Hollywood’s “Bad Boys” had a coming out party last weekend at the Academy Awards ceremony, with notorious firebrands Sean Penn and Bill Murray both vying for the Best Actor Oscar. Penn took home the precious gold statue, and in so doing served notice that a temperamental star need not play nice (or be named Jack) in order to emerge victorious in showbiz’s most hallowed arena. On the heels of Penn’s triumph, it’s fitting that we honor another renowned rascal with a coveted feature. “Starsky & Hutch” villain Vince Vaughn was arrested a few years back for a barroom brawl in North Carolina, and more recently was captured on “Celebrities Uncensored” discharging phlegm on the paparazzi outside a LA nightclub. Though he drinks, smokes and carouses with reckless abandon, his lifestyle has yet to impede his career. If anything, Vaughn’s swagger is part of what makes him such a hot commodity.
QUESTION: You worked with Luke Wilson in “Old School” and with his brother Owen on “Starsky & Hutch.” How do the two siblings measure up?
VINCE VAUGHN: I can’t win on that. Both of them are good. I’m going to get a chance to work with Owen next, in a more direct way than we did on (“Starsky & Hutch”), but I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. And Luke did a great job in “Old School,” and was fun to work with.
Q: Can you tell us about the project you’re doing with Owen?
VV: It’s called “Wedding Crashers.” We play guys who go to weddings and pretend to be related to someone, trying to meet girls.
Q: You’re also filming “Be Cool,” the sequel to “Get Shorty.”
VV: I shot until 6 in the morning today, yeah. It’s got a great cast. John’s (Travolta) in it, obviously. Uma, Cedric the Entertainer, The Rock, Andre 2000, I believe. I don’t know if he’s 2000 or 3000.
Q: 3000. VV: Is he 3000? Updated version? OK. Q: You’ve got a movie coming out in the summer called “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.” Do you got game … in dodgeball?
VV: It was fun playing it, but it’s a bit of a bear, that sport. I’m not embarrassed to say that I really got injured a lot playing dodge-ball because it’s very spastic, and I’m not — despite my appearance — not necessarily athletic or in shape. I’ve managed to be thin, but not have a muscle on me. So I threw my arm out throwing the ball. I don’t have great mechanics with throwing. And then you run and stop a lot, and then you have pains in your legs and back and stuff.
Q: “Swingers” came out of nowhere and launched the careers of you, Jon Favreau, Heather Graham and Ron Livingston. Are you surprised by the level of success enjoyed by the people who made that little movie?
VV: I thought all those guys were really talented, so I’m not surprised they did well. But on the other hand, it’s kind of strange because in making that movie, it was so far off the radar that it was just about getting it done. At the time, we thought there was no way that Miramax was really going to buy it. They did, and it was really well-received, and the life it’s had since then and the influence it’s had on pop culture — there was no planning for that.
Q: Was it difficult to adjust to the sudden fame?
VV: I have relatives who’ve had much harder experiences than learning how to be famous. Whatever your journey is in life, there’s always stuff that you’re not prepared for, that you have a learning curve with — where you grow up and mature at the same time you’re dealing with new information.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 5, 2004. Read the original PDF.