Taglines: Good Cop. Mad Cop.
FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) – the Fed – and Boston cop Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) – the Fuzz – couldn’t be more incompatible. But when they join forces to bring down a ruthless drug lord, they become the last thing anyone expected: buddies.
From DGA Award winner and Emmy® nominee Paul Feig, the director of Bridesmaids (worldwide theatrical gross: almost $300 million), THE HEAT takes a look at the odd couple pairing of two law enforcement officials who, to their everlasting shock, slowly find themselves on the same page. Starring Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock, whose films have grossed $2.9 billion worldwide, and Academy Award® nominee Melissa McCarthy, who has had two consecutive smash hit comedies – Bridesmaids and Identity Thief – in as many years, THE HEAT has bawdy laughs and real emotional stakes.
The Heat is an American buddy cop comedy film written by Katie Dippold and directed by Paul Feig. The plot centers on Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn and Boston Detective Shannon Mullins, who must take down a mobster. The film was released in the United States on June 28, 2013.
About the Film (2013)
When we meet Sarah Ashburn, she’s hoping for a promotion and high-tails it from her home base in New York City to Boston, to help solve the mystery behind several murders. Standing in Ashburn’s way is a hard-hitting Boston police officer, Shannon Mullins, who’s not happy that the FBI – especially the stuck-up Ashburn — is treading on her turf. Ashburn is determined to wrestle the case away from Mullins, but the disheveled, foul-mouthed, in-your-face cop is a formidable adversary. They’ll soon discover they have more in common than they ever thought possible, including their misfit status and complementary skillsets.
The Ashburn-Mullins dynamic is akin to that eternal physics problem about an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. Only, here, it’s hard to tell who is which. Ashburn is ambitious, talented, brainy, and possesses Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction and intuition. She’s always the smartest person in the room, and isn’t shy about letting everyone know it. The socially awkward Ashburn has no family, significant other, or even friends. Her only companion is a cat…that belongs to her neighbor.
“Ashburn’s effectiveness as an FBI agent comes from her meticulousness, stubbornness and thoroughness,” says Bullock. “But she’s completely inept when it comes to any kind of social interaction. She’s trying so hard to make up for that particular weakness that she becomes insufferably arrogant on the job. Ashburn is respected but not liked because she isn’t a team player. Every time she opens her mouth, people cringe.”
If Ashburn needs to be taken down a notch, then Mullins is only too happy to oblige. Mullins, says Melissa McCarthy, is “all kinds of bark, but no bite – though she might actually bite people.” Mullins grew up on the streets of Boston, and has a shoot-from-the-hip (and mouth) style of dealing with crime and its perpetrators. She’s the “yang” to Ashburn’s “yin.”
Ashburn likes to get inside people’s heads; Mullins prefers bashing them in. It’s not surprising, notes director Paul Feig that the dynamic between Ashburn and Mullins is initially antagonistic, because “Ashburn wants to prove herself by solving a big case, but Mullins doesn’t want Ashburn on her turf. Mullins will not back down. In fact, she’s used to people backing down from her.”
So, Ashburn is stuck with Mullins, but the FBI Special Agent eventually realizes that her new partner’s street smarts can be an asset in their pursuit of their criminal quarry. “By learning from Mullins how to be more instinctual, in-the-moment, and less cerebral, Ashburn breaks out of her shell, opens up her thinking, and becomes a better agent,” says Feig.
At the same time, Mullins learns from Ashburn how to exercise a little self-control, and to take a breath before beating the crap out of someone. Then something completely unexpected occurs. “We joke about this, but THE HEAT is kind of a love story,” says McCarthy. “Mullins and Ashburn struggle with each other, get past it, and then actually begin to enjoy working together. That brings some heart to the comedy. Nobody wants to watch two goofy people do things poorly. But Ashburn and Mullins together are better than the sum of their individual skills, so you’re rooting for them.”
