousin. It’s got a completely different story arc. I just don’t want to be misleading. It’s a cousin because it’s like the Walter journey, but I think the people who love the original are going to connect to this, too, honestly.
As soon as I get a link or a way to see it, I will watch it.
The World Wasn’t Ready for This ‘WarGames’ Remake

“It’s still relevant.”

Image via MGM

Whatever happened with your WarGames remake? How close did that come?
GORDON: Not as close as I wish it would have come. That was at a time when it was the guys from Spyglass that were running MGM at the time, and I had a take on it that was about Stuxnet and that whole world of basically cyber terror and where things could head. I just feel like they weren’t feeling it at that time, and so it didn’t ever really gain the momentum that it needed to. I love the story and the approach, and hey, I gotta say, it’s still relevant. Like everything that happened with [Sandworm] a couple of years ago. It’s frightening. I feel like something’s going to happen in the next four years very relevant to that because the GRU is still in full effect.
“Sony Got Hacked”: Why We Never Got Seth Gordon’s ‘Uncharted’

“I wasn’t bitter, butt-hurt, sour grapes over there.”

Image via Sony

Last thing before getting into your film, what happened with your Uncharted versus the version that everybody got? Was it radically different from your version? What happened?
GORDON: There’s a fair bit of it, actually, of the work we did. It’s my production designer, the same production designer who did this movie. So, I brought him in, and a fair bit of what we worked on was in there. But it’s one of those things — Sony got hacked. That totally trashed the version that I was working on. A bunch of stuff leaked. Amy [Hennig] was out, Tom [Holland] came in. Everything changed. So, I actually was psyched with what they made, though. I wasn’t bitter, butt-hurt, sour grapes over there. It was more, “Good job.” That was an ambitious, cool thing that they made, and I’m an enormous fan, obviously, of the guy I’ve worked with so many times, production designer Shepherd Frankel. I thought he killed it. That was a very ambitious undertaking.
Cameron Diaz is ‘Back in Action,’ Baby!

Jamie Fox got his “old friend” out of retirement.

Jumping into your film, I want to start with — and I really mean this sincerely — thank you for getting Cameron Diaz to be in a movie again. I am a huge fan of hers, and it was just so awesome seeing her in this and reminding audiences how awesome she is.
GORDON: Totally. And that’s the thought that occurred every day on set. She’s the best. You hope people that you admire and are stars will be a certain way when you finally get to meet them. She’s all of it. She’s not only that talented, that cool, and that kind… It’s crazy, honestly. She’s an amazing person. I feel lucky as hell that she said yes to my thing. It’s awesome.
She said no to everything for, like, nine years, so it’s crazy.
GORDON: It sounds like you’ve done your homework, and I believe you. [Laughs] I just believed what I was told: “She’s out of the business. Don’t even think about it. Next.” It was Jamie [Foxx] that did it. He had already said yes to this — I’d worked with him — and he clearly, because they were old friends, knew something. He knew there was a possibility or a glimmer of hope. He wasn’t making any promises. He kept this secret for a while, but he was working on something. Then, when he asked if I’d be into it, I was like, “Don’t tease me. [Laughs] It’s too good. That’d be too good!”
This is the first thing I think you’ve co-written and directed. Obviously, you had a version of the script, but once you get Jamie and Cameron in these roles, how did the script possibly change to fit their voices?
GORDON: It changed a bit specifically in that way. The overall story was very similar. Some of the set pieces changed in scope and scale, and are we doing it in this city or that city? But it was definitely about dialing into their voices. Then, when I got to be with them in the room together — because it was at first over Zoom and separate and all that — and I saw how they click and vibe and riff, that was when it really changed. It was not unlike Horrible Bosses, actually, when the three guys start rolling in that. There’s an electricity to their way of working with each other, and these two were very much like that. So it became about, “How do we create those moments or create those opportunities and create the space for them to play, and not always have to be pushing story forward?” You don’t always have to pay setup, pay off bills, right? Just let them do their thing. You just want to hang out with them, you know?
That Salt-N-Pepa Scene Was Completely Unscripted

“She knew all the lyrics.”

Image via Netflix

Honestly, the two of them together, their chemistry is really what drives this forward in terms of you wanting to hang out with them.
GORDON: Yeah. I could also throw shit at them all the time. There’s that Salt-N-Pepa song — nobody knew I was going to do that. That wasn’t in the script. I didn’t clear the song. There was no permission. I had Spotify on my thing, I put it on the microphone, which had a speaker in their car, and they just started doing it. She knew all the lyrics. She started doing the rap. The kids didn’t know the song because they’re too young. So, that’s real. That they would roll with it is why they’re so great, honestly.
I’m fascinated by the editing process. So you show the film to friends and family, or you do a test screening. What did you learn from those screenings that impacted the finished film?
GORDON: Well, this was a crazy process because we lost him right at the end of shooting. We had eight days left, but it was eight critical story days where we had shot everything in London, but we just got a little bit of work done in the suburbs, and the suburbs is a 20-minute shot to film. So what I would have to do is, we did our friends and family, and I would press play, and then we would get to the dead spot, and I’d pick up the microphone to go, “Here’s what’s going to happen…” and I’d tell them the story and then get back into the movie as fast as I could. People were still leaning in and still into it. So I knew with that kind of lull, which obviously could kill the energy, if people were still into it, then we were onto something, is what that means. So we were just praying for him to get better as soon as possible. Then he was better, and the strikes were happening, so we were praying for the strikes to end. Then it was just, “Let’s finish what we planned.” That was the big thing.
Then I guess the other thing I learned was there were a couple of scenes where I combined them, where I saw a faster way through the story. So the club scene, the fight used to happen outside. They grabbed the daughter, and then the fight happened outside, but I just mashed it together because it was faster and more efficient. I had a lot of fights and a lot of action scenes in the movie already. I was like, “This one can be quick.” It’s actually better if it’s just swift and brutal, and you see how badass they both are still and move on. So it was a weird blessing for the movie to do it that way because finishing shooting was sort of combined with what normally would be pick-ups or reshoots, but we were just finishing. But I got to make it a little better. The binoculars scene didn’t exist. It used to be a school drop-off, no binoculars, but I added the binoculars, and they killed that. So, so funny the way they did that.

Image via Netflix

I agree. I know this is going to be a big hit on Netflix. Have you asked Cameron if the possibility exists for her to come back for a sequel or more if it was a hit, or is it something you haven’t even discussed?
GORDON: I’ve asked really gingerly, not trying to put pressure. I know she wants to see once it’s out in the world and in the wild, “What’s the response, and do I want to keep doing this or not?” But she seemed open. I think she doesn’t need the work. She’s a very lucky person, and so doing this, it’s not like she needed the work. It was just she was into it. So I think it’d be the same kind of thing. If the script is right and the pieces are in place, maybe she’s open.
Back in Action is available to stream now on Netflix.

Back in Action

Former CIA spies Emily and Matt are pulled back into espionage after their secret identities are exposed.

Director

Seth Gordon

Cast

Cameron Diaz
, Jamie Foxx
, McKenna Roberts
, Glenn Close
, Kyle Chandler
, Andrew Scott
, Jamie Demetriou
, Fola Evans-Akingbola
, Anna Stadler
, Tom Brittney
, Adam Basil
, Erol Ismail
, Lee Charles
, Alfredo Tavares
, Ruth Clarson
, Julia Westcott-Hutton
, Katrina Durden
, Robert Besta
, Bashir Salahuddin
, Ben VanderMey
, Jude Mack
, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo
, Tobi Bamtefa

Distributor(s)

Netflix

Expand

Watch on Netflix