While Wahlberg left his wife and four kids at home in Los Angeles, Ferrell's wife Viveca Paulin came along to New York City's Ziegfeld Theater for the fun, where they greeted the rest of the happy crowd that worked on the film. There was the film's screenwriter Chris Henchy and his wife Brooke Shields, and stars Samuel L. Jackson with wife LaTanya Richardson, Steve Coogan with girlfriend and new reality show star China Chow and Ice-T along with his wife Coco.

Eva Mendes came solo, and soon drew a crowd of admirers including a gaggle of her male co-stars in the flick, from Ray Stevenson and Rob Riggle to Damon Wayans, Jr., and Bobby Cannavale. As basically the only female in the cast, Mendes admitted at an earlier press conference that actually getting paid to star in "The Other Guys" was almost not fair.

"I feel like I've never had more fun than I had on this set and I'm not just saying that," she said, "even though I had the least lines of anybody!"

Her lines count in the riotous comedy, as do all of Wahlberg's, who gives an inspired performance as a sad-sack police detective partnered up with Farrell's equally unimpressive character; he admitted at that same press conference that deciding to do the movie didn't take a moment of thought. When Farrell and his longtime writer-director partner Adam McKay, collaborators on "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights" and "Step Brothers," asked, Wahlberg jumped at the chance to flex his comedic muscles.

"I didn't even want to read the script," he said. "I didn't care. They said, 'Would you be interested in doing a movie?' I said, 'Yeah,' and they said, 'Do you want to hear the idea first?' I said, 'If you want to tell me. I thought we could just order some dinner and drink some more wine.' I literally always wanted to do a comedy and to get an opportunity to work with these guys was just a dream come true."