Turning on ‘The Heat’
The Heat is the first produced screenplay by Katie Dippold, who has written for television shows like Parks and Recreation and MadTV. The film was born from Dippold’s love of buddy-cop movies. She has many favorites, but singles out the 1986 comedy-action film Running Scared, starring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as wisecracking Chicago street cops. “I’ve always enjoyed those kinds of movies,” says Dippold, who recently signed a deal to write another comedy for director Paul Feig. “The characters and actors always seemed like they were having so much fun.”
Dippold’s love of buddy-cop films provided the foundation for a script that ultimately transcended the genre with outrageous humor and heart. Feig sparked to the script, calling it “one of the funniest I’ve ever read.”
“It turns the genre on its head by adding some breasts,” jokes Bullock. “It’s gonna surprise people what women with breasts can do.”
When the filmmaker told Dippold that THE HEAT was going to be his next film, the neophyte screenwriter was flummoxed. “I thought I was being pranked,” Dippold admits. “I got an email saying that Paul wanted to have lunch with me. After reading the email, I sat there frozen for several minutes. Then, I thought it was a joke.”
“Well, that’s Katie,” says producer Jenno Topping. “She’s incredibly humble and real.”
With Dippold’s first draft in hand, Feig moved at warp speed to cast the film, a task facilitated by his visualizing his “dream team” in the script. “I’ve always been a fan of Sandra Bullock, and as I was reading I was just like, okay, Ashburn is Sandra. Ashburn felt like her. Sandra is so funny in movies and in real life. She’s confident and cool, but she’s also analytical about things to a point where it’s comical, and which I love. And that’s how I felt about the Ashburn character.”
“Sandra brings a sweet quality to what could have been an unlikable character,” adds Katie Dippold. “She really nails that ‘A+-student’ vibe, and she’s hilarious.” And McCarthy notes that, “Sandra is great, funny and weird. We are very much in sync.”
It didn’t take much convincing to bring Bullock aboard THE HEAT. She was a big fan of Bridesmaids, and eager to work with its director, Feig. “Watching Bridesmaids was one of those rare moments when I thought to myself that this is a person [Feig] I want to work with because you know he is going to make you better – and that he could turn THE HEAT into something memorable.”
To cast Mullins, Feig looked no further than his Bridesmaids breakout star, Melissa McCarthy. “On Bridesmaids, Melissa became my hero,” he says. “So, about 15 pages into reading THE HEAT, the idea of casting her just snapped into my head. The script, which was already hilarious, got ten times funnier when I read it while imagining Melissa as Mullins.
The chemistry between Bullock and McCarthy was evident from the first table read. “When we read the script [together] for the first time, Melissa and I would make the same faces, simultaneously,” Bullock recalls. “Our rhythms are different, but we worked so well together, they began to click. We made so many connections; it’s something I never thought I would have on this level.”
The strength of the Bullock-McCarthy dynamic, evident even then, inspired additional script fine-tuning. “By the end of that first read, it was obvious that Sandy and Melissa really inhabited these characters, and that it was up to Katie Dippold and me to take all that magic and get it into the script – and really let the women fly,” says Feig.
Dippold remained with THE HEAT through production, coming up with alternate jokes and character bits. “I always allow improv,” Feig notes,” but you must always start with a great script.”
For Dippold, the process was liberating. “Sandy and Melissa took what was on the page and made it funnier than I thought it could ever be,” she says. A particular favorite came during a Mullins’ tirade against her captain (played by Tom Wilson) – accusing him of lacking a set of testes – when he refuses her demand to boot Ashburn from the case. “Melissa really ran with the one scripted line, ‘Have you seen the captain’s balls?’ and turned it into something spectacular.”
The Heat (2013)
Directed by: Paul Feig
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Kaitlin Olson, Taran Killam, Raw Leiba, Michael Rapaport, Kathryn Shasha
Screenplay by: Katie Dippold
Production Design by: Jefferson Sage
Cinematography by: Robert D. Yeoman
Film Editing by: Jay Deuby, Brent White
Costume Design by: Catherine Marie Thomas
Set Decoration by: Kyra Friedman Curcio
Music by: Michael Andrews
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, strong crude content and some violence.
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: June 28, 2013
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