It was a night out for the boys in London for Ben Stiller, Ricky Gervais and Hank Azaria as they celebrated the second installment in the Night At The Museum franchise.
Walking the blue carpet, the comedy triumvirate made plenty of time to joke around with the crowd and eachother before stopping to chat about the movie and what they have coming up next.
Watch video footage from the Night At The Museum 2 premiere.
Looking sharp in a navy suit, and pulling a fair few Blue Steels at the crowd's command, Ben Stiller told us where he thinks the future lies for his museum guard comedy: “I think if people want to see a third then we’d love to do one. It would be fun to bring it to Europe. I enjoy working with funny people and with a movie like this there are so many funny people that you want to allow them to be funny and be funny with them.”
Up next, Stiller is starring in Greenberg, for which he is sporting a hair-do even White Goodman would be proud of. He told us why he decided to keep his new do: “It’s for a film called Greenberg, directed by Noah Baumbach. I like the hair. I’m going for dreads next, so I haven’t washed it for three weeks.”
Ribbing him about the coif, Hank Azaria later told us it was time Stiller went to the barber: “It’s 90s grunge. He did it for a part. But he should get a haircut, don’t you think?!”
Simpsons voice king Azaria, who joins **Dodgeball **co-star Stiller in **NATM2 **as Egyptian exhibit Kah Mun Rah, gave us a little blast from the past by impersonating one of his funniest roles, Agador from The Birdcage. Apparently the set-up wasn’t funny enough to extend to a sequel: “They wrote one, it was really weird and bad. They presented it to us, and it was like, “what is this?!” My character played football, joined the NFL and became a kicker – this gay football player. It was really weird, so no, they didn’t make it.”
Although it was rumoured that Azaria would be taking up directing with a project called Outsourced, he told us that he was currently concentrating on a new series of The Simpsons and also impending fatherhood: “I’m working on son. I’m directing a documentary about fatherhood right now, mostly because I am terrified – so I want to see what other people have done.”
Although Ricky Gervais only pops up for a short time in the movie, the crowds were cheering most loudly for him. He joked about the brevity of his role: "Two million for five minutes work. Rip off."
When asked if he and Stiller would be continuing their night on the town after the premiere, Gervais told us: “If out on the town means sitting on my sofa in our pants drinking wine, then he’s welcome because that’s what I’m going to be doing.”
But he was all up for discussing his next projects, which include his directorial debut **The Invention Of Lying **and Cemetry Junction, which is fast becoming Brideshead Revisited 2, having recently cast Matthew Goode and Felicity Jones for the 70s insurance dramedy: “We are in pre-production now and start filming the first week of June. It’s myself, Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson, Matthew Goode and a whole new cast. It’s about a group of twenty-somethings, so we’ve started again like we did with The Office and we’ve found this great new talent: that’s the most exciting bit for me really. I play the romantic lead’s dad. It’s gotten to that point already. I missed out on the bit where I was romantic lead and jumped straight to old codger.”
And on that positive note, the old codger, the grunge-haired megastar and the terrified dad-to-be were transported off to be exhibited in front of the audience in the cinema, and Empire headed for a night on the sofa, in our pants, drinking wine. Well, if it's good enough for Gervais...