The 9 Coolest Things We Learned on the Set of 'Your Highness'

Last summer, Moviefone was lucky enough to be flown to an annoyingly chilly Belfast in Northern Ireland to see (the frankly bonkers-looking) 'Your Highness' being filmed.

The movie is best described as a medieval/fantasy comedy adventure revolving around a familial black sheep. The outcast in question is Thaddeus (played by Danny McBride), the good-for-nothing younger brother to James Franco's perfect prince Fabious. Whilst the latter spends his days earnestly saving maidens and killing dragons, his sibling has resorted to lazing around, smoking weed and necking booze. Naturally, this situation can't go on forever, and when Fabious' bride-to-be (Zooey Deschanel) gets kidnapped, Thadeus must man up or face having his allowance cut off. Cue an epic and, we suspect, ridiculous quest, with a hint of emotional growth along the way.

From what we saw, this is one of the craziest efforts to emerge from a Hollywood studio in many a year. Here's some stuff we learned while on set:

1. The film was lucky to have been made at all.
A major vibe we detected from cast and crew was that kind of delirious nervousness you feel when a great opportunity has fallen in your lap and you want to make the best of it. Quite simply, this is a difficult film to market and even the filmmakers seemed surprised that Universal okayed the mid-size budget -- especially when you consider how they pitched the movie to the studio.

Said McBride, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Ben Best: "We literally walked in and we were like, 'This is 'Krull' meets 'Barry Lyndon,'' and they just stopped. They were like, 'Don't ever phrase this movie like that again.' Honestly, it's a miracle. I think that if we would've been behind by a month, it wouldn't have happened [because of the recession]."

"I know!" added director David Gordon Green. "We can't get over the fact that someone paid for it. [Laughs] It was really lucky."

2. But it's not a spoof.
Speaking of 'Krull,' fantasy movies from the '70s and '80s came up a lot during our visit -- think 'Willow,' 'Ladyhawke,' 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Clash of the Titans.' It's clear that, despite their many flaws, McBride and Green have a lot of affection for these films -- because 'Your Highness' is anything but a fantasy spoof. "This isn't a parody," said McBride. "That's one thing that everyone had a sigh of relief about. We're not trying to make 'Spaceballs.' We're trying to make a fantasy movie for real that just happens to be funny."

Green further explained, saying, "The second you start being winky-winky, it turns into one of those movies that are winky-winky." In short, don't expect the fantasy version of 'Scary Movie' -- surely a good thing, we think.

3. Despite the setting, this is a modern comedy.
The laughs in 'Your Highness' stem from how modern characters react to the situations fantasy conventions place them in. It's almost like a feature-length sitcom -- which shouldn't be a surprise, considering the director and star work together on the HBO comedy 'Eastbound and Down.'

For example, the cast talked about Natalie Portman's character -- an ass-kicking heroine who, because she's always murdering monsters, has developed has some serious intimacy issues and personality defects as a result. "We're trying to come up with contemporary references," said Green. "As unique as this world is, it's relatable." Adds McBride more succinctly: "There's no jokes in this movie. There's just a bunch of funny s**t that happens."

4. There's a LOT of improvisation.
We were told that Green's method of shooting 'Your Highness' was to do one take based on the script, and then ask the actors to say whatever they feel like in another. It's an astonishing level of improvisation, and as such, the finished film might bear little relation to the original screenplay.

Describing this process, McBride said, "It's been fun to see [David] work with these esteemed British actors like Toby Jones and Charles Dance and Damien Lewis, and how they react to his direction. 'Now Charles, do it like you're taking a s**t.'"

5. The film is going to be filthy.
The humour in 'Your Highness' is going to be "edgy," to say the least. In the scene we saw being filmed, Justin Theroux's villain utters a string of f-words, while some of the props shown to us would definitely be at home in an Amsterdam sex shop. It's almost certain to earn a hard "R" rating, and will apparently feature sequences so disgustingly bizarre that censors at the MPAA won't have even considered how to rate them before.

McBride told us, "There have been several moments, one in particular, where our jaws were dropped when we were filming this sequence!" Even more ominously, the director added that he was glad 'Observe and Report' paved the way for more full-frontal male nudity in Hollywood.

