Sausage Party Movie Interview: Directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan Get To The Meat of the Matter

Seth Rogen's Sausage Party releases August 12th, and we got the juicy details right here.

How would you describe Sausage Party?

CONRAD VERNON: It's like going into a Pixar movie and then realizing that it's a Seth Rogen, rated R, comedy movie. And whatever that does to blow your mind, it's going to blow your mind and then some. It's not like any other animated film you have ever seen. Its very, very funny.

Rogen has stated that every studio but Sony passed on the project. So what made you guys decide to direct a raunchy, animated film aimed at adults?

CONRAD: After I finished Monsters vs. Aliens with Seth, he had pitched to me making a rated R animated film. And I have been wanting to do this since I was 13 years old. I saw the movie trailers for Heavy Metal. After seeing it I said, “That is what I want to do someday.” So he actually gave me the opportunity to do something I had always wanted to do, and I had signed on to do this movie before we had even set out to start pitching it. That is how much I liked it and how much I wanted to be a part of it.

So it wasn't until after I signed on that we found out that very few studios wanted to take a chance on this. But that didn't stop me from wanting to work on it at all.

GREG TIERNAN: For me, I had always wanted to work on more adult animation since we got a bit sick and tired of hearing the myth that animation is for children, and of course it's not. Animation is just another viable medium for telling stories. Regardless of the subject matter. So when I had the chance to direct this movie along with Conrad that is the first of its kind with CGI animation there was no way I was going to pass that up.



What were some challenges that were unique to directing a movie about food?

GREG: Giving the mural of different personalities, we owe a huge, huge debt of gratitude to the amazing actors that really made all of these characters unique. The biggest challenge that we hope that we succeeded in is that the audience watching the food empathizes with them and feels alongside them, feels bad for them, feels happy for them, at the right times. And hopefully people once they start watching the movie get over the fact that these are talking hotdogs. That was a bit of a challenge and the fact there are thousands of products in the supermarket--we had to try to make them as different as we could.

This is an incredibly filthy movie. Are you surprised with everything that you were allowed to get away with? Tell us about the orgy scene and your feelings on that.

CONRAD: I could not wait to do the orgy scene and actually show it to people. You are going to get a fantastic response no matter what. Someone told me once that making people laugh is one thing, shocking them is completely different and just as satisfying. I was looking forward to doing that.

We knew this film was definitely going to be R-Rated, but I will say that what we got away with in the orgy scene was very surprising and very gratifying that we actually got away with all of it. We didn’t think we were going to be able to, but we got away with enough to really make it what we wanted it to be.



What's it like working with Seth Rogen?

GREG: That was wonderful. Seth and Evan Goldberg are fantastic--just really nice and decent human beings and with the amount of years working on something like this--it is really important that you get along with those guys you are working with. They are the best. And they gave Conrad and I as much creative freedom as we wanted to direct this movie, anyway that we wanted to do it. You don't get to power the ships like that everyday. Seth and Evan, as much as people see them as the happy stoners in Hollywood, those two guys are the hardest working guys I have ever met in my life.

CONRAD: Absolutely true. I would concur with all of that. I am very, very happy to been able to work with them on that.

There are a lot of religious themes in Sausage Party. How important was this to the overall direction of the film?

CONRAD: It was a belief system that we had written for the grocery store. It definitely mirrors the different types of belief systems that go on in our world. So it was part of the fabric of the story at the very, very beginning. We couldn't just make an 80 minute movie about hot dogs on their way to have sex with buns. At some point, the jokes would get tired and the whole quest would become old. So we needed some kind of overarching belief of what our characters believed in and what was going to tear them apart at some point and ultimately bring them back together. It was important that the film had stakes. At the very beginning, we looked at the grocery store and said that every aisle has something different. We have the ethnic aisle, the dairy aisle, we have got the fruit aisle. It was pretty obvious to us to make them all different cultures, because the grocery store for the food is basically the world. So the different isles are different countries. Different countries have different belief systems. The one thing that they all agree upon is that something great happens when you go out the front door and that was the jumping off point. It became a really big issue. We spent a lot of time dealing with how the belief system we came up with affects Brenda and Frank's relationship. And that is where really all the emotional states of the main characters stems from that. So it's pretty important.

