This scene represents only a thin slice of Segel's sense of humor. "I tend to think life is funny ... I think humiliation is funny." Segel's sense of humor works, because the scene generated many a laugh at the screening of the film. Segel finds it successful because "being lonely and desperate is a very universal feeling; everyone's been dumped at one point. When you clue into an area that everyone is familiar with, it's a good area for comedy because the audience is with you. People are on your side as the person being dumped, so you have a lot of leeway to be desperate and creepy. It's sort of a trick."
This style of humor is what also got Segel noticed. "Judd and I are like-minded comedically. He appreciated people who remove their sense of shame and go for it. We formed this collaboration, and he tried to put me in everything he made. He came up to me a couple years ago after he made The 40-Year Old Virgin and told me he could now get movies made, and he asked me if I was writing anything. I told him I was writing Sarah Marshall." In Hollywood, friendships pay off, especially if that friend is Judd Apatow.
Segel's script works perfectly as an Apatow comedy. "These films are dramas with comedy layered on top. In order to do comedy right, you have to have drama," he said. The plot lines are dramatic: The 40-Year Old Virgin is about a desperate man keeping a secret, Knocked Up is about an unplanned pregnancy, and Superbad is about childhood friends coping with embarking on different college paths. A film about meeting your recent celebrity ex-girlfriend in Hawaii is no exception, as it is about a depressed man. These comedies aren't happy and jolly, but sad, which is why they're so hilarious.
Segel claims that despite all the depression, people see these films thinking, "This could happen to me."
The movie also needed to be realistic. "Sarah Marshall could not just be the bitchy ex-girlfriend … This character has to be likeable and charming," he said. "It's not a diatribe about a cheating girlfriend; relationships are complicated and that's what's going on here." The film becomes more real and believable, which makes it better and funnier.
Spring Break
