INT: Leslie Bibb

Leslie
Bibb is the hottest thing to come out of

North Dakota

since, well, ever! But the perky former model, who stars alongside Will
Ferrell this week in TALLADEGA
NIGHTS, isn’t just another disposable blonde love interest that you
see so often in big studio films. You’ve gotta have some serious comedy
chops to hang with Ferrell & Co. (as Christina Applegate so aptly
displayed in ANCHORMAN) and Bibb can more than hold her own.

Bibb
recently stopped by the Four Seasons in

Chicago

to talk about her experience making TALLADEGA NIGHTS, which opens this week.
Check it out.

Leslie
Bibb

You
started working when you were pretty young.

Really?
Modeling? That’s not really working. They pay you…it’s the only
profession where women make more money than men. It’s like summer camp.
You just go, you get hair and makeup done and it’s like you get your
picture taken.

Is
it more dramatic than a movie set? Is there more pressure?

Are
you on crack? I will tell you, I haven’t modeled in a long time and I was
doing some photo shoot just recently. No, I was doing this photo shoot
that’s out now and the photographer was a really well known photographer,
Matthew Ross. He’s a great photographer and I was so excited that he was
doing it. I came home and I was like, “Modeling’s hard. Tyra Banks is
right.” I was doing stuff and I was like, “Okay, you have to spin- -”
no, no, no, it wasn’t this one.

It
wasn’t the one with Matthew. I was doing this photo shoot for In Style
magazine and I was in New York and he’s like, “Okay, I want you to run
and I want you to jump and turn and hit.” And I was like, “Honey, I
haven’t done that in a long time. That’s all mama used to do. She went
to acting school. She doesn’t run and jump and hit any marks anymore
unless I’m saying a line.” But it was so funny and I was like,
“Modeling’s hard.” I said to my best girlfriend who went with me,
“Damn, modeling’s hard.” And she’s like, “You work hard for the
money.” I was like, “I didn’t make any money. I’m just doing it for
the press.” She’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s right.” But it was
like…so it’s like that. It’s like hold that position.

Modeling
is easy and it’s the best waitressing job that I could ever have. You know
what I mean? Like it was great tips, good trips and somebody said to me, we
were all sitting around talking about all the bad jobs you had, and like,
“What’s the worst job you had?” And I said modeling. They’re like,
“Modeling wasn’t bad.” And I go, “The last job I had since I modeled
was babysitting.” And they said, “Are you kidding me?” and I said,
“No” and they were like, “That’s ridiculous.” And I said, “I
started when I was 16.” So I feel very lucky about that.

So
people, I remember people in New York when I was studying, because everyone
in New York thinks they’re very serious, like you’re creating the cure
for…like you’re solving world problems by being an artist and you live
deep. And everyone said to me, “You’re a little bit of a sellout Leslie.
You need to not do that.” And I said, “But we’re at my house right
now. I’m the only one who could afford the wine.” Like I like that my
showers and I have a bathroom and I have a washer dryer in my apartment.
I’m not selling out that bad.

I’m
just…it’s a different type of bartending job. It was great. It was such
an easy way and it actually helped because having that, when you do these
photo shoots, actors will freeze. They hate…it’s a very awkward
situation for them and to me, I’m like, “Oh, okay, let’s do this.”
And it’s like catalog pose number 32. And for Carley, it’s like she’s
like…she’s in glory if anybody’s taking her photo so creating that
character to me was just like amazing coming up with everything about her.

Was
your character on the page?

No,
she wasn’t. Her words were on the page and then with these guys, you start
off like when you do a take, you do a couple that are sort of on book, but
with Will, nothing’s ever really on book. And then you just go. So it’s
like playing tennis with McEnroe. You’re just like, “Okay, let’s go,
let’s go, let’s go.” So it’s really exciting and so you just come in
with ideas. You just come in and we have two weeks of rehearsal, so we sort
of by the end of that, I knew what they wanted, they knew what…like it all
sort of meshed together and it became so organic, because I think when you
work with these guys, if you don’t know your character to your core, you
won’t have…because you’re just listening and responding. It’s like
what you went to acting school for which is what was so exciting.

