Paul Walter Hauser on His 'Psychotic' Year and Four Massive Films

Newsweek

06-08-2025

Paul Walter Hauser poses for a portrait during The BAFTA Tea Party presented by Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic and BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions at The Maybourne Beverly Hills on January 13, 2024 in...
Paul Walter Hauser poses for a portrait during The BAFTA Tea Party presented by Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic and BBC Studios Los Angeles Productions at The Maybourne Beverly Hills on January 13, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. More
Matt Winkelmeyer/BAFTA LA/Contour by Getty
"You also have to strike while the iron's hot."
Paul Walter Hauser is having what many would consider a career-best year. In the indie crime ensemble Americana (August 15), Hauser plays a veteran opposite Sydney Sweeney, describing them as "two real people who are lost and a little broken and they find each other." He credits everything great about the reboot of The Naked Gun—in which he plays Captain Ed Hocken Jr.—to Akiva Schaffer, who he believes is "one of our best comedy directors. Period." As Mole Man in Marvel's The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Hauser was surprised by how real the superhero story was. "It doesn't treat the audience stupidly. It has something grounded amidst the grandiosity." Rounding out his incredible year is the Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (October 24). Reflecting on the year, Hauser says it all comes down to one thing. "The through line was good writing." And he hopes it's a year like the one John C. Reilly had in 2002, when the actor "famously acted in three of the five best picture nominees. Maybe this is my John C. Reilly year." It's shaping up to be exactly that.
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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
You have so much going on right now, between Americana, The Naked Gun, Fantastic Four. Do you not like taking breaks?
I do like taking breaks, but not for long. My ideal break is having a month off or six weeks. And sometimes you don't work for six months, so you also have to strike while the iron's hot. I just had something happen in 2024 where I didn't really work for about three or four months, and it was getting very uncomfortable for a number of reasons. And out of nowhere, within like two weeks, I got offered The Naked Gun, New Line purchased our Chris Farley project that we had set up with Josh Gad and writers, [Scott] Neustadter and [Michael H.] Weber. And then Mark Wahlberg FaceTimed me and said, "Do you want to star in a movie with me at Amazon called Balls Up for Peter Farrelly?" And then Scott Cooper hit me up and said, "I'm writing this part for you in the Springsteen movie." And then match Matt Shakman said, "Hey, I want to offer you Mole Man in Fantastic Four." So it was a psychotic amount of things out of nowhere, and they all shot back-to-back. Marvel pushed all my scenes to the end so that I could do the Wahlberg movie. It's very seldom that all of the companies work together to try to help you out schedule-wise and for whatever reason that happened on these four movies.
Paul Walter Hauser and Sydney Sweeney in Americana.
Paul Walter Hauser and Sydney Sweeney in Americana.
Ursula Coyote/Lionsgate
Americana is one of the more unique films you have coming out this year. What stood out to you about this one?
Americana was just one of these things where I read it and I thought, "Well, this could be the next somebody as far as auteurs or people that everyone gets excited about." The way they did with Shane Black and Quentin Tarantino and Diablo Cody. I thought, "This is a voice, this is a brain working in concert with voice, and this is someone who loves storytelling in cinema." You could just tell right on the page. So I was ecstatic to get to be any part in that film. And it just so happens the way he cast it, I would randomly text Tony Tost and be like, "Hey, what about so-and-so for this or that?" I do that with everything I act in, whether I produce or not. I'm always just giving ideas and trying to be helpful. And Tony knew exactly who he wanted for every role. And he was really dogged about knowing what he knew and sticking to his vision. And then when I saw the movie, I was like, "Oh my God, he got great performances out of everyone." There's no weak link in the bunch. It's a film that is so dependent upon the writing and the actors, you know? We don't have any big budget-y stuff to throw at you. So it really had to work, and like I've been saying in all my press, I think it's the best movie I've ever been a part of. I really, really do.
And you're also kind of the romantic lead in this, insofar as if you had to focus on who is the romantic lead in a film like this, it would be.
