Interview: Kyle Newachek x Game Over, Man!
Newachek talks friendship, full-frontal, and directing a feature film (2018)
Almost exactly one year ago, the fan obsessed show from Comedy Central Workaholics concluded after its seventh season. Workaholics was more than just a stoner comedy about three dim-witted and dangerous bros with a complete lack of self-awareness — the show brought quick-witted sketch-style comedy to the mundane lifestyles of underachievers who just want to have fun. These characters are bad people, surrounded by bad people, doing bad things, and doing a bad job -- telemarketing. We still loved them. Everyone did. Workaholics was appreciated by girls and guys alike, whether they were in their teens, 20s, 30s, or 60s. So, when it was announced that the gang of Adam (Adam Devine), Ders (Anders Holm), and Blake (Blake Anderson) would be back barely a year later with a Netflix film playing another trip of idiots, people let their high hopes rise.
If you were a fan of Workaholics, then their new film, Game Over, Man! (an ode to Bill Paxton's famous line from Aliens), is exactly what you've been missing. The film is Kyle Newachek's first feature-length credit as a director, who also co-created Workaholics, starred as the drug dealing Karl, and directed most of the episodes.
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The premise of Game Over, Man! is simple: three under achieving, unintelligent housekeepers at a luxury hotel must stay alive and save the day when they get caught up in a hostage takeover. Newachek spoke to me about the upcoming film, and how this team of talented comedy actors collaborate to play fools in hilarious situations.
"We all worked on it," says Newachek. "Anders is the writer, but we all work as a team when developing. That mushrooms episode from Workaholics was really great and inspired by Die Hard. Collectively, Die Hard is our favourite movie. So we said 'Let's make a Die Hard movie and make it funny.’ The stakes are really high and its life and death and you have these three stooges running around. Other producers came on, like Seth Rogen, and they have experience making these movies. They helped us with our emotional line with the three guys, they cleaned it up, added a few jokes. The four of us would take notes and then, as a director, that's where I came in to figure out how we actually do this," said Newachek.
Writing a film and getting it into production is always difficult enough, but this group's style of comedy relies on being instinctually funny. Like Workaholics before it, Game Over, Man!'s laughs rely heavily on that same style that worked in Workaholics -- and that demands a director who knows how to best capture spontaneity. This is a group that's been working together for so long that the jokes and lines delivered throughout the film never feel forced, and always elicit big laughs from it's three stars.
"You don't get that natural connection without improv and multiple cameras capturing it," said Newachek. "back in the day, I just moved the camera while they improvised. it's at the core of who we are. You can have scenes on the page and then the emotion isn't necessarily there. When you put real friendships behind it, then you can start improvising the jokes," he added.
Because Game Over, Man! is set in a luxury hotel, it makes sense that there would be some celebrities staying there. This plot device is perfect for the inclusion of a few unpredictable cameos, and casting celebrities to come together for a quick scene to play themselves is an interesting task.
"You would be happy to know that Shaggy was in from day one. Poor Anders, he wrote and rewrote that script like eight times. Every single time, Shaggy has been in it, singing at gunpoint. It was relevant and perfect. He flew over from Jamaica. As soon as the headshot came up, everyone else started coming in, too. People like Steve-O, they just came because they were fans," said Newachek.
One thing fans know for sure about DeVine is that he is never afraid to take it all the way; DeVine always seems to be the one most drawn to making a complete fool of himself for the sake of the scene. In Game Over, Man!, he goes where too few men have gone before on film. His character not only goes full frontal, but close up, and at every angle.
“Adam is just the guy who will do that,” says Newacheck. “I lived with him for seven years, and let’s just say he’s never been shy about his dick. It’s not a surprise to me at all that he would take it there. He is known to do that. It was a closed set. I was sitting there behind the camera right behind him and speaking quietly and seriously saying, very literally, okay, now loosen up.”
Newacheck’s character on Workaholics, Karl, was such a fan favourite that he’s more like the fourth member to their quartet. But while fans might hope for Newacheck to make an appearance in the film, for this project, he decided to stay in the director’s chair.
“I never considered putting myself in the film, but everyone else did,” he says. “For this one, there just wasn’t a role. Karl – that was me. I was so into it and I loved it. For this, I wanted to establish myself as a director.”
If you are someone who has never seen Workaholics, then Game Over, Man! is a great introduction to the group. If you love Workaholics and have seen every episode six times, depressed that no new episodes are coming, then consider this film a welcome reprieve. If you hate Workaholics, then this movie probably isn’t for you — and neither was this article.
*This article was originally published in Beatroute Magazine on April 10, 2018.