6. Despite the title, it's not about weed.
What you won't see too much of in the film is marijuana use, despite what the title might suggest. According to McBride, 'Your Highness' isn't really a stoner comedy (a la 'Observe and Report' or 'Pineapple Express'), but he did admit that smoking pot is a pastime of his layabout character. "It's one of his indulgences -- but it's not like he's just a weed guy," he said. "This is one of those movies that, once the s**t hits the fan, everything moves pretty quick. So there's weed in the beginning but once they hit the road, it's too life or death for a lot of pausing for smoking."

The film's 'Dark Crystal'-inspired puppet wizard, however, apparently partakes in some dubious looking tobacco.

7. It will look better than its budget.
Despite being a foul-mouthed comedy, in visual terms 'Your Highness' could look incredible. This is partly because of the gargantuan sets. We were guided through life-sized castles, towers and dwarf villages that had been built from scratch in the Irish countryside. Also lovingly constructed were several impressive animatronic critters, hundreds of ridiculous outfits and a warehouse full of (mostly phallic) weaponry. Kudos to the production department for keeping it within budget.

The filmmakers also turned to the work of classic kitsch fantasy artist Richard Corbin -- best known for his images of busty maidens and pumped-up vikings adorning the cover of 'Heavy Metal' magazine. "[His work] is not silly," said Green. "It's angry and funny and intense and exciting and provocative. It had all the elements we were trying to pinpoint with this movie and it's accessible."

8. Natalie Portman is going to kick ass.
Depressingly, Natalie Portman wasn't on set during our visit. Nonetheless, she seems to have made a strong impression on all the cast and crew -- all of whom couldn't stop going on about her performance.

As mentioned above, she plays an amazingly acrobatic, monster-slaying killing machine with relationship problems who evidently gets some choice dialogue.

McBride gushed, "She would trip David and I out all the time when we would see her in the film. This is so weird that Natalie Portman is in here saying this f****d-up stuff. She's been great. She's hilarious in the movie and in the most real way." Judging from the footage we saw, she also looked amazing.

9. The opening scene will be a cracker.
Finally, the one thing that stayed fresh in our minds long after we'd left the set was McBride's description of the opening scene, which sounds like it's worth the price of admission alone.

"When we were shooting here, in the beginning of the film, Thaddeus is getting ready to be hung because he buttf***d the Dwarf King's wife," he said. "He ends up being chased by 32 angry dwarves. That was one of the most amazing days of filming. We're walking around and the Dwarf King had the real throne from 'Willow.' All these dwarves were really funny and they amped it big time. It was the Dwarf Olympics the same week we were shooting, so all through town at all the hotels, there were all these dwarf athletes getting hammered and falling off stools ...

"Those kind of days you walk around and you're like, 'We are making the most f***ed up movie!'"

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Nine Things We Learned on the Set of 'I Am Number Four'

High school can be a rough time for any kid: the peer pressure, the bullying, the hormones and even, on rare occasions, the studying. Sometimes, even for the best of us, the pressures of high school can become overwhelming. But when we visited the set the new DreamWorks action blockbuster 'I Am Number Four,' we learned that there's at least one thing worse than being in high school: being in a high school overrun by murderous alien beasts.

And you thought zits were a big problem.

Based on the young adult novel of the same name by authors Jobie Hughes and James Frey (yes, that James Frey), 'I Am Number Four' has been touted as the heir apparent to 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight' since before the book was even published. Yet, as insanely popular as both of those series are, neither of them became true mega-hits until the movie adaptations introduced millions of new fans to the books.

So, will 'I Am Number Four' follow in their footsteps to become the latest fan obsession? That question will only be answered when the movie finally hits theaters on February 18, 2011. But after spending an afternoon talking with the folks bringing Number Four (played by up-and-comer Alex Pettyfer) and his friends to life, we did manage to learn the answers to a few other burning questions. Here, then, are nine things we learned from our visit to the 'I Am Number Four' set:

1. Their biggest casting problem was ... 'The A-Team'?
Early in the casting process, the producers of 'I Am Number Four' came very close to signing 'District 9' star Sharlto Copley to the key role of Number Four's fatherly mentor Henri. When that deal fell through and they instead turned to noted character actor Timothy Olyphant ('Deadwood,' 'Live Free or Die Hard') for the part, the Internet lit up with rumors that Sharlto had dropped out because they wouldn't let him wear enough alien prostheses in the movie.