Well, I think there was a hiccup moment when he was like, "You're going to play opposite Sydney Sweeney." And I was like, "Are you sure?" That was a funny sort of thing at the start. But I also have watched people, say, for instance, I've watched people like Jack Black do The Holiday, where he's romancing Kate Winslet, who is one of the greatest actresses ever. There are moments where you get to see the less-than-perfect person have a nice, sweet, romantic arc or something. So I was pleased that I got to do it. I would like to do more things like that because I think it's very easy to just assume I'm gonna play a bunch of misshapen chaotic ne'er-do-wells.
Well it's also just refreshing to see someone normal in a part like that. Because you're a type we know, you're in our families.
Well, thank you. I think it's also done in a soulful, genuine way. It doesn't feel like some slimy team comedy where it's like the stoner video game enthusiast is going to date the prom queen. It's like, in this sense, it's just very much feels like two real people who are lost and a little broken and searching and they find each other. And they're kind of two halves of the whole to some degree. So yeah, I thought it was really sweet. It was really cool. I would just like to play more characters that feel like real people and not sort of heightened versions of people. That would be nice. Somebody asked me, they're like, "What do you still wanna do?" And I'm down to do anything. I'm down to do some weird experimental thing, a sci-fi, a horror, a Western, rom-com. To me, it's just about the writing and can I do something interesting with said thing. That's really intriguing to me.
Eddie Yu plays Detective Park, Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr. and Paul Walter Hauser plays Ed Hocken Jr. in The Naked Gun from Paramount Pictures.
Eddie Yu plays Detective Park, Liam Neeson plays Frank Drebin Jr. and Paul Walter Hauser plays Ed Hocken Jr. in The Naked Gun from Paramount Pictures.
Paramount Pictures
Another exciting project you're in is The Naked Gun. What did you think about joining this new iteration?
A dicey move for sure, same with Fantastic Four. Both [The] Naked Gun and Fantastic Four can go wrong, this can go very south. But with Naked Gun, it was the right team. I really believe that between Seth MacFarlane [producer], Akiva Schaffer [director and executive producer], Liam Neeson, Paramount's commitment to making a straight-up comedy, not just a bunch of attractive celebrities saying they're doing comedy. That, to me, that was a winning team. So I didn't have to be Michael Jordan. I could be Steve Kerr or Ron Harper, you know, sitting on the bench sharing a Bulls game. I'm still on the team. And that sounds so throwaway, but I really do mean it. There is some sort of brilliance to trying to join winning teams, it makes you look good immediately just by being involved. And then, hopefully, you get to do something that's fully additive to the filming experience for everyone. In this case, I was the straight man to Liam, which was also interesting because if you watch me in Cobra Kai or I, Tonya, there's nothing straight and narrow about that. Those guys are cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. So, it's very fun to challenge myself to be more subdued, to be a true supporting actor, in the realist sense, and to work under Akiva, who I don't know why people don't speak about him with more reverence comedically. I just think if you look at his work on Saturday Night Live and then something more juvenile like a Hot Rod up to something more refined like a Popstar, it's like this is one of our best comedy directors. Period. He's one of the only people doing it with their chest out, and not shirking away to go try to save the world with an independent film. I think that there's something really admirable about that. So, yeah, it could have went south, but I felt like I was joining a winning team. And slowly but surely you look at the call sheet and it's like, "Oh, we got Pam Anderson. We got Kevin Durand. We got Danny Huston. We got Busta Rhymes today." It was fun seeing the team assemble.
What impact did the original films have on you?
