Sudeikis: I fail at being funny

Jason Sudeikis doesn’t think he’s a funny guy.

The star has appeared in a number of comedies, most recently Horrible Bosses 2, and is known for his stint on US sketch show Saturday Night Live.

He’s currently shooting a film called Race, which is due out in 2016 and about the adversity Jesse Owens overcame to win medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. It shows another side to Sudeikis, but he’s not sure that’ll be much of a surprise for many.

“It is by no means a comedy. Jeremy Irons and William Hurt are in it. Someone’s playing Hitler,” he told British newspaper The Independent. “As far as it being a conscious choice, there’s an argument to be made that I’m not very funny to begin with so some people may think I’ve been doing drama the whole time!”

Horrible Bosses 2 is a sequel to the 2011 movie and sees the star reuniting with Jason Bateman and Charlie Day. This time they plan a kidnapping scheme rather than a murder plot, with Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston and Jamie Foxx also back for the ride.

Sudeikis and his co-stars were not intent on making a sequel and waited until the script was perfect before agreeing. It’s received mixed reviews, but the actor hopes people look beneath the service when judging it.

“Each boss personifies a different element, whether we’re being put on our heels due to a woman’s frank sexuality or Jamie Foxx’s character and the way he deals with race... Christoph [Waltz] challenges us on class, status and wealth, Spacey challenges our masculinity. Each one is almost like the archetype for the Everyman which we divide by three people to go through,” he said.

“While some people may just write it off as dumb, crude humour, I think they are maybe in a position of criticising films because of a lack of imagination than to see what’s actually going on there.”