You do
television and you don’t have the luxury or the time to be like,
“Calvin, can we have some rehearsal? Can we do one more take because I
really…” They’re like, “Yeah, anyway, let’s go.” And with these
guys, you’re just…you have to know her because you’re just
everything’s coming at you. I knew, and I didn’t do it, I mean, they
were really great and they sort of saw that I could physically become her.
But I had sort of short hair at the time and I went in. I made sure that my
clothes were as tight as possible but I don’t really wear tight clothes so
I was like, you know, I found jeans that I dried purposely so I’d be like
shoving every inch of myself in. I thought she definitely was a girl who
showed her belly. And the biggest thing that I sort of went in with, which I
think with Carley was that I strung this pearl necklace together. My friend
and I strung it together and we…

Seeing
this person in Neiman Marcus, this woman, she was definitely new money.
Probably from Texas. And she was like jammed into a Juicy velour sweat
pants. She’s the girl that wears the matching and it was like hot pink.
Carley would love it so…but she was in her 50s, 60s but like boobs and
everything. I love how I whisper it, but just jammed into it. And she had a
pearl necklace, but it wasn’t like Jackie O pearls and it wasn’t like a
sweet like I’m From Connecticut pearls. It’s a very specific size. And
she had like a gold chain. I was like, “Of course she has a cross on
because she’s close to God.” And it became like I knew her. I was like,
“That’s who it is. She’s a lady.” She’s a girl that came into
money and it happens because you don’t grow up with money, you look around
at people with money and you go, “That’s what I want to be.” But then
when you get it, it’s sort of your twist on it and usually you don’t
have the best taste.

So I
strung these pearls together and I went in and it happened to be that I’m
yelling…the scene we’re doing is I’m yelling at Will that he broke his
arm. And I start this improv, and I’m meeting Will and I’m already
nervous. I did some weird yoga pose before I went in because I felt like I
was going to diarrhea and vomit all at once, like I was so nervous.
[breathes in]. And I was like, “Calm down.” My friend who does yoga’s
like “Do this pose’ and I was like, “I can’t.” And then I was like
okay, I’m doing the pose. And I went in, I had my legs up on a wall like a
kook. And I went in and I saw him and I was like, “Okay, let”s go.” I
started this improv and I started going on about my pearls. “I need
them—” you know, Carley’s going off.

And
afterwards, Adam looked to me and he’s like, “Did you just string?”
I’m like, “Yeah, I strung them, they’re not done but I just think
it’s her. I think that she thinks she deserves this and this is who she is
and this is what she thinks is being a lady. She never realizes that she’s
not a lady.” And when I went in, when I got the job and I went in to meet
the costume designer, she’s like, “Do you have a pearl necklace because
all Adam’s talking about is a pearl necklace.” Which is great because it
became her signature, with a cross. It was very specific, had to be very
tiny with like a diamond chip in it. I had one when I was a kid and I grew
up in Virginia. That was your first thing, your first cross from Sears.
It’s like a shave off of it.

So
like we started to just form that. We wanted the first time we saw her,
she’s like, “Hey driver, drive these.” We wanted to make sure that she
had no boobs. That like who she became, you saw with the money became and I
knew that I wanted…when I was a kid, music was in my house but like this
music like Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette and Patsy Cline, so I thought,
“This is probably music that Carley’s mom.” It doesn’t matter,
growing up in the south, it doesn’t matter if you have money or didn’t
have money. Those were the legends. Men, my dad when he was alive used to
say to my mom, “I just want to drive her bus, Tammy Wynette. I just want
to drive her bus.” He just thought she was crazy and beautiful and just
amazing. So I thought I want her to be like Tammy Wynette. That’s a lady
for her. Sort of like that hair but then Carley also thinks that Playboy
playmates are hot so sort of a meld between those two.

And
then there’s a show on television that I saw and there’s these Playmates
in it and this one girl that I became obsessed with because she sort of
reminded me of Tammy Wynette a little bit and who she was and how she’s
sort of nice but you sort of thought maybe she wasn’t so nice. She always
had a pearl necklace on and I was like, “Yes, I scored!”

And
she flashes people all the time. She does it in front of her kids. You
don’t see it, this movie’s got so many bits that didn’t even make it
in. Carley was always flashing her tits. Always, and it didn’t matter, it
was like, “I’m a lady, look at ‘em!”

And
she hits him all the time and I said, “Will, do you mind if I hit you?”
And he’s like, “Bring it.” So it became this thing and Will, we had to
make out at the dinner scene. I think it’s one of our first makeout scenes
because we made out so much in the movie. Again, she flashes and they make
out. Always in front of their children. And I go, “Adam, what do you want?
How do you want this? There’s lots of different ways couples kiss.” And
he said, “I want it to be vicious.” And I’ll never forget and I said,
“I’ve never heard someone describe making out as vicious if there
wasn’t like a police report attached to it, do you know what I
mean?” 

So it
became, I was like, I became very nervous. All of a sudden I was like,
“Stop it, Carley’s not nervous.” And I said, “Will, let’s just
go.” And he’s like, “Let’s go. So anything goes?” “Anything
goes.” So we just…it was hysterical. Like we would make out, the
camera’d be rolling, it would be like three minutes. There’s one time we
did it and I just started getting the kooks. We were like moaning and
groaning and licking each other and we started laughing. And we’re making
out and all we’re doing, our heads are bobbing and we’re just laughing
as we’re making out. Because we’re like, “This is funny.” It was
ridiculous.

