The same can be said for Dinner for Schmucks, there is a whole lot of funny going on. But with all the slapstick and the laugh out loud moments, there is a heart beating underneath. Again, a smart comedy that dares to be dumb, and yes, that is a compliment.

When iamROGUE spoke to Mr. Roach, he was kind and very excited about his latest. While many are wondering when a new Austin Powers would hit, he set the records straight, at least for now. Read on, and go see Dinner for Schmucks. It is a dinner invite you won’t want to turn down.

I gotta say, I kept looking at this character [Steve Carell’s Barry] and I wanted to kill him.

[Laughing] Yeah, that’s what you’re meant to do. And then when he gets up there with the “Tower of Dreamers” you go, ‘Alright…! You got me!’

Where did this character come from?

Well you know, it’s based on… or inspired by, because we went so many different directions from the original but it was inspired by the French film Le dîner de cons. Steve and the writers really found some other thing. You know, he’s got a whole other life. Part of it for me, part of the way in was going off this notion that he’d lost his ex-wife to Zack Galifianakis. And [he] was a lonely guy who liked being with people but had no capability to get friends. So he makes these dioramas with taxidermy mice dressed as people [Laughing]. It was a guy who had time, too much time, sitting around doing that broke my heart and also made me laugh. And I knew he’d be trouble for Paul’s [Rudd] character so that was really important.

Whose idea was it to have stuffed mice?

I think it came – you know, my dad was a hunter when I was a kid and he always had taxidermy animals around, and I thought they were creepy and funny. And I had heard that there were people who did taxidermy on tiny creatures and Dave [Guion] and Mike [Handelman], the writers and I came up with it. I think we were all working on it together. Because we worked on this script for years and we kept looking for a weird hobby for him. We came up with a number of bizarre types of things he could be doing. But somehow this one seemed like it would have enough edge to not be too cute, but could occasionally get to you on an emotional level too.

Yeah, it’s surprisingly touching, [laughing] the tower of dreamers.

And that is all Mike and Dave, the two writers came up with that and it’s not improvised. You know, we improvise a lot, but they wrote this world class speech for Steve and he loved it, so we went to town.

Well he pulled it off really well, because I was actually wondering how much of it was improvised.

Yeah, well you know Zack and Steve improvised and a lot of stuff with Steve and Jemaine. And a number of other things, Kristen Schaal and David Walliams improvised a lot. But that one scene, for some reason, it was just so beautiful and so well written that it kind of had to be tight because we spent months making every one of those dioramas. And each one had its own story that went with it. And Steve always adds such a great flourish. He said about the mice, “…back in the time before we walked erectus…” [Laughing] and using the word ‘erectus’ instead of erect made me laugh, but it’s that kind of great detail that Steve Carell can add to something.

It is such a joy to see this cast. You have a lot of very funny actors coming along for the ride.

Yeah, we lucked out. I think Zack and Jemaine in the same movie… I’m such big fans of both of them. On top of already having two of my favorites of all time, Steve and Paul and then we just accumulated all these other great people to play even some of the smaller parts. Bruce Greenwood, Kristen Schaal and David Walliams, from Little Britain… I actually looked at my board, I was kind of building on the board, and it never seemed like any of it was going to come together, and it all came together. It just seemed like, ‘Oh my God! I’d better not screw this up, this is good!’

Well I think the funny thing about the film is there is such a dark undercurrent. I mean, you can’t not go there with this character, it’s so freakin’ heartbreaking.

Ah, thanks man! ‘Cause you know, they were so worried at the beginning that it would seem as cold or cruel. And certainly what the guys do at the dinner, there is a certain element of mockery and cruelty to it, but I always knew that the characters, especially Steve’s would win out. The warmth would win out. So I’m glad to hear you say that, I hope the audiences see it that way. In the previews they have, it’s played really well.

Were there ever any concerns that there would be backlash since people are not necessarily happy with the constant remakes? Although, this is very different from the original…

I think it is, and Steve Carell gave me courage, but it didn’t really matter because how he did it on The Office. I loved Ricky Gervais ‘Office’ and I thought it was so crazy for them to think about trying to redo that. And Steve never watched the original ‘Office’. He just dove into it, and made it his own. And I have never seen an episode yet on the American ‘Office’ that I didn’t like as much as the old one. But it’s different.

I knew he would do the same. He didn’t watch the movie. You know that guy, Jacques Villeret, who did the French version, was brilliant. And Steve’s performance is completely different and a lot of the story is different too. There is no third act in that film and, you know, the Jemaine Clement character… there are so many differences that we call it inspired by more than based on. But it was Carell’s choices that, to me, made it its own thing. And the writers kind of went in good ways, different directions. Like with things like the mice and the “tower of dreamers”, so I never have really worried about it. It’s always the first thing people ask about and I think it is just one of those programmed things people have to be curious about. And I totally respect that. Especially because that film is freakin’ great, I hope they recommend the other film. But it’s a very distinct difference; it just feels like it’s its own film. And Francis Veber, the guy who wrote and directed the French film has become a friend through this and has always said you have to make it your own. People always try to be too faithful to my movies. They remade a lot of them, you know and he was also very encouraging.

French films often have a timelessness about them which somehow helps it to relate to an American audience… I hope so. I really think the original film in English would have played great here. You could do that exact film here and it would be great. But I knew we could top it, so I just wanted to go a different way. And certainly, just adding the third act would be a pretty big change I think, because it was based on a play and it had a certain theatrical character to it. I thought we could go a little further with it.

Now I have to ask you, since you are one of those rare directors that can make a franchise work and now we’ve got Little Fockers coming up – which is hilarious to hear the tour guides at Universal Studios constantly say on the tour…

[Laughing] Yeah, I wish I could have done it. I worked on the script for a long time with my writing partner, but with this one, I was already committed on this. And then Ben’s [Stiller] window came up and then De Niro’s window came up, it was too late to shift. But I was really happy to get Paul Weitz on. I’ve been involved in the script, the casting; I’m back involved in the post. They were shooting the exact same time we were so there was no way I could do both.

Well at least you are a part of it and not completely out and washing your hands of it.

Oh no, I think it’s going to be great. It’s a whole new take which is really funny. It’s a great thing with them and Owen Wilson, this time he’s back with a really great character arch, so there are a lot of reasons to do it. It seems like a logical extension of it now he’s afraid of being a bad father.

Now I know that everyone is asking, but is it true that they are thinking about another Austin Powers movie?

I don’t know. There are rumors to that effect too, about every six months since the last one in 2002. But I kind of get numb to them because I hear about it. But it’s really up to Mike [Myers]. He’s got the character in his brain and the bible of what they can and will go through. But if he said, now I know what it is and what it should be, I’d happily join him. But there is no specific plan to do one right now. There is no schedule or anything like that.