Oh, I think it was that healthy thing of a 7, 8, 9-year-old or whatever I was when watching it was the healthy thing, of seeing adults be silly. Especially [because] I grew up in a very religious household where you had to be serious a lot, at church and in school. And so when adults are really letting loose, which was something my dad really loved, he loved Monty Python and he loved Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. It's like that misbehavior is great, but I think what makes Naked Gun even more unique is that it kind of created a comedy tonality in and of itself, the same way that Family Guy perfected the art of the cutaway joke. And Peter, all of a sudden, is like, "Well, it's like that time that I was starving in a cave with the Little Caesars' guy." And then you cut to whatever that is. It's almost like they're taking some combination of an improv aside scene mixed with a newspaper's comic strip and doing it in animated prose or whatever.
(L-R) Natasha Lyonne and Paul Walter Hauser attend Marvel Studios' 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
(L-R) Natasha Lyonne and Paul Walter Hauser attend Marvel Studios' 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps' at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on July 21, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.How amazing is it that at this point in your career they're asking you to be in Fantastic Four?
It's very, very, very surreal. My life moves so fast, and I have so much I have to juggle mentally each day that I don't know that I fully have gotten to smell the roses, as my old agent says. I think I'm aware that I'm in some sort of garden or flower bed, but I don't know that I've smelled any of 'em yet.
What was it like shooting a film as big as Fantastic Four?
That movie, it doesn't treat the audience stupidly. It has something grounded amidst all the grandiosity. And I think, that's actually weirdly what I try to do with my acting. I'm usually playing in some odd intersection of the grounded and the grandiose or the broad and the subtle. Robert Duvall famously said a broad moment can be just as true and earned as a subtle moment. Because we embody both.
What was it like shooting it? I felt like I was on a Marvel movie. Let me really break it down. The script is like the Ark of the Covenant. The food is amazing. The wardrobe is amazing. The hair and makeup are amazing. The actors are all people that could do Broadway and win an Oscar, but could also do comedy and probably Guys and Dolls. And then you're just treated with respect and thoughtfulness and a guy like Matt Shakman has the malleability and humility to let you make choices. They're not trying to micromanage your performance. It was everything an actor could ask for. I spent a month in London to essentially shoot five, maybe six days of which turned into about two of those days on screen, you know? So it's a crazy machine, the way they crank you in and then switch out. But the experience was amazing. I literally would just go to work. And when I wasn't working, I was going to the movie theater and getting ice cream by myself. It was very much like a Kevin McCallister [Home Alone 2:] Lost in New York type of thing.
To add to all of that, you're ending your year in one of the most talked-about movies of the year: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. How does it feel to be part of a film with this much Oscar buzz?
That's gnarly. All four movies were offer only. And all four movies were ones that I was excited about for different reasons. If there was a through line between all four of those, I would say the through line was good writing. And that they were moving stuff around and gave a crap about me and my family. I always know whether or not to work with a studio or a filmmaker based on how they respond to my personal needs as it pertains to my wife and now three children. And if I can tell that they're kind of cold, heartless and don't give a sh** and don't remember my wife's name, I don't need to work with them, which is nice to find a way to sift things. But all these companies did, and they cared and they loved on me and my family and treated us so well. There are a lot of wonderful people in Hollywood that whatever stereotype you have, good or bad, it is just an absolute hodgepodge of people that love creativity and business and want to make good things. I really have met so many good people and these movies are reflections of good people and healthy relationships. And maybe that, by the way, maybe that's why these movies are so damn good. You're going to check the tomato meter and see a lot of red ripened heirlooms there, because I'm telling you, these are good people out to make good films for the right reasons. And there have been things that I pass on where I read it and I go, "This doesn't feel redemptive. I don't think this is going to do much for anybody." I think there are people that will love it, but like, I love Darren Aronofsky. I think he's brilliant. But also, I don't need to be in Requiem for a Dream. But I would love to be in Naked Gun. Love to be in Springsteen, that looks fun.
And also to your quote from Robert Duvall, you have that, too. Because he was able to go from Tender Mercies to like, Deep Impact. You're doing that, too.
Like a John C. Reilly year. In 2002, he famously acted in Chicago, The Hours and Gangs of New York, three of the five best picture nominees, and it's like, maybe this is my John C. Reilly 2002 year.