“Sex Tape” – A movie about a movie they don’t want you to see

“Annie and Jay are a married couple who are ten years down the road. They have two kids and they find themselves in that part of the relationship where they’re not doing their best to keep it alive. They have a very happy marriage, but like a lot of couples, there’s just no time to have sex,” says Cameron Diaz, who re-teams with her “Bad Teacher” co-star, Jason Segel, in Columbia Pictures’ outrageous new comedy “Sex Tape.”

“So Annie comes up with this idea – let’s make a sex tape. It’ll be exciting, it’ll be fun, and then we’ll erase it.”

“They film it on their iPad to watch once and – theoretically – erase it,” says Segel. “But Jay doesn’t erase it right away. And then there’s a cloud malfunction resulting from Jay’s use of a new app. Now, there are a bunch of people who should not have the sex tape who have the sex tape.”

And so begins a wild night of adventure as Annie and Jay try to return the video to the deleted items bin where it belongs – but in the tension of the chase, the truths of their relationship will come to the fore. “The movie is about the challenges of marriage, and trying to keep it fresh,” Diaz continues. “Losing the sex tape is something that might cost them, but instead it ends up strengthening the relationship – reminding them of the team they’ve always been.”

“It was an incredibly funny idea,” says Jake Kasdan, who directs the film. “And a perfect idea for Jason and Cameron, both of whom I just love working with. And it was an opportunity to make a big wild comedy about very real, human things– love and sex and marriage. As soon as Jason and I started kicking it around, I was laughing like crazy and I knew it was something we had to do.”

Kasdan says that balancing the tone of the comedy was an appealing challenge. “The comedies that I am attracted to can be big and silly and broad in places,” says Kasdan, “the same way life can be big and silly and broad in places. And the funniest stuff to me is always the stuff that feels most true. Ultimately, much of the execution is about the actors who play the parts, and both Jason and Cameron have this deep, inherent honesty to what they do.”

Segel says that Kasdan, Diaz and himself share a shorthand familiarity that made a risky – and risqué – project seem much safer and saner. “I’ve known Jake for fifteen years now, so we’ve been friends for a long time. We had a great time on `Bad Teacher,’ one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. It was a no-brainer to reteam the two of us with Cameron,” says Segel. “There’s so much intimate stuff in the movie, that I think the fact that the three of us are so comfortable with each other gave us the opportunity to up the humor. I felt really lucky to be there.”

That intimacy paid off when Kasdan, Diaz, and Segel shot the scenes of Jay and Annie shooting their tape. “Oh my God, it was hilarious,” says Diaz of shooting the scenes. “The most hilarious aspect was that Jake had to be a part of it,” she laughs. “It was not just Jason and me. It was Jason and me and Jake. We had these moments when Jason and I were in bed or in some funny position and we’d look up and see Jake looming over us trying to figure out what the shot was going to be. And we’d ask ‘Hey, Jake, how’s it going?’ So, yes, the funniest part was how the three of us spent those days, with Jason and me half-naked and Jake in there with us, requesting, ‘Can you guys do it faster, faster, slower, a little higher, a little lower?’ Jake had full control of our sexual positions.”

“It was just the three of us, trying to come up with every insane moment we could for a sex tape,” says Kasdan. “I shot most of the actual sex tape myself, with a handheld camera, as opposed to with a crew of a hundred people, so the video has a very homemade, handmade feeling to it. And the two of them were so incredibly free and brave and funny, it sort of knocked me out. Their ideas and their willingness to try any kind of joke… Even as I watch the movie now, there’s stuff in there that I can’t believe actually happened. But it all feels completely truthful, in the most hilarious, horrible way.”

Opening across the Philippines on August 13, 2014, “Sex Tape” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International.