With “bromance”—a term describing a close platonic relationship between male buddies—having entered the pop lexicon, it was just a matter of time before a witty bro-mantic comedy like I Love You, Man hit the big screen.

After the jump, check out Earl Dittman’s interview with ILYM stars Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, in which they discuss the mysteries of male bonding, why their film is a bromance to remember, and solidly masculine appeal of the music of Rush.

Many of the recent works of Judd Apatow have examined the world of male friendship; assorted oddball buddy-cop movies and parodies, from the original Lethal Weapon up-to-and-including Starsky and Hutch, have used the same story structure as traditional romantic comedies. But I Love You, Man actually lifts a standard premise from many rom-coms—the search for “Mr. Right”—and turns it into the search for “Mr. Right-there-beside-you-when-you-get-married.” This flip shines a little light on the rarity that is a new friendship formed between adult men.

“Once you leave college, if you don’t already have close male friends, it’s hard to find a complete stranger that has the potential to become your best bro,” explains one of the film’s two leading men, Forgetting Sarah Marshall star and How I Met Your Mother series regular Jason Segel. “The fact that it’s not easy to make a new friend is what makes so many of the situations in this movie so funny—because they are based on reality. Luckily, I have a lot of good friends, and I’ve been able to make some new life-long friends from the movies I’ve done. One, of them, I’m proud to say, is [co-leading man] Paul Rudd.”

Having worked once before with the 29-year-old Segel in the box office hit Knocked Up, Rudd felt that the two of them would make a perfect match in this comedy. “Jason really understood the story and the characters and was ready to venture into some uncharted comedic territory, which is exactly what I was ready to do,” says Rudd, star of the recent Role Models and a Friends alumnus. “We already knew that we could riff off of each other from Knocked Up, so we just let loose. I think it worked.”

Why did the two of you want to make I Love You, Man?

PAUL: “I absolutely wanted to do it because I knew it would be one of the funniest, freshest, smartest, most sophisticated films I had ever done. I’ve known [writer/director] John Hamburg for years, and I always thought that he was a great writer, and I thought he hit a home run with this script. Actually, I was surprised that this movie hadn’t been made already. It seemed like such an obvious subject matter.”

JASON: “Another reason I wanted to do this movie was because it wasn’t a cynical look at a guy trying to make friends with other guys. It didn’t mock that. There’s certainly not a homophobic element, which could have been a pitfall to fall into. I think it’s really about two guys trying to establish a friendship. It’s hard to make friends with a stranger, once you are out of school.”

PAUL: “It wasn’t mean-spirited at all. I just loved it.”

How did the band Rush become such a big part of I Love You, Man? Why this band?

JASON: “Well, John was actually in a band in high school called The Luv Rhinos, spelt L-U-V. And they covered Rush, and Rush is also the quintessential band that guys of that generation love and women kind of don’t get.”

PAUL: “And, that doesn’t offend them, because they seem aware of it.”

JASON: “It was the perfect thing for Paul and I to bond over and that would alienate Rashida [Jones]’s character. We’ve tried to think of other bands, because sometimes we get the question. But nobody is quite like Rush in that regard.”

Are you both big Rush fans?

PAUL: “I really like Rush, I always have.”

JASON: “I became really familiar with them during my time on Freaks and Geeks, because I drummed ‘Spirit of The Radio.’”

PAUL: “Growing up, I was actually kind of into new wave music. Rush was the kind of band that guys in my school—guys who scared me and could easily kick my ass—would listen to. I remember being a little kid and seeing [lead singer/bassist] Geddy Lee in the ‘Tom Sawyer’ video, and I found him to be particularly terrifying. But as I got older I started to appreciate the musicianship. I started to kind of get into them. I remember listening to them and being like, ‘Dude, “Red Barchetta” is it!’ So, I went through this big Moving Pictures phase, and I was really into ‘Red Barchetta,’ which I would just play over and over again. [Laughs] When I heard that they were going to be in this film I was super excited and really nervous to meet them—not because I was scared of them, because I’m not scared of them anymore, but because I was really psyched. They were great, great guys, and it was so cool that they said ‘Yes.’”

What was it like actually getting to meet the members of Rush? What did you say to them?

PAUL: “When I met them, I really explained the scene to them, because I was so hypersensitive that they would enjoy themselves and not feel as if we were making fun of them—because we were not at all. So I was explaining it to them, like, ‘Jason and I are dancing around and we’re really, really excited. And Rashida, her character is weirded-out by us but is kind of bored because we’re totally ignoring her. So that’s what’s going on in the scene. We’re way into it and she’s kind of bored.’ And Geddy Lee said, ‘So, it’s just like any one of our concerts.’” [Laughs]

On the latest Vanity Fair cover, the two of you (plus Seth Rogen Jonah Hill) are billed as the “New Legends of Comedy.” How does that make you feel?

PAUL: “It’s great. It’s a great headline and it’s very flattering. I also think that it’s flattering that they would ask us to be in the magazine, let alone on the cover.”

For that one Vanity Fair photo, why did most of the guys get to wear body suits (excect Paul, who was in a tux) and the women [from the original Vanity Fair cover featuring Tom Ford, Keira Knightley, and Scarlett Johansson] didn’t?

PAUL: “Since I got to wear a tuxedo, I’m going to step out of this question. [Laughs] But I really did luck out by getting to wear the tuxedo.”

Paul, were you whispering sweet nothings into Seth’s ear during the photo shoot?

PAUL: “I would nuzzle into Seth’s neck, and actually, once, I got his back hair in my mouth. I was like, ‘Ugh. Yuck.’”

JASON: “Well, as you probably know from many of my [full frontal nudity] scenes  in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I would have been more than fine with not wearing a bodysuit. There were two problems: First, Vanity Fair was interested in selling magazines. Second, it was close quarters between me, Seth and Jonah. And as you saw from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that could be dangerous for Jonah, who was right in front of me.”

PAUL: “That just sounds crude.” [Laughs]

What was it like acting with Lou Ferrigno? At what point did John Hamburg decide to use him in I Love You, Man as the celebrity real estate client?

JASON: “That was all John’s idea. He settled into the notion, which is really funny, that if you are a realtor in Los Angeles there’s a good chance that you’ll have a celebrity client. And, who else would it be but Lou Ferrigno?” [Laughs]

PAUL: “Why not, you know?”

Does Lou really have shrines to himself in his house?

JASON: “No, no, that was one of the amazing things about acting with him. He’s such an iconic figure, and a lot of people can get really precious about their image. He wasn’t. He was totally game. He got the joke.”

PAUL: “He was so cool about it.”

JASON: “He thought it was really funny that there were The Incredible Hulk shorts framed on the wall and a statue of himself.”