Horrible Bosses is a post-Hangover bad-behaviour farce about a trio of wage slaves – Jason Bateman as a financial company underling, Nick

TORONTO — The last time Jason Sudeikis had a "regular" job, Bill Clinton was midway through his second term as president, Y2K was a terrifying threat looming on the horizon, and the dot-com bubble was floating ever-higher.

That's when Sudeikis -- then in his early 20s -- landed a gig with the Chicago-based web company apartments.com. It was June 1999, and Sudeikis was touring on the side as part of the comedy troupe Second City.

He found his bosses were supportive, understanding and trusting -- perhaps to a fault.

"I got fired at my last real job, for just reasons," the comedian said during a recent interview in Toronto.

"I padded my time card a little bit and my boss, Phil -- who was not a horrible boss, he was a good boss -- he caught me and then did the right thing with me.

"They were the nicest people in the world. I was so embarrassed to get fired because they had given me this amazing job, and they knew that I was doing Second City and were super supportive of that when I had to go out of town right away, out of nowhere. They would come see my shows.

"Ugh. So heartbreaking."

It's difficult, then, for the 35-year-old to relate to his character in the new black comedy "Horrible Bosses" -- and that's probably a good thing.

Sudeikis, Jason Bateman and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" oddball Charlie Day portray a trio of friends suffering under the suffocating rule of three sinister supervisors.

Bateman is an executive whose sadistic boss (Kevin Spacey) gleefully keeps him hopping through hoops while passing him over for promotions. Day is a dental assistant who has to constantly rebuke the increasingly invasive advances of a dentist (played with awkward aplomb by Jennifer Aniston). And Sudeikis is an accountant labouring under a sleazy drug addict (Colin Farrell).

Eventually, the situation gets so bad that the central trio can conjure only one solution: they must murder each other's bosses.

Sudeikis was approached to star in the film during a busy time in his career. He was facing the typically taxing demands of "Saturday Night Live" and just wrapped the raunchy romp "Hall Pass," which came out earlier this year. But he couldn't turn down the script.

"It was after me debating and looking at this movie and going: 'Gosh, well, I don't know if anyone learns anything from this movie,"' said the laughing star, clad in jeans, sneakers and a navy blue cardigan.

"I had just got done doing 'Hall Pass' and in that -- even though it's a crazy, whacked-out Farrelly brothers movie -- there is an arc that all four of the main characters go through.

"This one? There's no lessons to be learned. I don't even think you learn the lesson 'don't kill your boss' in this movie. Once I accepted the fact that it was just going to be fun -- playful versus artful -- then I was like: 'Oh, well, let's do it. Here we go."'

Of course, the marquee pedigree of the film's "crazy" supporting cast didn't hurt either.

Sudeikis counted himself among the cult of fans for director Seth Gordon's well-loved arcade documentary "The King of Kong" (the movie is "a modern-day 'Rocky,"' he enthuses). And he had worked with Bateman and Day before, and thus had no doubts about the trio's chemistry.

That chemistry seemed to manifest in odd ways, though -- for instance, the cast got so comfortable with one another that they began tossing "Three Stooges"-style comedic violence into scenes, to the point where the credits feature a montage of the cast's hardest slaps, most of which ended up on the cutting-room floor.

"Oh my God, we slapped the hell out of each other," Sudeikis said proudly. "It's in the movie maybe once or so. There were some big, big slaps. That was something we would always do, like a 'Stooges' take, where someone would get slapped or everyone would get slapped."

Sudeikis had a similarly comfortable interplay with Irish star Colin Farrell, who adopted a combover and exaggerated gut to portray Sudeikis's cocaine-loving, prostitute-soliciting scumbag of a boss. It seems a radical departure for the Golden Globe winner, but Sudeikis says he knew Farrell had it in him.

"He had hosted 'SNL,' and I had written a scene, so I got to work with him quite a bit throughout the work week, and just really, really liked him," he said.

"And that was during his quote-unquote 'bad boy' days. So now, he's just all that much more dialled-in and fantastic."

Though Sudeikis appreciated the fact that each of the three leads took turns being the "dumbest," his character seems to perhaps have the smoothest ride. He hatches the boss-killing scheme, but doesn't seem particularly interested in getting his hands dirty.

He also manages to seduce two of the film's A-list actresses, though it happens off-screen.

"I never got to film those scenes," says a pseudo-remorseful Sudeikis, who has in real life been rumoured to be attached to a number of celebs, including January Jones, Aniston and Scarlett Johansson.

"At the premiere, when I see them, I'll ask if they want to (shoot those scenes), if they want to get some DVD extras. And I'll just immediately dodge what I assume will be a hand coming to slap my face for asking that question."

Meantime, Sudeikis confirms that he plans to return to "Saturday Night Live" in the fall for what will be his ninth season with the sketch show.

Yet his film career is beginning to take off (he stars in another comedy coming out this summer, "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy"), as is the case for "SNL" co-star and "Bridesmaids" star Kristen Wiig.

So does this mean that Sudeikis -- who dispenses a friendly, effortless charm in person -- and Wiig can now commence with the true diva behaviour onset?

"No, if anything, we started out like absolute (jerks) and we're only getting nicer," Sudeikis deadpanned.

"We're going the other way. We're much nicer."