Larry the Cable Guy returns for another comic misadventure as a small town sheriff who unwittingly gets involved in a high profile FBI case in Lionsgate’s new comedy, WITLESS PROTECTION. During a routine day spent patrolling his small town, Larry witnesses a beautiful, high-class woman, Madeleine, being held against her will by four mysterious, black-suited men. Recognizing the opportunity to save the day, Larry “kidnaps” her, only to learn that Madeleine is actually a key witness in a high-stakes Chicago crime case and her captors are FBI agents assigned to protect her. Madeleine is furious. But Larry, who rightly suspects the agents are crooked and Madeleine is in danger, forces her on a harebrained trip to Chicago to solve the case himself. Together, the hilariously mismatched duo must grapple with angry FBI agents, quack doctors and Chicago high society in his funniest, most unpredictable adventure yet.

WITLESS PROTECTION is written and directed by Charles Robert Carner and stars Larry the Cable Guy, Ivana Milicevic, Yaphet Kotto, Peter Stormare, Eric Roberts, Joe Mantegna and Jenny McCarthy.

Following years of stand-up, multiple television specials and two successful feature films, Larry the Cable continues his hilarious blundering in Lionsgate’s WITLESS PROTECTION, this time becoming embroiled with the FBI and a high-profile Chicago criminal case. But while the adventure is all new, fans can take comfort in knowing that Larry is still the same crude-but-charming blue collar guy prone to comic disasters.  “I’m basically doin’ an extension of me, mixed in with everybody I’ve ever grown up with in my life,” says Larry of his on-screen persona. “I grew up in a town of twelve hundred and it was just wheat and corn and cows. And pigs. I hung out at the cattle barn ever since I was a little kid. My influences were always all these old farmers that told these stories. I just kinda mixed it all together and I got this.”

After the success of the Lionsgate features LARRY THE CABLE GUY: HEALTH INSPECTOR and DELTA FARCE, Larry and producers JP Williams and Alan Blomquist were eager to start work on a follow-up project. While Blomquist hadn’t quite landed on a story, he was inspired by a title. “We were trying to come up with different fish-out-of-water scenarios,” he recalls, “and I came up with the title WITLESS PROTECTION, which I thought was funny. Then I thought, ‘Okay, what do we do with it?’”

Blomquist turned to Charles Carner, the seasoned writer/director of several television films (RED WATER, CHRISTMAS RUSH and LOUIS L’AMOUR’S ‘CROSSFIRE TRAIL’), who liked the idea and ran with it. “I started developing this storyline of Larry as a small town Deputy Sheriff who sees what he thinks is a kidnapping, but actually it’s someone in witness protection,” explains Carner. “In his attempt to do good, Larry creates havoc, which is what he always does.”

Carner cites the classic Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert film, IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, and the Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin buddy comedy, MIDNIGHT RUN, as the chief inspirations for WITLESS PROTECTION. “That was sort of our starting point in terms of the idea of a road picture that blends adventure, romance, and humor,” he explains.

While the filmmakers were mindful to meet the expectations of fans, Blomquist saw WITLESS PROTECTION as an opportunity to broaden Larry’s on-screen persona. “We wanted to make Larry bigger than the one-note, ‘Here’s Larry, he makes a fart joke, he leaves’ kind of character,” he says. “That’s the biggest difference with this script from some of the earlier projects we’ve done.  We really wanted to place him in situations where other parts of his personality could come forward.”

Larry notes that his character struggles with bigger issues in WITLESS PROTECTION. While previously he was satisfied with small town life, Larry now has an ambition: to graduate from deputy sheriff to bona fide FBI agent and leave his backwater town. “Anybody that’s grown up in a small town can’t wait to get the hell out of there,” explains Larry. “Then when they get married and have kids, they can’t wait to get their ass back to a small town, ‘cause they like how they grew up.  That’s the same with me in real life.  When I was growin’ up, I couldn’t wait to get the hell out. And then, once I got the hell out, I wanted to go back.”

