Keeping Up With The Joneses Trailer and Set Visit!

Keeping Up With The Joneses Trailer and Set Visit

I’m standing in the penthouse suite of one of the fanciest hotels I’ve ever been in, except I’m not there at all. It might look like a penthouse, but I’m actually on the set of a film and that set has been constructed in a closed-down Baskin-Robbins factory, which is at the far end of an overgrown street in Atlanta, Georgia. Movie magic at its finest.

Things being not what they look like is a recurring theme here on the set of Keeping Up With The Joneses, a film that sees Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher playing a suburbanite couple who gain some new neighbors, played by Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot, who actually turn out to be secret agents.

Think of it as Mr. & Mrs. Smith but with a pair of nosy neighbors that get caught in the middle of the action, and they are definitely caught. This isn’t a leisure visit to the penthouse of a hotel, thugs carrying guns are standing all around, ready to fire, and these four are right in the middle of it.

“They’re normal suburbanites, just getting through the day and then this kind of storm blows into their neighborhood and they have to deal with it,” Galifianakis says. “When that happens you see them acting out of character a bit.”

Zach’s character in the film, in addition to being silly, works for a security company, which is what draws the attention of Jon Hamm’s character. The two of them have a report for working together having done one of the first episodes of Funny or Die’s Between Two Ferns, which was one of the reasons they continued to pursue work together.

“He’s a comedy guy, he’s really funny,” Zach says of Hamm. “A lot of leading type guys like that, they don’t have humor and they think they do…He’s funny like a comedian is funny, not like an actor is funny.”

Another cast member on set that day was none other than comedian Patton Oswalt. Hamm offered a little history lesson about his relationship with Zach and Patton and then doubled down on how Galifianakis’ style inspired him.

“Those are two of the guys that when I came to LA in 1995 I would go see at Largo,” Hamm said. “That’s really what formed my post-collegiate comedy brain… When I did ‘Between Two Ferns,’ it was very early on in the ‘Mad Men’ thing and I don’t think people either A. Knew who I was, B. Cared, or C. Thought that the guy from ‘Mad Men’ would be funny, and I had a blast… It was fun, and I’ve done enough stuff with these guys at UCB to be comfortable enough to play with them.”

In the scene, Zach and Jon’s characters bicker at each other. Zack, of course, is more concerned with the fact that Jon lied to him than that his life is in danger at that very moment. On the other side stands Isla Fisher and Gal Gadot, the two women in this scenario who bring the twists to the film’s story.

Isla calls her own character an “every woman” who lives in a “carpool existence” and is the one that actually figures out their new neighbors aren’t what they seem like.

“There’s something very funny about juxtaposing banal barbeque chat with high-end glossy action,” Fisher tells us. “And in this case the genetic gods Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot, both being absolutely beautiful and well dressed and cool, against Zach and I’s characters is instantly funny.”

Gal reveals to us that her character’s relationship with Jon isn’t a cover for them as spies. They’re actually a couple that are both spies who work together. She also goes on to say her character loves what she does while Jon Hamm is quite reluctant to be in his position.

“I think she loves being a spy,” Gadot says. “And I think that’s the problem they have in their relationship. She’s so much into this world and he’s not. He doesn’t like the lies, he doesn’t like playing an act or making pretend and she’s all about the adrenaline and the mission, she loves it. She’s a real spy.”

Gadot went on to tell us, in a very non-chalant fashion, that after working on Fast and Furious and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice that she didn’t actually need any extra training for this one.

“There’s something different about working on a comedy set, it’s all about who is going to make us laugh harder,” Gadot says of the differences in big blockbusters and this movie. “I literally pee’d on myself… not literally. It’s hilarious and such a wonderful experience.”

You can check out the first trailer for Keeping Up With The Joneses in the player below. Directed by Greg Mottola, the film will debut in theaters on October 21.