Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Downhill's grounded approach to comedy

Ever since Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure first wowed audiences at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014, pop culture enthusiasts have been pointing out that its pivotal moment of cowardice seems to have been pulled from the book of George Costanza. So, could the film’s Seinfeld-ian milieu have been what compelled Julia Louis-Dreyfus to pursue an English-language remake? “You know, I hadn’t thought of it in that way,” the actor told us at the Downhill press junket last month, “I just liked it from a storytelling point-of-view.” It was her love of Östlund’s original vision—and his enthusiastic blessing—that made this take on the snow-covered family dramedy a reality. We spoke with both Louis-Dreyfus and her co-star Will Ferrell about the film’s unique sense of humor, and how it tested their own dynamic as an on-screen pair.