The first images from the forthcoming live-action Smurfs movie have hit the web. Check out Hank Azaria as the evil wizard Gargamel.

ComingSoon.net posted several pictures yesterday from the New York set of the movie, one of which is below. For the others, head on over to their original post.

He’s almost a perfect match for the cartoon, isn’t he? Still, I don’t know what to think about this movie. The basic story is that our favorite little blue guys (Voiced by Jonathan Winters, Katy Perry, Alan Cumming, George Lopez, Gary Basaraba, Anton Yelchin, Fred Armisen, John Oliver, Paul Reubens, Kenan Thompson, B.J. Novak, Jeff Foxworthy, Wolfgang Puck) stumble into a portal. Which takes them into Central Park in Manhattan where they meet a couple (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays) who help them thwart Gargamel’s evil plot.

Well I’m torn. I love the Smurfs but I don’t know whether this film is going to be another fun adventure or a catastrophic failure. Is anyone really looking forward to this?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Atomic Popcorn: What was your favorite part about working on a Tarantino set?

B.J. Novak is a Basterd

B.J. Novak: Quentin Tarantino, watching him direct – which is a performance in and of itself, wondering how it did, I have always been fascinated by how Tarantino makes his movies. You kind of see the authorship in the film at work but you can’t picture how he comes up with stuff. He’s very loud and performative, to watch him transform his ideas on the set was just awesome. It’s like going to the Tarantino film school.

Atomic Popcorn: Do you feel you have to match his energy every day?

B.J. Novak: Oh I could never match his energy; I am the opposite of his energy you know? We would be a great Vaudeville duo: the bombastic director and the quiet writer. Yeah, there is no chance, Eli came much closer to that then myself.

Atomic Popcorn: So you were the “little one” but you made it to the end and you basically got the two climactic scenes for the Basterds and the final defeat, so what was it like building up to those moments and materializing those moments?

B.J. Novak: Well, first of all, not to give anything away, but one cool thing about the character that Quentin always told me he conceptualized for me that he was frustrated with war movies where you know who lives and dies. So he wanted to play with audience expectations and focus on some people and kill them off and hide some people and have them emerge, he said it would be funny to have the guy who is supposed to get killed first make it to the end. So i think that was where the surprise and fun of Utovich [disappearing] for so long comes from. The backstory to the character and the interplay with Aldo and stuff really came from one scene in the vet’s office where everyone gets their jobs and I think its on the longer script and will be on the DVD or something. That’s where sort of the rehearsal process of that and just a general rehearsal process where went through everyone’s backstory and talked about how people knew each other and how they played it. He’s very much a believer in that, in essence a high school or college theater where you have the time to spend to be sort of theater-nerdy about your character and his motivations which is fun because you’re on a Tarantino set and all you want to do is play and think and talk and have fun, and talk about the movie, so you don’t want to do your job and you don’t want it to end, so it was cool that he felt the same way.

Atomic Popcorn: Why do you think your character was named little man?

B.J. Novak: ‘Cause I don’t think there was a character named medium-sized man, I think I would have been much better suited to it but I couldn’t do it ’cause I don’t think the medium-sized man wouldn’t have been as funny. I almost didn’t make it and I definitely wouldn’t fit the Bear Jew role [laughs].

Atomic Popcorn: Can you talk about some of the graphic scenes? Did you have fun with that?

B.J. Novak: You know, I thought I would hate it, I am really not a fan of violence in movies and what I like about Tarantino is the humor and the dialogue and the characters, I wasn’t exactly covering my eyes for the violence, so it was kind of odd to find myself in that part of a Tarantino movie but that was my job and that was my homework. I had scalping lessons and I looked it up on the internet and after awhile it became like a calculus test I wanted to get a A on. I hate calculus, too, but I was a good Jewish boy who did his homework and that was what Utovich was but if that was his homework assignment from Aldo he’s damned if he wasn’t going to get a A. That’s how I approached it on the set.

Atomic Popcorn: Did you have challenges with keeping to the script because of Tarantino’s rules on his script?

