Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn’t the biggest comedy of the 2000s. But the movie features several incredibly funny scenes that permeated pop culture when it debuted in 2008. Arguably the most iconic moment is Peter Bretter’s (Jason Segel) nude breakup with the ritual Sarah (Kristen Bell) in his apartment. That ridiculous, cringy, hilarious scene comes directly from the writer and star’s actual life. But in a recent interview, Segel explained that the breakup was even wilder in reality, thanks to one detail left out of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Jason Segel wrote ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ based on a true experience
Peter’s split with Sarah serves as the starting point of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It sends him to Hawaii for his eventual romance with Rachel Janson (Mila Kunis). Segel was 24 when he wrote the screenplay. And like many young writers, he looked to his own past for inspiration.
He talked about the breakup during a 2023 guest appearance on Conan O’Brien’s podcast Conan Needs A Friend. When his girlfriend called him from the airport asking to come over, Segel had a very optimistic view of what was about to go down.
“As an adolescent young man, I thought that meant ‘we’ve been apart, I need to have sex,’” he recalled. “I had decided that the way to kick off the sex was that I was waiting on the couch totally naked posed like a Botticelli painting.”
Once his soon-to-be ex said the dreaded phrase “we need to talk,” Segel realized that he was in for a much less enjoyable afternoon. Despite the emotional whiplash, he was self-aware enough to see the comedy in the moment, a character trait he understands is not necessarily positive.
“The whole time — I think this [was] maybe the problem — I’m thinking ‘this is so funny, this is gonna be amazing when I write it’ as it’s happening,” Segel admitted. “It was absurd what was happening.”
Judd Apatow convinced him to leave out one part of the story
The original draft of Forgetting Sarah Marshall included more to this scene, making it even funnier.
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At some point during the conversation, Segel excused himself to put on some clothes, but finding the right outfit for such an occasion proved to be difficult. “I spent like 25 minutes picking out an outfit. I was taking shirts off and throwing them on the ground, then trying on pants that don’t fit right,” he said. Segel continued, “I came out in a button-up blue shirt and tacky pants. And then I said [to my girlfriend] ‘I’m wearing your favorite outfit!’”
It’s a funny anecdote. But Siegel cut it on the advice of co-producer Judd Apatow to improve the pacing.
More Jason Segel has shared about ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’
Segel’s unique worldview and interests impacted Forgetting Sarah Marshall in other ways.
Peter’s desire to make a Dracula puppet musical was based on a script Siegel had written with the same premise after the cancellation of Freaks and Geeks. Somehow, he couldn’t get anyone to finance this idea. However, he later went on to write, produce, and star in The Muppets (2011), so he sort of achieved this dream.
Remeber Infant Sorrow frontman Aldous Snow’s (Russell Brand) signature song “Inside of You? Segel explained it came from one of the biggest alt-rock singles of the 1990s.
“We were both trying to think: What is the worst song that you can hear your ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend sing in front of you? I was listening to Dave Matthews Band’s ‘Crash Into Me,’ and it’s just such a thinly veiled metaphor. ‘Crash into me.’ So then I thought, ‘Why not push it just one step further and remove the veil?’” Segel said in a chat with Maxim.
Brand is great as Aldous, but he was not the first choice for the role. The part was initially offered to Charlie Hunnam, who worked with Segel and Apatow on the TV show Undeclared in 2001. He turned it down because he was stuck in “a dark night of the soul in may career” and wanted to pursue other paths as an actor.
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