Comedian Jerrod Carmichael makes his big screen debut in “Neighbors” out this Friday, May 9.
How did you get involved with the film?
Jerrod: So I had a meeting with Seth and Evan’s company at Point Grey, then right after it I had an audition and Nick Stoller was in the room, and those two things coupled together, they invited me to join the cast!
How excited were you when you found out you were joining this cast?
Jerrod: It’s weird I’m never like ‘Oh My god’. I was happy, I was very happy. Then it was just like alright let’s see how we are gonna do it and how are we gonna try and make it great.
Tell me more about your character?
Jerrod: I play Garf who is a frat guy who likes maybe experimenting with drugs a little bit. I do way more drugs – that was edited out … I think I was just smoking weed or whatever in the movie, but things that were edited out were all types of shit.
Tell me about collaborating with director Nicholas Stoller.
Jerrod: It was amazing because Nick is really smart. He’s really great at being a director, he makes everyone feel comfortable and he makes everyone feel very confident. That’s what’s great. It’s like you know that he’s in control and he has a vision, but it’s also this freedom to experiment and try things and he’ll let you have a take if you got an idea. He’s very open to new things, and he’s just a master at putting it all together.
Tell me how did you get your start in entertainment?
Jerrod: I do stand-up. You know stand-up comedy is the number one love for me. I just started doing stand up and it all kind of stems from that. Stand-up leads to better stand-up shows, it leads to all these other things film and television. But stand-up is the core of it.
Tell me about working with the guys. It seemed like there may have been a big bromance on set with you Zac, Chris and Dave.
Jerrod: I genuinely love those guys. Zack and Dave and Chris are friends. We hang out, they come out to shows, and I go – Chris has these shows. So we hang out a lot. It was great getting to know them and hanging out. I hope that chemistry translated.
Did anyone play pranks onset?
Jerrod: No, [and] you know why? When you’re there and you’re shooting party scenes and it’s insane and it’s absurd and you’re doing some of the crazy shit that we did in the movie then he yells cut then we all wanna go to the trailers and drink tea. So after movie partying for like eight hours and then in between that, let’s just do finger sandwiches and be adults for a few moments.
Tell us about your scene with Lisa Kudrow are you a “Friends” fan?
Jerrod: I am a huge “Friends” fan and I am a fan of hers, and she is really smart and funny. I remember when I met her I was eating popcorn and I had all this popcorn butter on my hands it was just a mess, and she was like ‘Hi, I’m Lisa’, and the first thing I said to her was ‘I’m so sorry,’ when I couldn’t shake her hand. But it was fun, it was so fun. She’s just great. She does these two quick scenes, but she kills it like, really crushes it.
Can you speak about working with Hannibal Buress?
Jerrod: Hannibal and I are friends and we shot that night for eight hours, it was like eight hours of just party evacuations. I really just ran back to his car back and forth, just talking to him through that car window, that’s a whole other movie, we could probably edit that together a quick buddy cop movie between me and Hannibal.
Can you talk about working with Rose and Seth?
Jerrod: Rose I think is probably one of the funniest in this movie. The way she delivers lines with passion, is really great I think she’s one of the funniest. Seth is obviously very brilliant at comedy and improvising. He’s so smart and so quick. Just working with them was great. I loved watching their scenes being filmed, for every scene you see, there are probably twelve other different versions.
What was your college experience like?
Jerrod: I have no college experience … I didn’t go to college and I think about 90% of the cast didn’t go to college. Dave went for a little while. Me, Zac, Chris and Seth didn’t go.
What is your favorite scene in the movie?
Jerrod: It’s a great question. I really did like the party scenes. There’s actually this scene that didn’t make the movie it was really heavy in the trailer where we were doing this war re-enactment. And it was all these fireworks and so much absurd stuff that was happening, and that was so fun. We would shoot at night, we would do all these night shoots that would shoot from 11pm-sunrise, so that was probably my favorite.
Can you talk about your future projects?
Jerrod: There’s this show with NBC. I’m filming a comedy special for HBO, Spike Lee is directing it, so that’s where my focus is.
Have you met with Spike yet?
Jarrod: We’ve met, we’ll meet up with him while I’m in New York, and he’ll come back to LA with me to shoot this thing. He’s great, he’s smart he’s one of my favorite directors ever, stylistically he’s great. Just want to shoot hopefully what will be a art piece.
Who is your favorite hip hop artist is?
Jerrod: I think Jay-Z is the greatest hip hop artist of all time, has that not been said enough? What’s great about him I think is that he evolved and that can be used for any art form with comedy and I think that’s very important to me showing some type of growth and evolution. I really respect that. He’s great.