Marquee Editor Rob Ebert and I met up with Erik Stolhanske (Todd Wolfhouse in "Beerfest") and Kevin Heffernan (Landfill) of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe responsible for "Super Troopers" and "Club Dread.,”In the movie industry, the foam usually rises to the top. Just do n't expect it to settle for very long before the actors from "Beerfest" chug it down. They've had extensive on-set training.

Marquee Editor Rob Ebert and I met up with Erik Stolhanske (Todd Wolfhouse in "Beerfest") and Kevin Heffernan (Landfill) of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe responsible for "Super Troopers" and "Club Dread." They were promoting "Beerfest" at the Milwaukee Ale House — and we promptly offered to buy them a shot.

When confronted with the choice between Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo, Stolhanske simply spoke for them both, stating, "Jager, please."

Drinking while the sun is still up is nothing new for the guys, who consider themselves to be more comedians than actors. "You would show up in the morning and have to do a chugging scene four times," Heffernan said. Even though the actors drank non-alcoholic beer for many of the takes, they still had to have a training schedule of sorts.

"(We had) to get out of shape to get into shape," Heffernan said. "We trained with a guy named Bubba. We all sat on a couch and wore really loose fitting shorts and we'd have to fill them out."

Stolhanske facetiously estimated he gained 83 pounds during filming.

Dressed in a Hideki Matsui T-shirt, Heffernan easily slipped under the recognition radar in the bar/restaurant. That is, until the news cameras and crew invariably drew attention to the duo.

When Heffernan and Stolhanske were approached by fans for a photo, they conceded with friendly smiles.

After our interview, the actors headed to Miller Park to sing during the seventh-inning stretch. Later that night they played beer pong with an at-capacity crowd at the BBC bar on North Avenue.

The two actors first established their shared comedic banter when they and the rest of the troupe met at Colgate College in New York. This setting invariably helped with the writing process of the purposefully sophomoric film.

"The old adage 'write about what you know' was true for this movie," Heffernan said.

As such, many of the drinking rituals are a reflection of any college party. But some of the more imaginative games (including one that involves drinking upside down) used apparatuses that needed more of a Hollywood budget than a college budget.

"On 'Super Troopers' we only had about 1 million (dollars)," Heffernan said. "This one was about 12 and a half."

Some of the jokes in the film are definitely scraped off the bottom of the half-barrel, but the actors' humor is organic. After doing interviews all day, Stolhanske had high expectations for the film, which opened last week and finished fourth at the box office.

"I'm hoping the movie will bring real world peace," he said. "The world would be a better place if people drank beer like in this movie. It's really responsible, although some people will think it's not."

"Beerfest" content runs along the lines of other popular R-rated comedies such as "Wedding Crashers" and "The 40-Year Old Virgin."

Heffernan confirmed that these movie predecessors, along with the bigger budget, helped the actors take more liberties — creative and otherwise. Besides encouraging more nudity in "Beerfest," the troupe's studio, Warning Bros., also appeared more supportive of their future efforts.

During a Willie Nelson cameo, the movie contains what appears to be a shameless plug for a new Broken Lizard movie called "Potfest."

"The studio was actually like, 'Are you guys thinking about doing 'Potfest'?" Heffernan said. "I don't think we are."

Though the actors may not know what the future holds, they know how their present would be different if they were not making successful comedies. What do they predict they would be doing?

"Digging ditches," Heffernan said without a second thought.

Simultaneously, Stolhanske said, "In prison."

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