WITLESS PROTECTION also presented Larry with an entirely new challenge as an actor: his first nude scene. In the film, Larry is strip-searched and put through a disastrous body cavity search. “I had this robe on and I’m like, ‘Aw, goddamn, I gotta get naked in fronta these sumbitches.  And I’m dreadin’ it. I had to disrobe and stand there with a ball cap over my privates.  It was pretty crazy. I ain’t exactly Brad Pitt, y’know? My hind end needs some work.  I mean, it’s nice, but, y’know, it looks like a hailstorm came through.”

The way Larry looks at it, the upside of WITLESS PROTECTION was the opportunity to kiss actress Jenny McCarthy (SCARY MOVIE 3, BAD GIRL’S GUIDE) onscreen. “I mean, c’mon.  You get a script that says you get to kiss Jenny McCarthy. I’m in,” he says. “I’m a huge fan of hers and I like her, not only ‘cause she’s gorgeous, but she’s a regular person and she laughs at stuff that regular people laugh at. I like workin’ with down-to-earth people.”

McCarthy plays Connie, Larry’s no nonsense girlfriend who he leaves behind in order to solve the Chicago crime case. “Jenny McCarthy really is Connie,” avows Blomquist. “She’s an incredibly spunky, alive person. She’s from Chicago. She understands the small-town girl thing, but she’s absolutely gorgeous and she’s willing to play with that and have fun with it.”

“She brings all the different dimensions of that character together really believably,” adds Carner. “And she worked really well with Larry.”
McCarthy admits she was pleasantly surprised that Larry in real life was “a pure gentleman.” She says, “I was so happy that he’s as sweet and adorable and funny as I was hoping. He wasn’t this rude guy that just burped in my face the whole time.”

Bosnian/American actress Ivana Milicevic (CASINO ROYALE) plays the other woman in Larry’s life: Madeline Dymkowski, the snooty heiress who initially bristles at Larry’s crudeness. “The first part where I meet Larry, I’m very cold and a little snobby towards him. I act as though he’s beneath me,” she says. “My favorite part is when we start to become friendlier and the movie becomes a buddy picture with two very unlikely buddies.”
“Ivana is very gifted as a comedian,” reports Carner. “She’s great at physical comedy and she’s a great foil for Larry. She’s somebody special. And this movie, if people like it, should make her a star, because she deserves to be.  She’s wonderful.”

When asked why she thought she and Larry got along so well on set, Milicevic smiles and explains,  “We both think farts are funny and they are.  They’re funny in every language.  All over the world. We always had that going for us.”

In addition to McCarthy and Milicevic, the strength of WITLESS PROTECTION’s script attracted a host of talented character actors, among them Joe Mantegna (HOMICIDE, BUGSY, NINE LIVES), Eric Roberts (TV’s “Heroes,” 8 OF DIAMONDS, DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE), Peter Stormare (PREMONITION, NACHO LIBRE, CONSTANTINE) and Yaphet Kotto (ALIEN, RUNNING MAN, MIDNIGHT RUN).

Mantegna’s path to the project was unique: director Charles Carner was his former student in a film class Mantegna taught twenty-five years ago at Columbia College in Chicago. When Carner called his mentor and offered him a part in the film, Mantegna jumped at the opportunity. “Charlie Carner was my prize pupil when I taught here in Chicago in the seventies,” recalls Mantegna. “I just thought what a thrill to be in a film that my former student had written and was going to direct.” Mantegna took on the part of Doc Savage, Larry’s eccentric brother-in-law who has a freewheeling way with prescription drugs.  “Doc Savage is kind of a throwback to the sixties,” say Mantegna.  “He might of done a little too many pharmaceuticals in his youth and he’s paying the price now.”

In one pivotal comic set piece, Doc Savage drugs Madeline so that she appears to be dead. But Milicevic, who had to lie absolutely still in a coffin while Mantegna and Larry performed their scene, couldn’t keep a straight face. “To have that hilarity above me while I’m trying to be dead and stoic, it was like I should win an Oscar for that, because it was impossible,” laughs the actress. “I don’t even know that we got a full take.”

