Free Guy Cast Talk About Seeing The Film And Their Pitch For Audiences To See It Too
Last month, BlackFilmandTV.com participated in a early Virtual Press Conference with the cast of director Shawn Levy’s upcoming comedy film, Free Guy. Participating with Levy was most of the cast (Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, and Utkarsh Ambudkar). Unfortunately, castmate Taika Waititi couldn’t attend the zoom chat.
Hitting theaters on December 11, 2020 and written by Matt Lieberman, Free Guy will follow Guy, a lonely bank teller who discovers he is actually a background character in an open-world video game entitled Free City and works to prevent the makers of the game from shutting it down with the help of an avatar.
For the sake of not revealing any spoilers outside of what’s been on the trailer, certain statements have been omitted and only responses from the cast seeing the film have been included.
Shawn, where did the original inspiration for Free Guy come from for you?
Shawn Levy: The movie was a screenplay that got sent to Ryan and I. Matt Lieberman, the screenwriter, wrote the original screenplay, and it was immediately clear to Ryan and I that this was a very good script with a phenomenal idea and that it had this central idea about a background character, realizing that maybe he could have agency and empowerment in his world.
That idea was both a big idea conceptually as far as gaming and plot but also a big idea, and maybe this was more important to Ryan and I in those early days, it was a big idea thematically because it felt like something that scratched at ideas that matter and that we can all relate to. And that was in 2018, and then we made it to 2019, and now in 2020, we really relate to the idea that, "Oh, wait, maybe the world doesn't need to remain as you find it. Maybe you can have an impact on circumstances around you."
Ryan, during Brazil Comic Con last year, you said that Free Guy was the best experience you've ever had. What contributed to this for you?
Ryan Reynolds: I do think it's the best movie making experience that I've ever had easily but also I think the best movie I've ever done. It's the most kind pertinent to our times in that sense. Deadpool was like a movie that was pertinent to the-to the comic book culture when it came out. This really to me speaks to a broader spectrum of where we are in the world, and not only that, but how we are in the world. That's one of the reasons I think it's my favorite movie. But also, the experience certainly plays into that, but also this incredible cast.
It's not every day you work with a group of people, and they're all on this press conference via Zoom right now, where just each one brings something unexpected and stronger than you've ever had before. Each one has authorship of their role and it's just so nice to have a cast that you can absolutely 100 percent count on to blow you away every single day, and that to me was what made the experience so special.
For the cast, what is your one line pitch for Free Guy to someone who may not be familiar with it or may have just seen the first trailer?
Jodie Comer: I just dare them to come away from this without feeling completely elated and wanting to skip out of the theater or wherever it is that they end up watching it, because for me, that's what I was so taken back by. When you see action comedy written down and you think that you know what it is you're about to watch. And-this film evokes so much emotion in you and it has so much heart, right at the core of it. I think that's what I would say.
Joe Kerry: That's kind of Shawn's secret ingredient, I feel like, is like maybe the through line for a lot of Shawn's movies is heart. That's definitely first and foremost here. But it's the magic potion of those three things; action, comedy, and heart in this movie that I think is the perfect blend. It's like if the Truman Show and Ready Player One had a baby and was raised by someone who loved Back to the Future a bunch.
Lil Rel Howery: I do like the fact that, and I've watched it twice in two days, that it's a movie that has everything I like to watch. I like romance, and it's some romantic things is happening that makes me really... I'm such a weirdo with romance. That's not with Ryan Reynolds. People shouldn't know that about me, but I love romcoms.
Then you've got this action, and you know what's crazy is even watching a lot of special effects actually come to light. I'm such a movie fan. I love to be a part of something like this, and you see the person and then you see it finished, and it just looks marvelous. Then it's such a ridiculously dope cast, man. I'm honored to be in a movie with all of you guys. It was really cool to watch something that you're a part of. I still watch stuff as a fan. Even though I'm in, and sometimes I forget I'm in it, like, my father watch stuff and sometimes he forgets I'm in it. It's kind of weird. We'll be sitting next to each other and, "That dude was crazy," I'd be like, "That's me." Okay.
Utkarsh Ambudkar: The people in this movie make it special. Shawn's work speaks for itself, and I'm such a huge fan of Ryan's, to be able to work with them. I still think of Just Friends, Definitely, Maybe, and then Free Guy. Buried coming in a close fourth. That movie is so dope. I've worked with Rel before on Brittany Runs a Marathon, and he's just like a megawatt and a nuclear reactor of love. Like, when he smiles, just the way you light up the screen, Rel, it's just-it melts. It's wonderful. And Joe would come to set and he'd have, like, his pages and his script dogeared and he'd be like, "I was up working on the script." And I was like, "There's a script? The work that he puts in. Jodie's got more awards than we can count. They're just such consummate professionals. They're so good at what they do. This is a movie I would be at the theater to watch on day one regardless. We didn't even talk about Taika, who is a mad scientist in his own right. There could be an entire movie just on Taika outtakes.