FLOCK OF DUDES may have a familiar premise- a 30-something guy decides that he’s outgrown his debaucherous lifestyle and trades in his group of drinking buddies for a possible girlfriend- but it boasts a comic cast that’s eye-blinkingly formidable. While these guys insist that many of their profiles shot up since they shot in mid-2013, it would’ve been quite an impressive roster even then: Chris D’Elia, Eric Andre, Kumail Nanjiani, Hannibal Burress, Brett Gelman, Marc Maron, Skylar Astin, and Timothy Simons all have actual roles, not cameos, in this film. They’re backed up by folks like Hannah Simone, Hilary Duff, Jamie Chung, Bryan Greenberg, and for a brief, funny bit, Jeff Ross.
I talked to star Mr. D’Elia, Ms. Simone, and director Bob Castrone about what it was like to work with such a great comic cast, the trick to playing drunk, and the long trek between the first draft and the final cut:
VINYARD: Bob, I’ll start with you. You co-wrote the script (alongside Brian Levin and Jason Zumwait). What was the genesis of the idea?
BOB: It was based on a John Steinbeck novel. (laughs) Yeah, me and my co-writers were single, living in New York, and trying to meet girls, but we realized every time we went out, there would just be more and more of our dude friends that met up with us, and before we knew it, we were like twelve dudes going from bar to bar just horrifying the women of New York City.
VINYARD: Barcycles?
BOB: No Barcycles yet. We just sat down and decided that, if we were ever going to grow up, we’d have to break up with our friends. That kind of became the joke, and we would go out without inviting people and hide from them, and actually go out and try and meet people. We kind of lived it, so that was the genesis of FLOCK OF DUDES, because we were just a disgusting flock of dudes.
VINYARD: You’d never directed a film before, right?
BOB: Never.
VINYARD: So why did you decide to step into the chair for this one?
BOB: I’d done shorts online for years. Me and the guys, we had a comedy group called “The Poster Show,” and did about a hundred comedy sketches in 2005. I had experience running around with a camera, so when we wrote this and it became a reality, we realized that I was the one who really had to direct it to get it to feel the way we wanted it to feel.
VINYARD: Then how did you get to these fine people?
BOB: I stalked them until they said yes, basically. How did that happen?
D’ELIA: I remember meeting you at Blue Jam Cafe or some shit, I don’t remember if it was there, but we had the same agents or something like that, and they were talking to me about this script. I guess you thought of me for it or something.
BOB: Yeah, I was a fan of Chris, so when we met, we were just talking about character, and I was like, “Oh, this guy’s perfect.” ‘Cause we’d tried for years to make the lead character interesting, and likable, and funny, and when we talked about it, I was like, “Oh, I don’t have to write anymore! This is the guy.” ‘Cause he can just do that.
D’ELIA: Nice!
BOB: So thank you for saving me!
D’ELIA: But you said that (Hannah) was already gonna…I feel like when I was gonna do it, you’d already been talkin’ to her.
BOB: My wife and I are big fans of NEW GIRL, and my wife suggested Hannah early on, but I said, “No way, she’s too beautiful! Nobody would believe that at all!” Luckily, Chris is super-hot too, so when Chris was onboard, it was like, “Oh, this is a believable couple all of a sudden!”
HANNAH: I’m never leaving this conversation. This is great. (laughs)
VINYARD: You mentioned it was hard to make Chris’ character likable. I actually thought this movie was a throwback to movies like BACHELOR PARTY, ANIMAL HOUSE, those kinda old-school frat-boy comedies. You had to update that for 2015 with the whole P.C. movement and the Twittersphere. Was it tricky to navigate that?
BOB: Yeah, definitely. Adam- this is a guy who’s breaking up with his friends, and saying “I don’t want to hang out with you anymore,” and finding the right way to do that where he’s not coming off as whiny or just this sort unlikable guy for being like, “I need to be alone right now!”
D’ELIA: He could have been such a pussy.
BOB: He could’ve been such a pussy! They say there’s like that “Paul Rudd type” thing, where it really means, “I haven’t thought out the character yet. I’ll just put that in the script, ‘He’s a Paul Rudd type.’” That’s what that character was- not Paul Rudd. That took two years, to kind of make him cool, so you’re rooting for him to make up with his friends and kinda succeed and win the girl and all that stuff. Then, you’re dealing with all that other P.C. stuff, which I never really thought about. We just wrote it, and I think our sensibilities…
D’ELIA: Also, you wrote it before any of that blew up.
BOB: The first draft of the script had a Myspace joke.
D’ELIA: Wow, Jesus.
