Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum don’t seem like a great comedic duo on paper, but together they make “21 Jump Street,” a film that shouldn’t work, a hilarious, surprisingly touching comedy.

The film screened at South By Southwest last week, and The Daily Texan participated in a round table interview with Hill and Tatum.

The Daily Texan: SXSW seems like a great place to bring this film and show it to a crowd.
Jonah Hill: Yeah, it’s been really fun. I made [Channing] wait to see it with an audience, with the crowd tonight, because South By is the best place to show a movie in the world. In fact, five years ago exactly, I was here promoting “Knocked Up” with Paul Rudd when I got the phone call asking me to adapt this TV show into a movie, and I started working on it five years ago exactly, in this same hotel. It’s kind of insane.

DT: Was it originally a comedy?
Hill: My agent said you should do it as a comedy, and I said, “Let me think about it. I don’t want to be someone who remakes things,” and that’s why one of the first jokes is about how lazy it is. I wanted to make “Bad Boys” meets a John Hughes movie, and that’s the idea I had and that’s what I feel like we’ve done our best shot at, our best version of.

DT: When you two first met, could you tell that you had that chemistry that would translate so well on screen?
Hill: It’s crazy because we took a gamble at it and ended up becoming great friends and got lucky that it worked.

Channing Tatum: Sometimes it’s not like that.

Hill: We didn’t know each other.

Tatum: We waved at each other from across a restaurant. “Superbad” came out, and I was like “’Grats, dude!” And he was like “Sup?” And that was it.

DT: How do you feel about the backlash from “21 Jump Street” … I don’t know what you would call them, purists, I guess?
Hill: We’ve heard that once today, and that made me laugh so hard. Those 15 people. There’s a script that’s a pure adaptation of the series, and I can get a copy of that to the 15 nerds who are complaining online. The writers of it actually came up to me and were like, “Oh man, your version is about a billion times better.”

DT: How did you decide what to keep from the original series?
Hill: We just wanted to pay homage at certain points, just to have that fun stuff for people who love the show, but “21 Jump Street” purists … It’s like, “Shut the fuck up!” You know, it’s not like we remade “The Godfather.” I would never remake something that was like a brilliant, amazing thing. It was something that was fun, but it didn’t need a remake. What’s funny is, when you talk to young people, they don’t even know what “21 Jump Street” is.

Tatum: Just keep bringing it back. I don’t care. Remakes or not, good stories are good stories. Good movies are good movies.

Hill: Those people who are complaining, they haven’t seen the movie. What’s hilarious is, the best thing our movie has going for it is its extremely low expectations because it’s a remake of a television show. They always suck. Ours is good, and that’s the twist of the movie, that it’s not awful.

DT: Channing, was it difficult to keep up with the more experienced comedians on set?
Tatum: I don’t think you can keep up with these guys. They’re truly the elite of what they actually do, but they set a great stage for me to not feel bad about failing and really going for it.

DT: Jonah, what was it like getting to do action scenes?
Hill: It was fun. I liked it a lot. That’s why it was important to cast Channing opposite me because, in order for a movie to feel like “Bad Boys” meets a John Hughes movie, you need it to have some action credibility there, and I had never done action movies before, so I don’t have credibility in that universe and Channing has done a ton of it and is amazing at it. It was really fun, honestly. There’s no other way to put it.

DT: It seemed like there were some bits from the trailers that didn’t make it into the movie. There was a scene where Channing runs over you with his car and the windshield is smashed.
Tatum: That’s interesting. We saw a really early cut of the movie. I haven’t seen the movie either.

Hill: I know there’s been a lot of backlash from windshield purists.

Published on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 as: "21 Jump Street' stars discuss film