Weird: The Al Yankovic Story Director Eric Appel Talks About Creating the Funniest Film of 2022!

By admin Last updated Nov 3, 2022

The Al Yankovic Story director Eric Appel is about expanding the original Funny or Die sketch into a full feature-length movie. The film is set to stream on The Roku Channel on November 4.

According to the synopsis, the documentary explores every aspect of Yankovic’s life, including his spectacular climb to popularity with early successes like Eat It and Like a Surgeon as well as his infamously filthy lifestyle. The film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story takes viewers on an utterly implausible trip through Yankovic’s life and career, from a bright young genius to the greatest musical legend of all time.

Tyler Treese: What presented the biggest obstacle in prolonging this parody of the viral online joke while maintaining its humor? Because you succeeded despite how difficult that seemed to be.

Richard Appel, I want to thank you very much for expressing that, first of all. Given that it’s not a straight parody of any one biopic, making this a full-length film proved difficult. We sort of take inspiration from a wide range of films, like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocket Man, Walk the Line, Boogie Nights, Forest Gump, and even fake biopics. We truly wanted to break from the mold and write an original story.

Like, we wanted to parody biopic clichés while actually coming up with a novel or new plot that would surprise viewers. The fact that we deviated from Al’s genuine life was the largest problem, in my opinion. So it’s not like I extensively researched Al’s real-life experiences. There are some truthful moments in this film, but the true difficulty was in coming up with an original plot for this Weird Al movie.

There are some truths in there, like the fact that Eat It is an original song. Aaron Paul, who I thought was fantastic in the first skit, had informed me he would appear in a cameo but instead got COVID. Was he heading to the pool party or what would he be doing in the movie?

He was actually intended to be yet another jeerer during the I Love Rocky Road sequence at the Cobra Pit bar. He intended to ride a motorcycle. We planned to give him a thick beard and make him look like a biker. My intention was for people to watch this movie and immediately pause and rewind. Aaron is that you? Is Aaron Paul really hiding behind this biker persona? But as Daniel entered the stage, he was going to be yelling him down.

That is so amusing, wow. This movie features a tonne of hilarious cameos and comic royalty. I’m sure that many individuals only wanted to honor Al and his legacy, but how difficult was it to put together such a cast? because it’s amazing.

Yes, it was really rather fantastic. Julianne Nicholson, who had recently won an Emmy for her role in Mare of Easttown, was also playing Marilyn Monroe’s mother in Blonde, which I was unaware of at the time. These actors were our main actors when they signed on, along with Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, and Julianne Nicholson. You have no idea what a breather playing Weird Al’s mother must have been.

However, Al’s friends actually made up the majority of our cameos. Everyone like Weird Al, and he has a big Rolodex to draw from. So we basically just made a list of all of his buddies and acquaintances and started giving them characters. He personally contacted a lot of people, and it was really great to hear “yes” right away from every major comedic star.

The comedy was better than I had anticipated, but I had not anticipated how amazing the fight scenes would be. Al was truly a badass. What was it like to film those?

It was just great. He is John Wick dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, yes. Filming those battle scenes were fantastic. Fortunately, we got the opportunity to practice. It was a little difficult to complete the film within 18 days of shooting. However, we had enough practice time to choreograph all of these battle scenes, and as you may be aware, Daniel Radcliffe performs the majority of the stunt work in them. He really grasped the battle choreography, and yes, we just jumped in there quickly and finished the job. I’m very pleased with how these came out.