VINYARD: Aside from these guys, you got a ton of comic talent. Hannibal Burress, Jeff Ross, I can go on. Was that a conscious decision on your part to back them up with almost a dozen of today’s top comics?
D’ELIA: When we shot it, we weren’t top comics. (laughs) Jeff Ross was up there, but…I’m not saying I am now, but some of the guys are. Kumail and Hannibal and those guys, they all kind of blew up after they shot.
HANNAH: It’s a funny thing. Yesterday, I was writing an Instagram thing for people to get tickets to go, and I was listing everybody, and I was saying it out loud in the car, it was a car full of people, and it was like, “Holy fuck!” When we were doing it, they didn’t have the careers that they do today.
D’ELIA: SILICON VALLEY came out, and Hannibal…and then…yeah. It’s just crazy.
BOB: It’s a big-budget movie now. I couldn’t afford you all now.
VINYARD: Was it crazy directing a room full of comics? Because there are some scenes where everybody’s in a room.
BOB: Oh, absolutely. ‘Cause we have these great, hilarious comics, and improvisers, and actors. so it’s different backgrounds, different training, different skill sets, and just like, “Go!” It was really long takes. We didn’t really rehearse, and we didn’t have any sort of time ahead to figure things out, so it was really like finding the tone and the jokes in the scene, just for, you know, 8-10 minute takes that our Steadicam guy hated us for. We just had to figure it out, and we were flyin.
D’ELIA: Some of those fuckin’ scenes. I just remember crying so fuckin’ hard one night in the stripper scene, that I ran outside and- I’ve never done this before- I went outside, and started dry heaving. I thought I was gonna throw up.
BOB: You took your shirt off I think.
D’ELIA: Well, it was so fuckin’ hot, that’s why. But dude, I may have laughed that hard before, but I was like (makes retching sound). It was so weird, and tears were coming out. We were just crying.
BOB: It was the first time Hannibal came in and just went, “Cry, cry, cry!” You were like, “Imagine if your friend actually did this!”
VINYARD: So you were encouraging everyone to improvise, and sort of play loose with the script?
BOB: Yeah, I mean they’re the best at what they do, I wanted them to do it. I didn’t want to just stick to the script, “Say my words the way we wrote them when we were sitting at Blue Jam!” It was like, “No, this is your character, make it your character.”
VINYARD: You were playing the leading man, and you and Hannah had to be the straight arrows, relatively, not making it rain on strippers or anything like that. Was it hard to let all these dudes- especially you, Chris, ‘cause you’re a comic yourself- to let them go big while you’re kinda keeping it restrained?
D’ELIA: Well, I feel like I got to do it with them when I was doing the scenes with them, but when it was Hannah and I, it just felt like it was the real…it felt like the moments that made our scenes were the ones where we were just…you try and connect. It was very easy to sit across from her and just kind of be natural, and you can’t say that for everybody. It felt like that was where our scenes lived. It’s real easy to make a scene with a guy and girl seem basic, but it just kinda felt like we had fun with it in the way a guy and a girl have fun on a rowboat, or whatever it is. You’re not gonna be doing that kinda shit, like, “Cry, cry, cry,” to a girl while you’re hangin’ out with her. It just kinda felt like naturally, this is the situation that it would be, and then I feel like when people see it, they’ll be able to identify that, and identify themselves in that. That’s what those scenes needed. But when it’s with the guys and shit, that’s kind of more like a ride, or just kinda like fun to watch, ‘cause it’s like, “Look at these idiots!” But the movie needs to be about something, and I think the heart is in those scenes.
HANNAH: We were kinda lucky, because we were protected from the insanity. Most of our scenes were just the two of us, so we were in this bubble, and it’s written really well, so it’s not loaded or overwrought. It’s just two people who are friends, who are just trying to figure out whether they can have a normal conversation, which I think also helps.
D’ELIA: Yeah. It woulda been annoying if it was just us trying to be funny and shit. It just wouldn’t have been right.
VINYARD: Hannah, you’ve done a few years on THE NEW GIRL, but I’m pretty sure this is your biggest role in a film, so far. Was it difficult doing comedy for film with a longer schedule and a bigger scale in general than shooting quick seasons of TV?
HANNAH: We’re single-camera, so I feel that we shoot a little movie every week, and we have a really big cast, and we always seem to fold more people in. We have people who love to improvise and have fun, and it’s also a really great group of people, where it’s easy, and there’s heart and weirdness. It was kinda like an extension of that, and like Chris said, that’s really lucky. A lot of times you could end up on sets where you’re like, “This is weird, and these people are weird, and I don’t know how this is gonna go.” So no, it was a very similar vibe. It was awesome. You could just kind of have a really good time, and do really good work.
