Andy Samberg, The Lonely Island on the Making of 'Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping'
Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island are faking it…
— -- Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island are faking it -- and their fans are loving it.
The comedy trio, made up of childhood friends Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, are best known for their hit SNL Digital musical shorts. They have now taken that successful formula and used it to create a full-length, big screen musical comedy about a fake pop-rapper called, “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.”
“He plays in a band called the Style Boys,” Schaffer said about Samberg's character. “Then he gets a little big for his britches, becomes kind of a little bit of a star. [Jorma] becomes his DJ. I become pissed off and go move on a farm, kind of out of spite and go live by myself off the grid.”
They came up with the idea for the movie after successfully releasing three CDs stemming from their much-loved video digital shorts, many of which have gone viral. A fourth CD, the soundtrack to ‘Popstar,’ is set to be released soon.
"In the writing process of this, we watched a ton of pop documentaries," said Taccone. "We've been calling them popumentaries, just because it seems accurate. It almost seemed like a new genre of filmmaking, these big tour documentaries which are kind of puff piece things. And we were like, this seems like a great way for us to jam our comedy songs into a movie."
Samberg, Schaffer and Taccone then teamed up with director, writer, producer Judd Apatow (Trainwreck, 40 Year-Old Virgin), who they say had the same idea and they knew it was meant to be. And that’s not where the film’s star power ends. Fans may get a kick out of seeing some of their favorite celebrities making surprise appearances.
"It's jam-packed with cameos," Samberg, 37, told Peter Travers. "So many cameos that you could shake a stick at."
“Who’ve we got on there? Laird Bones,” joked Schaffer.
“No, not a person,” Samberg said.
“Sammy Two-tones,” added Schaffer.
"That's not a real person," said Samberg. "This is a bad sell.”
But there are some real big-names making appearances that movie goers may want to watch out for including Usher, Pink, Adam Levine and Ringo Starr. And apparently it didn't take a lot of convincing to get them to show up.
"A lot of really big people show up to our shoots and say, 'my kid loves you guys,'" Samberg said. "'My kid said I had to do this. Which we are always happy for."
With a solid fanbase, the trio is promising to deliver big time.
“It was a big thing for us to have very high YPM for this movie,” Taccone said.
Samberg chimed in “Yucks Per Minute. YPM’s are through the roof.”
They wrapped up the interview with a little dance.
“Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” hits theaters today.
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