Spoilers below for Idiots, premiering August 28 in theaters.
Idiots, the new comedy starring Dave Franco, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Mason Thames, and Kiernan Shipka, has a little bit of everything: a star-studded cast, a bone-chilling villainous turn, and Dave Franco performing in what he calls a “top three ‘shit yourself’ scene in cinematic history.”
The upcoming movie, written and directed by Macon Blair (The Toxic Avenger, I Don’t Feel At Home in This World Anymore), tells the story of what happens “when two unqualified bozos (Franco, Jackson) are hired to transfer a rich teen (Thames) to rehab [and] their straightforward gig quickly spirals into dangerous mayhem.”
I sat down with Blair and the cast for an exclusive roundtable interview to unpack all of the movie’s big moments (many comedic, some filled with drama verging on horror) and dive into the challenges of bringing an ambitious story with a stacked cast to the big screen on a limited budget.
Why did the filmmakers of Idiots change the movie’s title from The Shitheads?
One of the biggest hurdles Blair encountered when making Idiots was what exactly to call it. The film was originally titled (and marketed as) The Shitheads. Blair says that, despite what you might think, it wasn’t outside pressure that forced the name change.
Macon Blair (Writer / Director): In my heart, I still call it the Shitheads. But it is Idiots. We never had any pressure to change it. [We] just started to do the rolling math of the challenges of promoting the movie and the hoops we would need to jump through. Knowing it's a small movie [and] it's coming out in the summertime, could be shooting ourselves in the foot as far as how we're able to promote the movie. Dave, [producer] Alex [Orr], and I took a weekend and brainstormed a bunch of stuff. Dave came up with Idiots and we were like, ‘It rolls off the tongue, it's clean.’ And we just don't have to think about it getting squashed on social media or video on demand.
What Dave Franco told Alison Brie about the ‘most explosive’ scene in Idiots.
The plot of Idiots unfolds as a series of intense vignettes that transpire during a road trip. Midway through the film, protagonists Mark (Franco) and Davis (Jackson) stop at a local motel while in the process of transporting Sheridan (Thames), an entitled teenage psychopath, to rehab. The trio invite a stripper named Irina (Shipka) to their hotel room, where Sheridan proceeds to taint Mark’s supply of drugs. What happens next is a wild, chaotic scene that climaxes in an unexpected way.
Mason Thames (Sheridan): Yes [Dave], tell us how you pooped yourself.
Kerinan Shipka (Irina): Mason and I were in the other room drinking Diet Cokes with our phones out. We were just like “Oh my God!”
Dave Franco (Mark): I don't want to build it up too much, but I do think it's a top three “shit yourself” scenes in cinematic history.
Thames: It’s just so aggressive man! It broke the camera.
O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Davis): It's violent. It's violent.
Franco: What's great about it is that all the humor in this movie, even that moment, it's a bunch of really fun character stuff leading to these punctuation moments. This isn't a movie where it's a bunch of one-line jokes. It's all grounded in these really bizarre characters, and we're playing it as real as possible and letting the humor come from that. But then yes, you of course have these "explosive humor" moments that people will definitely be talking about.
Thames: I just remember Kieran's face when she first saw it. We were all just sitting there watching. It was so funny.
Shipka: It was an unbelievable cinematic feat.
Thames: That was one of the best experiences of my life.
Franco: I called my wife (Alison Brie) after that day and I was like, "Honey, how was work? I think I just did the craziest thing I've ever done on camera." Which is saying a lot because I play a lot of fucking crazy characters. But this character was a gift. There's so much fun to be had. The challenge is to use the real estate for the rest of the movie to at least try to have the audience understand where this guy's coming from.
Mason Thames and Kiernan Shipka break down the scene where Sheridan bites Irina.
Immediately after Franco’s explosive scene, Shipka and Thames have a jaw-dropping moment of their own. In a truly horrific encounter, Sheridan bites Irina, drawing blood and revealing himself to be not just a spoiled teenager but an outright psychopath.
Blair: I didn't want [the cast] to think about it as if they were in a different kind of movie because then it would be all fractured. I was really interested in the idea that we could have a silly, sophomoric, dumb comedy because I love that kind of thing. But sort of snuck within that would be this molecule of something that was much darker.
