Interview with Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg, and Jorma Taccone from "Hot Rod"

During a publicity stop in Seattle, I got the chance to speak with Director Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg, and Jorma Taccone about their new film "Hot Rod". The Saturday Night Live members were in fine form as we talked about their movie. Sarah Fetters of Moviefreak.com was also in attendance as we did a round table interview.

GVK: How is Producer Lorne Michaels different to work with on a film as compared to working with him on SNL?

Akiva: You get to know Lorne much better on film and you get much more attention paid to you. The movie is also much more relaxed as you are not trying to do 90 minutes worth of material in 4 ½ days.

Andy Samberg: No time for chit chat on SNL.

Jorma: We had a 45 day shoot on this film and when we broke shooting prior to last season we were back at the new season the next day.

GVK: What were your first impressions of the script?

Andy: I loved the script. While I have not seen many film scripts, I was hooked as it really fits our style of humor.

GVK: The film has many pop culture references to it and really seems to parody the teen films of the 70's and 80s; what can you tell the readers about how this came to be?

Andy: The film was built to reward people who have knowledge of movies and pop culture. The marching scene for example was totally improvised at the end. We even make reference to the BMX film "Rad" with some of the t-shirts that had sayings from the film. They have those shirts on our site as well.

Akiva: I had shot the scene about four times and was really happy with it. All of a sudden we thought wouldn't it be funny of this happened and we added the scenes with the television at the end.

GVK: How did you come to pick the music in the film, especially Europe's The Final Countdown album?

Akiva: We used 8 of the 10 cuts on that album; we avoided using the title song and the ballad Carrie.

Andy: Arrested Development used the Final Countdown, and the theme is in the trailer.

Jorma: We almost changed Denise's name in the film to Carrie so we could include the song, but decided not to.

GVK: How did the Punch Dancing scene come about?

Akiva: that was something we came up with and thought would be great to ad in the film.