After Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell promoted their movie Get Hard by by presenting their lost audition tapes the comedy duo went for a more grassroots approach. The stars of the movie took to the streets of Austin during the SXSW festival to talk to the common folk and discuss “Kevin’s Boner Jams.”
Ferrell and Hart quizzed SXSW revelers about Soul Plane, guessed strangers’ names with incredible inaccuracy and met “Lionel Richie.”
This promotional effort went a lot smoother than a screening earlier in the week when one filmgoer said that the movie was offensive. During the Q&A after the film with Get Hard‘s screenwriter and first-time director Etan Cohen (Tropic Thunder), an audience member said, “This film seemed racist as fuck.” To which Cohen responded, “That’s not a question.”
“I’m not done,” questioning viewer replied.
“Soon you will be,” Cohen retorted.
“Were you nervous — and/or how nervous were you — presenting this in front of a live audience being completely, absolutely and unapologetically … racist and hysterical at the same time?” the person in the crowd finished.
Cohen admitted the film’s tone had been “a really hard delicate balance to find.” The director added, “When we were testing this movie, Ferguson was going on, so it was a really hard thing to modulate because we wanted to make a real statement about this stuff. We wanted to see just how far we could push it where we could be provocative and people would actually think about this stuff and think about the stereotypes, but not go too far where comedy doesn’t deserve to go.”
Should have just stuck to talking about Kevin’s Boner Jams.