Shipka: Reading [that scene], I felt like it was part of this whole kind of introduction to [Irina]. She does this dance, the explosion happens. It's sort of one thing feeding into the next. And you read through and you go, "Oh God, he bites her."
Thames: There’s the switch.
Shipka: I did not feel the level of bone-chilling sinister until I was in the room. I think that's a testament to the way that Mason is playing that character, because it really does shift quickly from this is just a bad day for this girl, to “Oh, no. Something's wrong.” It felt like one of those indie movie moments where we did not have that much time and the camera was handheld and there was a lot of just going in and finding it quickly. And I did kind of leave going, "Did we get that?"
Thames: It was so fast, but we were just so ready for it. For how crazy of a scene it was, it was a really cool memory. I think that was my first day I got to be evil.
Shipka: Yeah. It's so haunting.
Jackson: You went from weirdo to threat.
Mason Thames reveals whether he wants to play more villains.
Thames, who is perhaps best known for starring in both the Black Phone and How to Train Your Dragon franchises, says he reveled at the chance to play a different type of character.
Thames: Yeah, I think he's pretty misunderstood.
Franco: Interesting. Expound on that.
Thames: This guy has a lot going on and is a very complicated character. Macon and I talked a good bit. I just wanted to serve his vision for who we saw Sheridan to be. And getting to work it out with him and kind of put together this puzzle of a kid was so fun and so nice and a really cool experience. Also, just playing a villain was really fun.
IGN: Do you want to play more psychopaths and villains moving forward?
Thames: 100%. This was so much fun. He's pretty crazy, but I want to go further.
How O’Shea Jackson Jr. cried real tears during the opening scene of Idiots.
Apart from the scatalogical humor and surprising violence of Idiots, the film also contains more sobering, grounded storylines. In the very first scene of the movie, Jackson has an emotional moment opposite rapper and actor Killer Mike where Davis loses his job. It was a challenging scene for Jackson in which he drew from personal experiences.
Jackson: Every tear I have in the movie is from a real place. I went through a couple losses in my family. I'm a parent and now I'm worried about everything all the time. And so a lot of it was me just taking the time to talk to (myself) before I went out on camera. I like to keep the energy light. I like to keep the jokes going and everybody's morale high. And so having to put myself in a corner for a second to get there was new for me. And the things that I have to do in this film are also new for me to share on camera.
And to get there the first day and meet Killer Mike is wild. I love Killer Mike. I don't want him to see me cry, but all I need is for Macon to tell me we got it one time. And [I got] the single tear with the light coming through the church window. I was like, ‘Oh, I'm in my bag right now.”
How the cast and crew of Idiots made a big movie on a small budget.
For the cast of Idiots, making a smaller movie presented many challenges but also made the process rewarding.
Shipka: I think everybody truly wants to be there. We're all here because we love this material and we want to be a part of this story. And I think that can happen at any scale, but really when we're making a movie like this, it feels that there's just a real sort of authenticity to everybody on set.
Franco: There is something about just having the limitations of a smaller movie that sometimes helps you raise your game. But I remember at the end of certain days, we just didn't have much time left, but we needed to get some big important scene. And we were like, "All right, can we do this in a one-er?" It's like, "Hey, we know our lines. We got this." And then you just get there. You make it happen.
Thames: You remember when I had to do the laugh when my mouth was all bloody? My voice was totally gone by that point. I don't remember what we've been shooting before, but my voice was gone. I couldn't laugh and it physically hurt so bad . But I just kind of used it.
Franco: It gave it this really creepy quality the whole time.
Jackson: As a performer, I never want to hold up camera, especially on a smaller film. You don't want to cost more money than what you have to. And I don't like keeping the crew waiting.
Franco: Knowing that we're coming in with only a few takes, it makes you come in prepared. You've got to be ready for anything. And so we're all very, very locked in.
Shipka: It’s athletic.
Jackson: There’s three seconds left on the shot clock. It’s just like, you gotta shoot.
Idiots premieres in theaters August 28.
Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton
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