Movie musicals are a tried and true genre in the film world, one that can often lead to Academy Awards and other honors. Auteur studio A24 is getting in on the fun with its new movie Dicks: The Musical, which is the most unhinged movie I’ve ever seen. The film’s cast includes SNL icon Bowen Yang as God, who spoke to CinemaBlend about what it was like narrating Dicks as that all powerful figure.
Dicks: The Musical tells a bonkers story that is basically an R-rated and twisted version of The Parent Trap. Two long lost twins (stars and writers Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp) make a plan to reunite their parents (Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane), and all sorts of outrageous moments happen in the process. As you answer in the video above, I asked Bowen Yang about what it was like portraying God for his narration throughout the movie’s 86-minute runtime, and he told me:
As someone who has been on either end of let’s just say agnosticism I feel like I got to do a pretty holistic take on God. We shot a lot of my narration stuff just in one day. It was just a nice volley of things from Larry just being like ‘Okay, now you’re going to do some powdered drug and go. Now you’re gonna be asleep and, this is one we didn’t even use, but there might be a war happening.’
Talk about a fun day on set. While Bowen Yang was performing essentially by himself on camera, he had the support of Jackson and Sharp, as well as director Larry Charles (Borat, Seinfeld) who helmed the movie. Obviously Yang’s years on SNL and training in sketch and improv comedy helped him pull off playing the delightful deity.
I was able to chat with the director and cast of Dicks: The Musicalin the midst of the strikes thanks to a special agreement made between A24 and SAG-AFTRA. In our same conversation, director Larry Charles weighed in on that time working with Bowen Yang on all the God-ly material for Dicks: The Musical. Despite the high concept of the scenes and the light blasphemy involved, it sounds like it was just four friends hanging out together and throwing jokes at each other. In his words:
Josh and Aaron sat with me. The three of us sat together just hanging out with Bowen and there was a camera there. And he was dressed as God. But otherwise it was a pretty normal day.
As normal as any day on the set of Dicks can be, that is. The movie is full of bonkers musical numbers, a lightning fast and twist screenplay, Yang’s God and more. And let’s not even get started on the Sewer Boys, a pair of horrifying creatures Nathan Lane’s character tends to throughout the movie’s runtime.
Dicks: The Musical is in select theaters in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco now, and will have its wide theatrical release on October 20th. Check out the 2023 movie release dates to plan your next movie experience.