I'm the director of “Long Shot.'”

“Are you O.K.?”

“Yeah, I'm O.K. Are you O.K.?”

“In this scene, we find Fred Flarsky,

played by Seth Rogen, and Charlotte Field,

the Secretary of State, played by Charlize Theron.”

“Oh, we could have just died.”

“They are in an underground bomb shelter

because they have been on the road.

Fred is Charlotte's speechwriter,

and they have been writing her big campaign speech.

She's going to announce her presidential run.

And in doing so, they found themselves

in the middle of a firefight in another country,

and they had to kind of take shelter.”

“I just have so many regrets, just so many terrible things.

When I was 12, I peed on a dog to impress an older kid.

The dog didn't like it.”

“And with this scene, what we wanted to accomplish

is we wanted —

there you see another bomb has hit —

and what we wanted to accomplish

was we really wanted to show this

is where their relationship goes from them just

being friends and sort of connecting

over intellectual things and humor

into a more romantic mode.

And we really wanted to show how tension

can precipitate that.”

“Four seconds in.”

“(WHISPERING) I, 2, 3, 4.”

“You don't have to count while you're doing this.”

“It helps me.

1, 2, 3, 4.”

“Of course, this is a comedy first and foremost.

But it is also we were attempting

to be as romantic as we possibly could,

and we really wanted to exist tonally

in this area between sort of absurdity and naturalism.

So you know you'll see that we're

taking a lot of the situations they're in

and we're depicting them very, in a very serious grounded

way whether that be with the cinematography

or the production design.

And the actors also are finding a very

naturalistic way to play the scene.

And what's so great about Seth is

you know he can be absurd and naturalistic

at the same time.

He is always acting like a real person,

but he's acting like a person who

has some very big reactions to things.

But you always believe in it.

I think that's why he's so funny.

And Charlize, of course, is incredibly believable.

And she's probably found herself

in situations like this in many dramatic movies.

But when we juxtapose her with Seth's energy,

and we kind of try to find, you know, places for jokes,

we really just find that that's the best

place for this movie to live.

And that's how we can be funny and romantic and feel real.

What I love about this moment is that in this moment

they are not the secretary of state and a speechwriter.

They're just kind of a guy and a girl.”

“I feel like maybe you want me to kiss you right now.

But I don't want to make the same stupid mistake

I made 25 years ago.”

“It wouldn't be a stupid mistake.”

“Wait.

Really?”

“And that, to me, is something that I found very exciting — “

“We secured a location.”

“ — in approaching a romantic comedy is just conveying

those moments.

And when you have two great performers like this,

they make you look good.”