But the true culprit behind Copley's departure? 'The A-Team.'

"'A-Team' was such a big movie for Fox," director D.J. Caruso ('Disturbia,' 'Eagle Eye') explained, "that when we were still starting to make the deal with Sharlto, we couldn't have him for this week and we couldn't have him for that week. And so we were trying to make a schedule work [but] ultimately we just kind of threw up our hands and said, 'We just can't accommodate this any more because we don't know what's going to happen.' Fox was being sort of really difficult about his dates. So we just finally decided just to back off.
"But it wasn't about, like, prosthetic noses or ears or something," said Caruso. "I don't know what that was about."

2. 'I Am Number Four' shares a secret connection with 'Transformers 3.'
'A-Team' wasn't the only big ticket action film to interfere with the production of 'I Am Number Four,' as 'Transformers 3' also forced the departure of a key member of the team: director Michael Bay.

"[Dreamworks] bought this for Michael Bay and I didn't think anything of it," Caruso told us. "It sounded like a cool idea. And then I think that Michael Bay started getting into 'Transformers 3' and so they called me and I read the manuscript. And I read one of the early drafts and then worked on that for a while and got involved, got the draft into good shape, slowly got it developed and then showed Bay the script after a couple of months. He liked it and I think that kind of jump-started it, but I think 'Transformers 3' kind of occupied Bay and took him in another direction. So they called me."

3. Changes to the screenplay led to changes in the books.
Fans of the book may be surprised when they see the finished film. Why? Because while the cast and crew strived to stay true to the spirit of the original text, a number of details were changed along the way.

"In the book, [Number Four] knows from page one what he's supposed to do," Caruso told us. "In the movie it takes him quite a while to kind of figure out who he is and what he wants to become. And I think that was what was dramatically and cinematically interesting to me -- who he thinks he is and who he really is are two completely different people. And he has to come to terms with understanding that who he wants to be isn't who he's going to become."

The good news is that if there's a sequel, it's likely to stay much closer to the source material for one simple reason: After reading the script for this movie, the authors will be changing the second book to match.

"It's interesting because [the authors] have just outlined the second book, so some of the stuff that we had in the movie kind of sparked different ideas," Caruso said. "I noticed that their outline for book two had changed a little bit. Which was kind of cool."

4. Kevin Durand's Mogadarian Commander steals the show -- even though he's not in the book.
Kevin Durand is known for playing some of the jerkiest villains on television and in cinema (see: Martin Keamy on 'Lost,' the Archangel Gabriel in 'Legion'). So it's no surprise that his evil Mogadarian Commander steals the show. Just don't look for the character in the book -- because he's not there.

"One of [executive producer Steven Spielberg]'s bigger notes that we kind of kept working on in the screenplay was to really try and give the Mog Commander a personality. And so we wrote a few things just as a trial basis and sort of ran it by Kevin and he sent us a tape and read it and it just sort of made sense. So we started to tailor stuff for him because he's just so great.

"We definitely sort of gave the Mogadorian Commander a dynamic sort of interesting presence. I wanted him to sort of be what Chris Walken was back in the late '80s, early '90s, in those movies where he [has] the rhythms and the odd dynamics of someone that you really don't know how comfortable to get around him. Kevin's done a good job."

5. Dianna Agron is nothing like her 'Glee' character. Really!
Dianna Agron may be best known for playing black-hearted cheerleader Quinn on 'Glee,' but don't bother telling that to her 'I Am Number Four' castmates -- they may not believe you. "She's such a beautiful human being" is about the worst thing we heard about Agron from leading man Alex Pettyfer, while Caruso took it a step farther by declaring that "she represents everything that's good about America."

