Saturday Night Live stand-out Andy Samberg plays Rod Kimble, a wannabe stuntman who talks a good game but can't live up to it skill-wise, in the Paramount Pictures comedy Hot Rod, directed by Akiva Schaffer. Big screen newcomer Jorma Taccone co-stars as Samberg's nerdy stepbrother who looks up to his older brother.
Samberg, Taccone and Schaffer have been friends since junior high school and make up The Lonely Island comedy trio. The group are currently part of the SNL family with Samberg in front of the camera and Schaffer and Taccone members of the writing team. That's how they got hooked up with Hot Rod producer Lorne Michaels and were able to make their leap to feature films as a package deal.
Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer Interview
How much did the script change from when it was a Will Ferrell project?
Akiva Schaffer: “Somewhat, just by the nature of that it was written…a testament to how well it was written was that you couldn't read it without imagining Will Ferrell doing the stuff because it was written in his voice to a “t”. Like, just saying sentences that if anybody else says it you’d just go, ‘Why is he trying to be Will Ferrell?’ So we kind of had to out of necessity just kind of go through and tweak Andy’s character to make it feel like it was ours and not that he was doing an impression of Will Ferrell.”
What did you do to tweak it? How did it change?
Andy Samberg: “I mean it’s always tricky talking about your own comedy, but I mean it obviously got a little bit younger, a little more…”
Akiva Schaffer: Laughing, “A little more handsome.”
Jorma Taccone: “A little more sexified.”
Akiva Schaffer: “We put a lot more sex into it. A little less chest hair.”
Andy Samberg: “I think Will Ferrell’s funny sexy. He’s certainly sexier than me. He’s our hero.”
Akiva Schaffer: “His name is on our poster because it says it’s produced by him. Every time I see that it’s like, ‘Oh my God!’”
Was it as much of a buddy comedy when he was involved or did that change because of your dynamics?
Akiva Schaffer: “Everything was in there, but it was just in there in slightly.”
Andy Samberg: “It became a little more in there because of the casting.”
Akiva Schaffer: “But it was always in there. There was always a crew of people.”
Jorma Taccone: “But the crew was a little bit more of like a motley hodgepodge of like ages kind of thing like…”
Andy Samberg: “Is that like that rocker band Motley Hodgepodge?”
Jorma Taccone: “But then you’ve got like the two of us, Bill [Hader] and Danny [McBride], it all kind of became something different.”
Akiva Schaffer: “The fact that we got to have our friends in the movie basically, or people that we wanted to be friends with, like Danny, that are now our friends.”
How were you able to do that?
Akiva Schaffer: “I don’t know. We had to run it by everybody, but they kind of…Bill’s on the show so when we suggested that we wanted to hire him to do that part, everyone was like, ‘Yeah, that sounds great.’ And then McBride, actually one of the producers, showed us a movie he did called The Foot Fist Way. It’s like an independent movie that was at Sundance that they had seen and they passed it on to us and were like, ‘This guy’s funny if you guys give him something to do.’ We watched it and like, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ So we had him come out and meet with us and we just liked him.”
Andy Samberg: “I remember in the meeting, too, when we were like, there were a few casting things we really wanted and to Paramount and Loren [Michael’s] credit, they would say things like, ‘We’re not sure but we trust you.’ Like just flat out.”
Akiva Schaffer: “And like Danny McBride, this is his first studio movie and so he’s just untested and that’s always a big deal. You’ve already got three untested guys. None of us had been in a movie and so when we make a choice like, when we asked them if we could do Ian McShane and they’re like, ‘If he’ll do it, sure.’ That’s a little bit safer because they know he’s going to bring credibility and acting chops and all that into the picture. They know he knows what he’s doing.”
Andy Samberg: “Talent…”
Akiva Schaffer: “And then to surround ourselves with yet another untested newbie I don’t think gives them more confidence, but they let us do it.”
Andy Samberg: “The independent movie that we liked so much actually McKay and Ferrell bought it and they’re going to put it out.”
Rod calls on the spirit animals to help him out. Was that your contribution to the story?
Andy Samberg: “It was in Pam [Brady’s] script. We just added the visuals for it. We built on it. She had the four things Rod would sort of call on their powers and we sort of added the visual element. To see it and hear it, stuff like that. So we kind of took her idea, which was great, and ran with it.”
How much input did you have in the costume?
Andy Samberg: Laughing, “Um, I had 1/3 input. No, no, we just looked through a bunch of designs and the three of us whittled it down, and obviously it came down to what the studio wanted. It had to be a real outfit, something Rob could conceivably have made himself with help from his mom.”
Akiva Schaffer: “Yeah, it’s supposed to be the closest Rod could be to making Evel Knievel.”
Andy Samberg: “We wanted the whole thing to feel really home grown.”
Jorma Taccone: “So he uses more like a gas station attendant’s jacket. He couldn’t find a real stunt suit, that’s why when he’s presented one with a real one at the end it actually means something.”
Andy Samberg: “The cape is easily the most legit part of it, and it’s very clearly made by someone’s mom. You know what I mean?”
Akiva Schaffer: “It’s way too small.”
Andy Samberg: “It’s like the Halloween costumes the three of us would wear when we were kids growing up. I was really into Return of the Jedi and my mom was not about to buy a Payless Star Wars costume, so she bought a bunch of furry fabric and made a homemade Ewok costume.”
Did she really?
Andy Samberg: “Oh yeah.”
And you wore it out?
Andy Samberg: “Yeah. I loved it. That was before I grew up and realized that like everyone who was into Star Wars before that hated the Ewoks. I was so young; I was like 5. I was like, ‘Ewoks!’”