Were there any foods that just didn't make the cut? Maybe some that were too sexy or not sexy enough for the film.



GREG: Kummy the Kumquat. I knew you was going to ask about that.

CONRAD: Kummy the Kumquat was suppose to be one of the gang. They picked him up in the first section and he was suppose to come along with them. Then we realized he just didn’t have an important enough part to play with his personality and everything. He was stricken from the film. I don't know if we actually even put him in the movie at all.

GREG: No, I don't think he ever ended up in there. There was lots and lots of other characters that we designed that there was just too much going on in the movie to fit them all in.

Looking back, what did you enjoy most about working on this film?

CONRAD: It's the creative. Just not having to worry about, like all the other films we both been on, we have always had to watch what we couldn’t put in. Because our audience was mainly for children and families. We have a ton of funny, dirty jokes that we love put in and we try clean them up a little if they are a good joke to try put them in. But there is no guarantee if they will ever get in. The only restriction for any jokes or gags that we wanted to do on this film was rather or not it was funny and if it fit into the story. So it was just really freeing to be able to have everything on the table. There was nothing that would be immediately thrown out. So that was really, really great. I thought that was fun. I also love watching the animation come to life as well. Especially when we could do animation that was little more 2D oriented with the rubber hose arms, legs and gloves. It was nice to just get into more of a cartoony style better than having to stick with more of the grounded style of animation.

Would ya'll be down to direct a Sausage Party 2?

CONRAD: Yeppppp!

GREG: Of course, absolutely. If we were lucky enough to be asked to do it. Then absolutely.

When Sausage Party releases tomorrow do you expect any backlash from the parents who just see cute food and take their kids to see it without knowing anything about it?

GREG: Sony has really, really gone out of their way to make sure it's very, very clear on all the marketing and all the posters. Everywhere you look it says this is an R rated movie. One weird and twisted part of my personality feels like that if you bring your kids because you assume that it's for little kids because it's animated, well you know what, you are going to get a rude awakening. I won't lose any sleep over it but hopefully it's up to the individual parent. We just had a flat screening of the movie here in Vancouver this afternoon and one of our employees that worked on the movie brought his whole family. And he had kids ranging from 7 to 15 and they all loved it. He said my kids are broad-minded kids and I am a broad-minded parent. But others might not be as broad-minded as him. (laughter) 

CONRAD: We put it on the beginning of the trailers and we definitely say Rated R at the end of every trailer. I think the posters say Rated-R and all of us in every interview when asked this question have said to not bring your kids unless you want them to see a Rated-R movie. So if by this time you are just wandering into the theater assuming that it’s going to be a Pixar animated film then you haven’t done your homework enough. I can say that. (laughter)

Frankly, do you enjoy a good sausage party?

GREG: (laughter) Of course, who doesn't enjoy a good sausage party.

CONRAD: It depends on what’s on the docket for the evening. I am not against them, I will put it that way.

GREG: Guess it depends on what’s on the other end of the sausage. (laughter)

Thank you so much for talking with us. Is there anything else you would like to add?

GREG: Just that we hope that everyone enjoys the movie as much as we enjoyed making it. Hopefully when people leave the theater they will say I wasn't expecting that. There is a lot more to the movie with subtext and different storylines. It's just not about what the name suggests..."just big old sausage party." There are a lot of thought provoking messages within the movie. Hopefully people will take that away after they see it. The main thing is there is just so much crap going on in the world today people need to laugh. We are going to give people a laugh this weekend.

To learn more, visit the official Sausage Party website.