But while Agron has become known as the go-to girl for every cheerleading role in Hollywood (her ex-cheerleader Sarah in 'I Am Number Four' follows not just 'Glee' but also a turn as a cheerleader in 'Heroes'), her dream gig wouldn't involve either singing or cheering, but something more serious. "As much as I love musicals, I think I would want to do something just really gritty," she told us. "A drama -- you know, just something completely different."

Dark and gritty? Now that's something Quinn could get behind, after all.

6. The cast and crew love to pack heat.
When we visited the film's Pittsburgh set, it turned out to be a little more dangerous than we expected -- and not just because they were filming a sequence in which a Mogadarian monstrosity smashes through the high school cafeteria window. No, it's because the cast was enamored with all the cool weapons the prop department had whipped up to fight back with.

"I get to carry for about half the film this giant alien shotgun, this 20-gauge," gushed Callan McAuliffe, who plays Number Four's best friend Sam. "That's pretty awesome. It lights up. It has these red lights on it and you can actually cock it. It's got a real 20-gauge shotgun inside it and, yeah, that's awesome."

On the other hand, Teresa Palmer, who plays fellow alien refugee Number Six, prefers knives to guns, explaining, "I have an incredible dagger with an electric blue light that looks pretty menacing. I carry that around throughout the film and stab a lot of evil aliens with it."

But while Caruso agrees that Number Six's dagger is "pretty amazing," he has a soft spot for the heavy ordnance the bad guys bring to the table. "The commander has a blaster that's phenomenal, he's blasting it towards the end of the movie. And it's just this huge gun and Kevin Durand just fires it. I love the commander's blaster."

7. The movie's real star? The iPad.
You'd think that Number Four's home planet, Lorien, would be chock full of amazing technology, but the most cutting edge device in the film is from right here on Earth: the iPad. During our set visit you couldn't take a step without tripping over one of the ubiquitous Apple devices, but they weren't just a trendy gimmick -- they were integral to how the film was being made.

"I realized about a week into the prep that my storyboards were on it, my pre-visuals were on it, my script was on it," Caruso explained. "And I really started getting emails from two of my storyboard artists working in Los Angeles. I have this application where I can mark up the boards and send them back. And so it just became this amazing production tool. And slowly but surely, eveyone's starting to get an iPad. And then I noticed the actors, they all got theirs...

"It's just become part of our cinematic culture. It really is an amazing cinematic tool. And it's amazing. I never thought I'd say that. I thought I would be cool and get one -- and now I don't even carry my script any more, I just carry my iPad."

8. Most of the cast has never read the book.
Squeamish book lovers should avert their eyes now, because it's true: most of the cast and crew has never even read the book that the film is based on. But it's not because they aren't interested in being faithful to the source. It's actually for a much simpler reason: The authors actually hadn't completed the book before filming began.

"I haven't read the book," Pettyfer told us. "Not because I'm a bad person, but because the book hadn't been finished until we started the film. And I had an idea from the script who Number Four was and I didn't want to have my mind taken somewhere else while I was filming. I definitely am 100% going to read it the day I finish. But I don't want any influence from anywhere else. I sat down with both writers and got the idea what the gist of what the character was and then kind of went off and put it into my own hands to see what I could do with it."

At least one cast member has sneaked a few peeks at the book, though -- but only the parts she's in. "I skipped forward," Palmer admitted. "I wanted to see where [Number Six] came in and what her entrance was like. It's funny because it's actually a little bit different to what we're doing in the film, so it's cool to pick out all of the little differences."

9. And in the sequel you can expect to see...
The cast may not have read the book, but that doesn't mean they're in the dark. In fact, thanks to conversation with the authors, the members of the cast already know what happens to their characters not just in the sequel but in some cases through all six planned volumes. Try as we might, we couldn't get any of them to spill the beans. But we did learn some secrets from an unlikely source: the director himself.

Unfortunately, we can't really tell you what Caruso told us without spoiling everything (sorry!) but he did allow us at least one tidbit: Fans can definitely expect to meet at least one more of the seven surviving Lorien teenagers.

But what strange activity is the mysterious Number Five up to? That's something you'll just have to wait for the sequel to find out.

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