Hollywood's in-Vince-ible comedy star

By NANCY MILLS
NY Daily News
Found here

'Wedding Crasher' Vaughn has 'em rolling in the aisles

HOLLYWOOD ��� As long as humiliation comedy makes people laugh, Vince Vaughn will have no problem finding a job. Neither will his pals Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell and Owen Wilson.

These four musketeers shared billing in "Starsky & Hutch" and "Zoolander" and have regularly popped up in each other's projects. Vaughn and Stiller made "Dodgeball" together and cameoed in Ferrell's " Anchorman." Vaughn and Ferrell worked opposite each other in "Old School," and now they are whooping it up with Wilson in "Wedding Crashers," opening Friday.

To paraphrase George Gershwin, how long can this keep going on? "Until the audience gets tired and stops laughing," says Leonard Maltin, film critic/historian with "Entertainment Tonight."

"Vince has proved many times that he's very capable of doing more," adds Maltin. "But right now it's working for him to do the same thing over and over. He makes me laugh. If he's still making me laugh in five years, fine. Vince seems like a smart guy, and he knows that overexposure will kill the golden goose."

"Clearly this is Vince's moment to shine," says producer Michael De Luca, who hired Vaughn for "The Cell" (2000) when he was head of production at New Line, and again for "Old School" (2003) when he was head of production at DreamWorks. "He's such a great instigator, and his delivery is deadpan ��� you can cut to him in any scene.

"Every generation has its comedy stars, and this is the Vince-Owen generation. They're doing contemporary versions of 'Stripes,' 'Caddyshack' and 'Animal House.' This kind of classic comedy never ends, although the cast of characters will change."

De Luca doesn't think Vaughn's number is up yet. "I wanted to buy '"The Break-Up",'" he says, referring to Vaughn's new project, a romantic comedy with rumored girlfriend Jennifer Aniston, now filming in Chicago. But he lost out to Universal, which is reportedly paying Vaughn $12 million to produce and star.

Vaughn, 35, is well aware that the comedy niche can be a trap. After "Swingers," the film that finally got him noticed after seven years in the Hollywood trenches, he veered away from humor.

He played a serial killer in "Clay Pigeons," an evil businessman in "Domestic Disturbance" and Norman Bates in the "Psycho" remake. But he stayed on the B list until he went back to being funny in "Old School."

"A lot of comedies are sketch movies, just a series of funny scenes," says Vaughn, whose nervous energy causes his knees to knock into each other while he talks. "I look for character-driven comedy. You're invested in an emotional journey, and the jokes come out of that."

The journey in "Wedding Crashers" involves two aging bachelors finally growing up. "My character is still a kid who's really excited about meeting girls this way," he says. "These guys are a little bit flawed, but they're getting older and realizing that this isn't the best thing to do. How are they going to handle it?"

Not always gracefully, but Vaughn, still a bachelor, doesn't mind. "I've always been able to laugh at myself," he says. "My favorite stuff is human and painful."

Vaughn learned the upside of risk when he played the drag queen in his Chicago-area high school production of "A Chorus Line." "One reason I got the part was that I was very popular, so I wouldn't get picked on," he says.

"Vince doesn't care about humiliation, awkwardness or embarrassment," "Crashers" director David Dobkin says. "He's fearless. He'll commit fully. Owen has a more sophisticated sensibility but shares the same enthusiasm for goofiness and this cool, Hollywood bad-boy personality."

"When I was young, I was a very sweet, nice, polite kid," recalls Vaughn. "As I got older, I became a clown and anti-authority. I think learning disabilities played into looking for validation in other areas.

"I like being challenged. Feeling nervous forces me to work hard. When I was reading 'Crashers' and got to the masturbation scene, I thought, 'That could go horribly wrong!'

"But you prepare, and when you get there, you just go for it. You can't tiptoe through it."

"Vince has a lot of energy," Wilson says. "If you were to design the actor of the future, Vince would be the 'Terminator' of comedy. He's a 6-foot-5 master of the rapid delivery. He comes up with thousands of ideas."

Now that his dance card is full ��� he just signed to play a radio deejay in David O. Russell's next film ��� Vaughn is reading investment books. "Schools should teach kids how to balance their checkbooks, buy homes, have a positive cash flow and make their money work for them.

"I'm learning out of necessity."

Posted by Christine at July 12, 2005 10:02 AM