It’s
like one of those jobs like I kept calling my agent going, “I can’t
believe I have this job. I can’t believe it.” And he goes, “I never
get these phone calls. I always get phone calls from actors who are like,
‘Why didn’t you get me more money? My trailer’s not big enough.’”
I just was like, “I just finished a scene with John C. Reilly.” My first
day of work was the scene with John where we’re doing this interview. I
was laughing with the costume designer. I go, “Wouldn’t it be funny if
we had like matching…like if Carley matched him with his Magic Man
outfit?” He had this black shirt that had like top hats on it. She’s
like, “That’s good.” 

And so
we have these things and it’s great, shot for two hours, just improvising
with John. And I left and I was like, “I just…John C. Reilly. John C.
Reilly.” You can never just say John Reilly or John. You just go John C.
Reilly. It’s like Michael Clarke Duncan, you say it all, all of it. It was
always that, like you’d come home and I’m a dork that way. I guess
it’s far cooler if I was like, “Whatever, you know.” But I was like,
“I’m so grateful! Whatever you need! I’m so happy to be here!” like
a total loser about it and I love it.

You
know, it’s so easy for actors to sit here and go …I think they think
they’re cooler if they’re inaccessible or they’re cooler if they
don’t act like a dork or they’re cooler if they say, “It doesn’t
mean anything to me.” And then I just think, “You’re not cool,
you’re just a jerk.” You just come off as a jackass. This set, this
whole set, when my agent came to visit, and he loves comedy. He loves
comedians, he loves funny movies and he really knows it. We were doing this
setup, it was when we were doing the dinner scene. We shot it for two days
which is unheard of because on the extended DVD version of the movie, Adam
McKay said the dinner scene’s 10 or 15 minutes longer because it’s so
funny. The kids go bananas. And he’s just screaming ridiculous things to
them. It was a really good time.

But
they were all outside. It was like this hour setup and I was inside talking
to people and outside was Adam and Will and my agent. I don’t know,
somebody, it might’ve been Jay Miller who was one of our producers who
handles like Sa[cha], like everybody. Anybody who’s funny is his client
and he produces great movies and a really nice guy. And for an hour, just
talked about comedy. And he came in and he goes, “Dude, you don’t get
it. It doesn’t happen.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He
said, “Never when there’s a lighting, especially one that’s an hour,
are the actors not all in their trailers, and the director in his trailer.
Nobody hangs out on a set. It’s like they come in, they do their stuff and
they leave.” And he said, “I’ve never been on a set like this. I’ve
just never physically been…” And he’s an agent who’s been around a
long time and has been to many sets. 

So
when I went and did this movie Sex and Death, I thought, “Oh my God,
what’s it going to be like? What’s it going to be like?” And I
thought, “You make it what you want it to be like.” And it was amazing
because you walk on a set, you can make it…and that I feel like, besides
being in like the AP course for comedy with these guys, I feel like I took a
masters class in it. That was the greatest gift that I got from Adam and
Will because it really starts with the top. If you’ve got a jack hole at
the top who’s like taking himself far too seriously, it just trickles down
and nobody’s having fun.

But it
was just like every time we went to set, we had so much fun at work. And I
was like, “I’m really lucky. We don’t get paid minimum wage, we get to
have fun, and even if you’re not doing a comedy, you’re doing what you
love. A lot of people don’t get to do that. So don’t take it seriously
because as soon as it’s there it can be taken away from you.” To me,
that lesson from Will and Adam was the other great thing because when I was
on the show Popular, I took it all…I was like, “I’m fantastic. I mean
, I work 16 hours a day. I mean , that’s really hard.” And it’s like
now when I think about it, I’m like, “Oh my God, you’re such an idiot.
You weren’t getting $8.25 an hour or whatever it is.”

How
did you change?

Not
working. And I think hopefully if you’ve got a good base, your friends sit
there and go, “Uh, yeah, no, you’re a jackass. Or who are you?” And I
was pretty good. Like I had a pretty solid base but I found myself taking
myself…I could hear myself, but sometimes things would come out of my
mouth and I’d be like, “Oh, whatever.” And you sort of do it and I
think I went through a thing personally that sort of changed me so now I’m
Good Time Sally. I’m like, “What’s up, let’s go to craft service.
Come on, coffee for the crew.” Like really…and it’s just amazing.

Special
thanks to Kari Tejerian and the rest of the Sony crew.

Questions? Comments?
Manifestos? Send them to me at [email protected].