“Danny and Wheeler were just sentenced to 150 hoursmentoring kids. Worst idea ever.”
– Role Models Tagline
Let’s say you’re one of a couple of salesmen and you accidently crash your company’s truck while on a bender...of too many energy drinks. And let’s say you get arrested and are given a choice by the court: either do hard time or spend 150 hours doing community service with a kids mentoring program. And let’s also say that when you go with appears to be the obvious easier choice, after just one day with the kids, jail doesn’t look so bad after all.
Such is the premise for Role Models, the new comedy starring LA95 IMTA alum Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd that opens tomorrow. Scott plays Wheeler, a charmer who is addicted to women and partying, but is an overgrown adolescent whose idea of quality time is a keg party on Venice Beach. He is assigned to mentor a fifth-grader with a foul mouth (Bobb’e J. Thompson) and must tailor his own immaturity to that of his young charge. Wheeler’s co-hort Danny (Rudd) is assigned to a bashful 16-year-old who is obsessed with medieval role play. Together the two men try to make it through their probation without getting thrown in jail, all the while being proper examples of what not to be as “role models.”
Following the release earlier this year of The Promotion in which he co-starred with John C. Reilly, Scott began working on his current project: voicing the character Skiff in the animated comedy adventure Planet 51, scheduled for release in 2009. Planet 51 is a funny reverse alien invasion story centered on the little green people with antennas who inhabit Planet 51, and who live in fear of being invaded by beings from another planet. When an American astronaut lands his spaceship on the planet, thinking that no one lives there, the inhabitants’ paranoia is unleashed and the real adventure begins. Fellow IMTA alum Jessica Biel, Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long and John Cleese will also be lending their voices to Planet 51.
Scott is also in production on Coxblocker, a comedy in which he serves as co-Executive Producer and co-star with Topher Grace. In the feature film, also scheduled for release in 2009, William Cox (Grace) meets his ideal woman, only to find his advances continually blocked by her ex-boyfriend/current best friend (Scott), who is trying to find a way to win her back.
Scott will appear on NBC’s “The Ellen Degeneris Show” on November 10th promoting Role Models. Clips of Scott competing at IMTA will be shown during his interview with Degeneris as he discusses how he got his start in show business. Check local listings for air time.