Over Your Dead Body Director Had To Work Overtime To Prove He Could Make Horror [Exclusive]

This article contains spoilers for "Over Your Dead Body."

Jorma Taccone may best be known as one-third of the comedy cohort called The Lonely Island. Together with Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer, the trio reinvigorated "Saturday Night Live" for the YouTube generation, thanks to their absurd and hilarious SNL Digital Shorts. 

After making a name for themselves on the late night sketch comedy show, they eventually jumped to the big screen, with efforts including "Hot Rod" and "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping," but Taccone himself ventured out to the big screen elsewhere with the "SNL" movie "MacGruber." Though none of these movies became box office hits, they've all found their place in pop culture history as cult favorites, with audiences finding the comedic gold within years after their theatrical release. Better late than never, I suppose.

Though The Lonely Island has spent recent years looking back at their years at "SNL" thanks to the superb "Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast," each member has branched out to carve their own path to even more success. Andy Samberg has starred in beloved shows like "Brooklyn Nine-Nine," hit movies like "Zootopia 2," and under-the-radar darlings like "Palm Springs." Akiva Schaffer has been at the helm of acclaimed movies like "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" and "The Naked Gun" reboot. And Jorma Taccone has directed episodes of shows like "Parks & Recreation," "The Miracle Workers," and the "Sonic the Hedgehog" spin-off series "Knuckles," not to mention bringing "MacGruber" to TV for Peacock. 

But Taccone's biggest departure from his work with The Lonely Island has now arrived with "Over Your Dead Body," a remake of the Norwegian film "The Trip." The movie follows Dan (Jason Segel) and Lisa (Samara Weaving), a couple on the outs, and somehow both have independently come to the conclusion that the only way to end this relationship is by killing the other. It's easily the filmmaker's darkest comedy yet, packed with bloody, graphic violence, twisted laughs, and supreme effort from Taccone, who was eager to prove that he could shift into a different genre while still delivering his own brand of comedy. 

Leading up to the film's release, I spoke with Taccone about "Over Your Dead Body" and the challenges posed by delicately balancing such a dark premise with hilarious comedy, as well as some other intriguing tidbits. Read our full interview below.

Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Ethan Anderton: I want to start off by asking: The feature comedies you've directed before, there's a level of absurdity there that didn't require you to have much of a grounded reality, but this movie needs to have its feet mostly planted firmly on the ground in order for you to feel that authenticity. What was the challenging thing about dancing that line between the comedy and then keeping it so that it feels genuine and you are invested in the story and the characters?

Jorma Taccone: Well, I will put it in the camp of — yes, you're dead right, obviously, with something like "MacGruber," which is off the rails. But it's funny, though, because as a director, you are still having to protect tone. Honestly, when we were doing "MacGruber," when you make, especially an "SNL" comedy, everyone wants to do jokes. Costume department wants to do jokes, even sets, and dah, dah, dah. Your job is really, especially with something like that, you're still building a real world to then have the wrong character in it. I always compare it to "Tango & Cash," when they shoot the tanker full of cocaine. We couldn't even do that. That would be way over the top for the world of "MacGruber." So I am used to the idea of, even on a small scale, protecting tone. 

But when talking to [writer] Tommy [Wirkola] and talking to Guy Danella, the producers of this, when I was first talking to them, because people only trust what's on your resumé of what you can do, I had to be like, "Yo, I understand what this is." I love the original, and the violence, and the fear, and the drama, and the danger needing to all be real to be able to even get the humor to work in this was something I wanted to be like, "I get it, guys. I promise you I know how to do this sort of thing." So, yeah, I was really wanting to do it for the challenge of doing all of these different tones and things that I haven't done before. 

But yeah, a huge part of it is protecting that world, grounding it. The first part of the movie is really grounding you in this relationship, [so] that it feels real enough that you can go on this journey. And just making sure that all that worked was crucial, obviously.

Speaking of that, obviously, in any movie, the characters have to go on an arc in order for the story to be satisfying. This one has to take Lisa (Samara Weaving) and Dan (Jason Segel) from the darkest end of a relationship to the exact opposite spectrum. What was the process like of figuring out how to gradually get there while you were piecing the movie together in order to give it enough room to breathe and feel like the ending was earned?

I loved that part of it. Obviously, I've edited comedy forever. I feel like the action, and the gore, and the violence stuff edits very similar to comedy. The shock of violence is very much like telling a joke. But to me, the really fun part of this one is that their relationship does happen over — and this is the case in many movies — it's happening basically over the course of five or six scenes that you can plot out how the core relationship is going. To be able to do scenes that were real acting scenes, that you get to actually leave the camera, not interrupt, go up to your actors and give smaller directions — you're guiding. But these are incredible actors as well, so it was really fun for me to be able to sit in actual drama scenes and have that stuff — not be scared of things that get dark, get emotional.