B.J. Novak: It’s a lot easier when you only have about ten lines, it was not a challenge for me – in fact it was a joy because I worked 99 percent of my life as a writer and to have someone else write for me and to get the opportunity to say Tarantino’s words was once in a lifetime as far as I was concerned and I wasn’t going to eff it up by, you know, throwing in some more B.J. Novak words that I am sick to death of… it was to turn off the writer’s side of my brain.

Atomic Popcorn: How did you get involved in the project? Did he watch “The Office”?

B.J. Novak: He seems to watch everything,, one question I have been dying to ask him, one night when we went for drinks in Germany, I wanted to ask him what don’t you like? Cause he seems to find so much grayness in everything, in every movie and there’s plenty of things he doesn’t like and he’s very articulate about them. You should ask him if you ever get the chance, it’s very interesting. He did watch “The Office”, he was specific about some jokes and comic timing, and I knew he liked that specifically. I don’t know exactly how Hollywood works, every agent takes credit for everything, I don’t know what list I was on or what casting director or what favor what agent pulled or whatever. He said he wanted whatever Jewish-American actors in their twenties and I guess all the Apatow actors were busy. [laughs]. I must of showed up on some list, you know? And then I had a meeting and it went really well and I was just under the line of the 5-9 little man. I don’t know how it works, sometimes your agent calls, sometimes they don’t.

Atomic Popcorn: How much did you immerse yourself in the time period?

B.J. Novak: I read a lot of books about the time period and a lot of soldier accounts of the time period and watched a lot of movies from the time period like The Dirty Dozen. I wanted to watch a German film called Lucky Kids, Julie had it but asking to go to her hotel room to watch it with her sounded too sketchy so I didn’t end up asking. I really wanted to see it, plus I didn’t speak any German and since it wasn’t subtitled I wouldn’t understand it anyways.

Atomic Popcorn: What about wool underwear?

B.J. Novak: Who told you that?

Atomic Popcorn: Eli Roth

B.J. Novak: Sound like it, [laughs]. Sounds like a Eli thing.

Atomic Popcorn: You didn’t go into character that far?

B.J. Novak: Wool underwear?! [laughs], I don’t know what his relationship was with Anna Shepard, she didn’t provide me with that.

Atomic Popcorn: In Tarantino movies, there are no small roles, so this is your chance to leave a stamp on the film, did you feel that?

B.J. Novak: Yah, I did feel that, one of my friends Bret from “The Office” said to me, “You’re going to be a part of film history, doesn’t matter how big or small the part is, Tarantino is film history and you’re going to be a part of film history,” and I kept that with me the whole time, I think his films hold a special place. When I got back to the set of “The Office” Steve Carrel, you know, all these other people with huge careers who have been working with me for years and years, I was different to them, I was this guy who had done this magical thing. They still ask me all the time, “So when Tarantino this [or that], what did Tarantino say?” You can be a big movie star or do any type of project, there is something about even a small or medium-sized part in a Tarantino movie playing even the little man, in this movie, I think, would be big.

Atomic Popcorn: Were they jealous?

B.J. Novak: I think maybe of the life experience, we writers are so trapped in this little airless room and the worst part of the valley. I think they thought I was on a yacht in the South of France with Brad Pitt the entire time. It was in their head and they didn’t think of the lonely cold nights in a Berlin hotel room… maybe some jealousy from other writers but when I was let go to do [Inglourious Basterds], they compared it to a tradition in Russian prisons long ago. They would let a person go every year and it would always be the best storyteller; the person would have to come back as long as they could tell stories to keep the prisoners entertained for the year. They said I was that lucky prisoner let go for the year and I would have to entertain them with stories.

Atomic Popcorn: How much was cut from the original film?

B.J. Novak: A TON! Hours and hours. There’s a scene in the vet’s office that I know was cut in half and I don’t know how it turned out and I hope it’s shown sometime, I think he knew if the ultimate cut was released it would be 9 hours long.

Atomic Popcorn: Any favorite scenes?

