Jonah on 'Wolf' Fight Scenes & Making Leo Puke
In Martin Scorsese's bio-romp The Wolf of Wall Street, Jonah Hill portrays the best friend and business partner of Leonardo DiCaprio's real-life character, former high-flying corporate raider Jordan Belfort. We recently sat down with Jonah to discuss his self-indulgent, "unhinged" character, and also got him to spill details on a devious on-set prank that ended with Leo losing his lunch!
"I think Jordan really craves power and leadership, almost like a cult leader," Jonah explains about the dramedy's main character. "And Donnie (Jonah's character Donnie Azoff) is just someone who just wants all the excess of life -- drugs, women, money and all that stuff."
Jonah reveals that one of the challenges in the role was learning to effectively converse while wearing oversize teeth veneers: "I had a really bad lisp when I put them in and I had to learn how to re-talk to get rid of the lisp." He says the best way he found to practice his speech was by calling employees at retail giant Best Buy in character with his fake teeth in.
"Nobody would stay on the phone with me basically that I knew -- it sounded crazy -- 'Can I talk to you in character,'” he joked. "So I would just call Best Buy and talk about different products with people until I was rid of my lisp."
The 21 Jump Street star also revealed the favorite movie scene he's ever done, involving a practical joke on Leo. At one point in the film, the script called for Jonah's character to keep eating pieces of sushi, but when Jonah left out part of the line, it meant that Leo had to eat the pieces, take after take after take.
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"So he had to eat all night, eat pieces of sashimi all night, and then
by the end of the night, he was on the floor throwing up into a
waste bin. And everybody was like, 'Are you okay, are you okay?' And I was laughing hysterically because I thought it was really funny!"
Watch the video for more, including Jonah talking about doing intense fight scenes and getting to experience firsthand the longstanding working relationship between Leo and Martin. The Wolf of Wall Street hits theaters December 25.
The Wolf of Wall Street hits theaters December 25.