I loved, for instance, we really built the schedule to [make it so] that the very last scene that you're left with is the scene in the closet that they have, which is a very emotional scene. It's the coming back together of these two people [...]. It's still a fun, crazy movie sort of thing, but at the core, it's the relationship between these two people. To end with that and have it be, "We forgive each other, and we're sorry." It was nice. It was really nice. 

I grew up in theater as well, so in that way, I wasn't scared of that. I love talking to actors about process and all that sort of stuff, so it was just fun for me to be able to do that. Totally different shades of certainly what people would expect from me.

Touching upon that, I was curious, how did the script change, if really much at all, once you came on board? It felt like there maybe might've been some personal touches, especially that conversation in the car. Knowing that you and your wonderful wife, Marielle Heller, are both accomplished filmmakers and actors, some of those conversations felt like they came from a pretty real place.

Jorma Taccone: The podcast scene is exactly [that]. I put that in. That was exactly our lives. My podcast is like World War II stuff. I'm like an 80-year-old man, and her's is actually "B***h Sesh", which is the podcast that she listens to occasionally. 

I think what was cool about it was that all of us, from producers to [writers] Nick [Kocher], and Brian [McElhaney] to me, to Samara, to Jason, there's things in there that they [brought themselves]. For instance, in the dining room scene, I wanted Jason and Samara to write their own grievances. Both of them have things that they've put in that are their own things. It's hard to be in a relationship. The movie ends with two people floating in a boat together, and that's the metaphor for any relationship. It's like, "Are you going to jump in the water, or are you going to do this?" But yeah, I think, hopefully, that's the stuff that's really relatable to anybody who's actually tried to be in a relationship.

I couldn't help but notice that, when Jason Segel is all banged up, bumps and bruises and whatnot, he looks a lot more like Conner's disguise in "Popstar." Please tell me that came up during production.

[laughing] Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But I will say, Jason Segel's very handsome, a very charming man who is good-looking. We have never talked about that scene, and it is unfortunate. Honestly, yes, he is f***ed up, though, by the end of the film, and very comically so.

Yeah, absolutely.

And yes, it would only require the same amount of makeup that Andy has on to get him to that state.

Something else from "Popstar" that I noticed is I think that you might maybe be the only filmmaker who has two movies now that has the line, "You're a mother-f***ing, t***y-sucking, two-ball b***h."

Oh, that's true. Yeah. And by the way, that was Juliette [Lewis] improving.

Oh, wow!

When she did that, I was like, "Oh, s**t!" Because everybody has their own version of that from third grade, or I do, but I was very surprised when she said it. I was just like, "Oh, this is great." I was like, "I thought this was just a Northern California thing." In normal life as an adult, you don't say that to someone. That doesn't come up of something that you say. So yes, I was thrilled when she said it.

Another quick bit that I was curious about, there's a quick shot of a news broadcast, talking about Felix the raccoon sitting on the roofs of people's cars. Is that a carryover of the "Hot Rod" bit of, "The dog walked itself home, ate a pizza, and took a nap" on TV?

Jorma Taccone: I don't know if you know the Fatal Farm guys, but Zach [Johnson] and Jeffrey [Max] are f***ing hilarious. Really, really funny guys. They did the "Lasagna Cat" series. Anyway, so those guys used that actor, whose name is Bill Jones, I believe, and he was in a promo that I was like, "Hey, let these guys do whatever they want for the 'MacGruber' TV series." And they had him as a 'Current Affair' type reporter who was interviewing MacGruber in prison, and he's so funny. 

So I immediately called those guys up and was like, "We need this reporter." So I hit Bill up, and before production even started, he went over to my friend's house and shot in green screen, and I just wrote up a whole bunch of copy, and 100%, I was like, "My favorite s*** to do is make reporters say crazy s***." The other one that was in "Hot Rod" that got cut out, a different version of that was, "And that's why whales are stupid. In other news ..."

[laughing] Awesome.

The one last thing I want to talk about is the ending. You have Kumail Nanjiani popping up in full-on shirtless action mode. Did it take any convincing to get him to do that?

No, it didn't. I hit him up early days to be like, "Yo, we need somebody to really be an awesome reveal in this." I did want it to be different than the original. The original is slightly, it's a joke that, it's not my joke, but I wanted this to be a really fun reveal for the audience and have it be with somebody really surprising. And f***ing Kumail's body is definitely, for comedy folks, surprising. He's so kick-ass, and I just love him as a person. We've been trying to work together for the longest time. So no, it was a pretty easy ask, and then more surprising that he was willing to do it.

Then, fun fact: The rest of the cast who are in the movie within the movie, the woman, Iina [Kuustonen] is her name, is one of the biggest actors in Finland.

Oh, wow.

What is his name? I'm blanking on it right now. But we have one of the original bad guys, André [Eriksen] from the original film is in it. And then, is his name Ilka? [Editor's note: It's Ilka Villi.] He's in some video game. You would know it. [It's the "Alan Wake" franchise.] He's this massive character in this huge video game as well. They're some of the biggest actors in Finland. They're awesome.

"Over Your Dead Body" is playing in theaters everywhere now.