B.J. Novak: I love when Melanie is getting ready to blow up the theater and David Bowie music is playing and she’s putting on warrior-like make up and she’s going to this glamorous premiere, its so Tarantino to me because its so feminine and visual but it’s in the service of something so violent and action-packed, it can only be Tarantino.

Atomic Popcorn: What did you take away from working on the project?

B.J. Novak: Don’t be afraid to trust your instinct, I don’t think Tarantino fit into any box when he started out and he stayed true to his vision and he didn’t listen to anybody that told him to make it like the other movies coming out. He listened to himself, if you’re good listen to yourself and have people imitate you if you can. And no one has more imitators then Tarantino. I hope I am good some day and people try to knock me off and by doing that don’t knock off other people. From Brad Pitt, I learned, don’t let anything bother you, because he has more distractions in his life then anyone I ever seen, and he never wore it in public. When he was with you it was all about the scene, it was all about you, it was all about what was going on, not about the thousand headaches, distractions, fake rumors, and the people who wanted a piece of him. I thought, man, if Brad Pitt can keep his cool and keep from complaining and from being too big…

Atomic Popcorn: As a Jew what was it like being a movie that you kill Hitler?

B.J. Novak: You know I thought it would be more personal from that angle, to me it felt like a good-guy-bad-guy movie, people know who the bad guys are and I don’t think you have to be Jewish to look at Hitler and think “bad guy”. Maybe it was moiré personal to other people in the case but it was just like any other good-guy-bad-guy movie.

Atomic Popcorn: Tarantino waited a long time to release his final draft of Inglourious Basterds because he didn’t think it was perfect enough yet, is there anything that your working on now that you are still waiting to release until it’s perfect as well?

B.J. Novak: That’s a great question, I mean it’s something I want to say. I have learned these lessons watching Tarantino, I can’t necessarily say it, I can apply them, I don’t know – I think every writer must fight [his] own fear and I think there are plenty of obstacles like that but I guess it means specifically to not write things to please other people if it doesn’t please you, is the lesson I learned from Tarantino. Don’t just try to be a working writer, be a artist, if you like this film or not you can tell Tarantino is a artist with a capital A. There aren’t that many people like that or who even aspire to be like that right now, it’s kind of old-fashioned and I loved it. I loved being around it and I want to have the courage to try and do that myself and there are other obstacles that you face when you try to be a artist. Pretentiousness is a deadly one, but it’s trying to do something great and I think there’s a few people out there that I really think of as artists that boldly struck out in a direction and succeeded.

Atomic Popcorn: Do you think most artists aren’t really that pretentious?

B.J. Novak: Some are very, and some are not at all and some don’t think of themselves as artists, some do their job as well as they can and it’s elevated to the level of art. Some artists have crazy egos and you can’t even talk to them and you just wanna watch them work, some are humble and are nerdy and articulate. I have only met a few in my life and I consider myself lucky to have met them. Ricky Gervais is someone who I consider a artist with a capital A, did something so different and could not be more sort of humble and normal and wonderful, the small sense that I don’t think he consider himself a artist, despite his aspirations to do great, brave, bold things. There are many types and I think it might be separate things trying to be a good person and tying to be a great artist. And I admire them separately too, and I admire Quentin for trying simply to be a great artist – not just a rich filmmaker.

Atomic Popcorn: Thank you so much

B.J. Novak: Thank you for coming

Finally. Something else I can add to my wall.

The new international poster for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds has hit grandma’s interwebs and we are lucky enough to find it. Maintaining the true international poster style, this one-sheet is mostly lame with a side of a haunting Eli Roth. But, with that said, it appears Brad Pitt is walking into my soul.

Basterds stars Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Eli Roth, Samm Levine, B.J. Novak and Til Schweiger. It opens August 21, 2009.

What the ef are you looking at?

Sure, all the controversy is around Antichrist, but all the fun is definitely centered on Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds which debuted last night at Cannes. In honor of the festivities, here are a few clips from the movie which is due out August 21st.

Tarantino’s Basterds acts as a re-envisioning of Enzo G. Castellari’s The Inglorious Bastards from 1977. It stars Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Nastassja Kinski, Samm Levine, Mike Myers, and B.J. Novak.