Swedish actor Peter Stormare plays Arthur Grimsley, the wealthy tycoon who is trying to silence Madeline before her testimony convicts him for tax fraud. Widely respected for his incredible range as a character actor, Stormare was impressed by the loose, spontaneous atmosphere that Larry encouraged on set. “Larry’s a very fast improviser. And I love to improvise,” says the actor. “There’s a lot of joking around both between takes and during takes. There’s nothing better as an actor than coming home laughing and going to sleep wanting to work hard the next day.”

Eric Roberts describes his character, Duvall, as an “enormous a-hole who runs a company called Private Maximum Security. Or PMS.” Roberts, who is good friends with co-stars Yaphet Kotto and Peter Stormare, was eager to try his hand at a comedy, a genre for which he’s not often considered. “I play lots of crazy, mean, psychotic people and they’re almost always in dramas and they’re almost always very, very serious,” he explains. “So it’s a lot of fun for me to play somebody who is sick and psychotic, but he’s funny, sick and psychotic.”

“Eric is so imposing and dangerous in terms of his persona,” adds Carner, “but he also has a lot of charm and sophistication that he doesn’t get to play very often.  I enjoyed bringing both of those sides together.”

As Agent Moseley, the stoic FBI agent pursuing Larry, actor Yaphet Kotto provides a perfect foil to Larry’s blundering antics. “Moseley’s a bloodhound, really,” says Kotto. “Nothing will stop him.  He has his intent, his purpose and he doesn’t allow himself to eat or sleep or drink.  He’s just concentrating on one thing – to get Larry.”

“Agent Moseley is a big, intimidating force who doesn’t crack, who doesn’t smile,” explains Blomquist. “Yaphet knows this character cold. Larry will say the most inane things to him and he just does the best slow burn.”

Kotto found the challenge of keeping a straight face on set one of the most difficult of his long career. “I’m telling you, this is the hardest thing I’ve done, working with Larry, because he’s so funny,” admits the actor. “The crew’s constantly laughing.  And you can see the production people, the executives, they’re all laughing at Larry’s jokes.  So your level of concentration has to be really good.”

Blomquist and Larry admit that they work hard to encourage a loose and spontaneous atmosphere on set. “That’s the first rule when we do our movies,” says Larry. “We want to make it comfortable for everybody. We want everybody to have fun.  We’re not changin’ the world.  We’re makin’ people laugh.  And so the staff that we get is real nice and real fun and we want to make it so everybody has a great time.”

“Larry, JP and I work at creating an environment that’s comfortable for people so they’ll do their best work,” adds Blomquist. “We have lots of actors who show up and are just surprised at how easy everything is and how calm everyone is. We work at that. I always tell people we’re carnies, you know? I love putting together this family, this petri dish of personalities and watching it grow into something much more than the sum of the parts.”
The approach, according to the cast, works. Says Mantegna, “It’s just a fun and eclectic group.  I mean, we all come from different kinds of disciplines and backgrounds and it’s like makin’ a fruitcake with all these crazy ingredients.”

“I hope I run into another crew, another production company, certainly another script as insane and funny as this one,” adds Kotto. “I know I won’t experience this again.  It’s a once in a lifetime experience.”

Of course, every production needs a steady hand to keep performances and schedules from veering into chaos, and that person was director Charles Carner. “Charlie’s a very, very thorough, very organized director,” says Blomquist. “Things always go smoothly and quickly with him at the wheel, and there’s a little bit of extra time every day to do some fun stuff and improv.”

“We get along great,” reports Larry on working with Carner. “Charlie is like an older brother to me.  He’s really fun. But if you’re screwin’ up, he knows how to talk to ya.  I would love to do all my movies with him. He gets what I do.”

Even with WITLESS PROTECTION primed for its theatrical release, Larry seems characteristically non-plussed and maintains his easy-going attitude towards his work. Entertaining audiences, he says, is the only thing that matters. “I’m good at bein’ this and so I enjoy doin’ it. I’m not – I don’t ever take myself seriously, y’know? If you’re goin’ to my movie and expectin’ to get some big political point or expectin’ to be changed and touched in a way, then don’t go to my movie,” he says with a smile. “If you’re goin’ to a movie and you just wanna sit down and laugh at some foolishness, go see it. We’re entertainers and I’m puttin’ out movies to make people laugh. That’s who I am and that’s what I do.”