VINYARD: I read, literally on Wikipedia, that you are something of a teetotaler. You don’t drink, you don’t do drugs.
D’ELIA: Oh yeah, no, I don’t.
VINYARD: So Wikipedia got it right.</>
D’ELIA: Wikipedia’s always right. (laughs) Yeah I don’t drink or do drugs. Coffee’s the only thing, that’s it.
VINYARD: But on this, and if I remember correctly, on WHITNEY, you play a character who drinks. How do you approach that?
D’ELIA: I don’t know. A lot of actors are like, “Well, if that’s what I gotta do, I think I should experience that.” But I dunno, I think that’s kinda bullshit. For me, I think observing is kind of more of what I do, which is why I do stand-up, ‘cause that’s all about what I’ve observed and think is funny. I’ve seen enough drunk people, and because I was the sober one, when I was around them, I understood was happening because I wasn’t plastered. I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding pretentious, but you observe it, then you kinda watch it, then you pick it up that way. I’m not the kinda guy who puts the idea in a wallet and goes, “Okay, I’m that guy now!” I heard Daniel Day-Lewis on the set of LINCOLN would only be referred to as Abraham Lincoln, and that’s not me. (laughs) I don’t need to do that.
HANNAH: The thing about playing drunk is that when you’re drunk, you’re usually hyper-unaware of how you’re acting. You’re not sitting there thinking, “This is how this feels.” And the next morning, you’re usually like, “What did I do?!” It’s a weird thing. Maybe if you’re a barber, you want to practice being a barber for your movie, but doing drunk? You don’t know what you’re doing if you’re really drunk!
D’ELIA: Also, when I was at NYU for three months and then dropped out, William H. Macy talked to us, and they were talking about some scene he did when he was crying so hard, and he said, “How did you get to that moment?” And he said, “All I was thinking was, as the character, ‘Don’t cry.’” That stuck with me, ‘cause when you’re drunk, all you’re thinking is, “I’m not drunk, I’m not drunk.” So I kind of in my head, try and act like, “I’m not drunk,” and then it just comes out in that way.
BOB: He doesn’t just play drunk. There are nuances in his drunken performance; we had him play three different types of drunk in the movie. You’re wasted, you’re like upset drunk, and you’re like minorly drunk. There were levels of drunkenness.
HANNAH: 50 shades of drunk!
VINYARD: What do you think it is about your style or your persona that you keep getting cast-
D’ELIA: The drinking thing?
VINYARD: Yeah.
D’ELIA: I think a lot of people know me from standup, and I had a clip that went viral about drunk girls, so I think people think about that when they think about me to cast me for something. But I think that also, I give off a kind of vibe where they think I’m like a party guy. That’s so wrong, I’m so not, but I feel like people feel that way. I feel like people think, “Oh, that’s a guy I could get a beer with,” or whatever, but I’m just not that guy.
BOB: My mom saw you do standup, and afterwards she asked me what you were on.
D’ELIA: Yeah, everybody asks me that, yeah. People are like, “You’re on coke,” and it’s like, “It’s an act. I’m not. I’m just happy, that’s my drug up there,” you know? I think that people kinda see what they feel they see, and then kind of type- I don’t know if it’s typecasting or whatever. Also, I’m game for it. It’s fun to play guys who like are unraveling, you know?
VINYARD: Aside from the “make it rain” bit, was there anything else that happened on set that made you guys break?
D’ELIA: Oh for sure. There were so many, I can’t even think…
BOB: It was great with you and Skylar (Astin), just watching you guys. That was the first thing we shot, and the way you guys were bouncing off each other and riffing off each other in like the tuxedo scene…
D’ELIA: There were so many though, man. The Brett (Gelman) thing, that, “In my mind, in my mind,” thing, that was making us laugh hard too.
BOB: I think at a certain point the crew was like, “Okay, we have to shoot this scene today.” It just kept on getting funnier.
VINYARD: You also filled the background with, like Skylar, actors who aren’t comics, Hilary Duff, Jamie Chung, etc. How did you get all these people to come onboard in relatively small roles?
BOB: That’s a great question! A big part of it was we were shooting here in L.A. It was L.A., it was the summer, and once we got great people onboard, more people wanted to get involved. It was a quick shoot, it was here, and, yeah.
VINYARD: You get to play with comics.
BOB: Yeah, you get to have fun.
FLOCK OF DUDES is encoring at L.A. Film Fest this Tuesday at 10:00 PM at the Regal L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles.
