An imaginative ode to obsessive fandom and the creative joys it can inspire, Brigsby Bear is a hilarious and affecting new American indie that is sure to become an instant cult classic. And it’s screening throughout this year’s International Film Festival.
Current Saturday Night Live star Kyle Mooney (Zoolander 2) co-wrote and stars as a James, a young man who raised in an underground bunker where he became wholly obsessed with the only entertainment he had access to: the titular kid’s fantasy show about the adventures of a creepy/heroic bear with an animatronic head.
When James’ world is turned upside down, he leans heavily into his Brigsby Bear obsession as a means of salvation.
Comedy heavyweights Phil Lord, Chris Miller and The Lonely Island backed the film as producers, and it features a casually deep supporting cast in the form of Claire Danes, Greg Kinnear and Mark Hamill, who delivers an amazing performance.
Flicks recently got the chance to chat to Mooney about Brigsby Bear in a Los Angeles hotel suite.
Flicks: Fandom is such a hard thing to capture on screen without being condescending, but you really pull it off here. Was this conceived as a paean to the joys of fandom?
Kyle Mooney: I wrote the movie with my friend Kevin Costello, and I don’t know what he’d say to this, but I would say personally I am a fan of things. I am obsessive over so many different aspects of culture. Obviously, James is obsessed with this show Brigsby Bear, and I feel like Kyle Mooney would be obsessed with this show as well. Especially given the context of it. I don’t think we did set out initially as “Let’s make a movie about fandom”, I think it’s something that just because we are fans ourselves, it just poured out of us.
You, the director and the co-writer were friends in your early teens – is there a throughline from that relationship to what’s on-screen here?
Absolutely. Totally. There were so many kinds of meta moments throughout the process of making the film. And certainly like, any of the scenes of James and his friends in the woods with a camera and making the Brigsby movie, it felt like it was mirroring what we’ve been doing for over a decade. And I think the movie could be considered a love letter to filmmaking, but more specifically making something with your friends, which I’m very fortunate in the sense that I’ve pretty much made a career out of it.
How much fun was it to conceptualise the Brigsby Bear show itself?
It was the most fun. That was probably one of the highlights of the experience. And one of the reasons I loved it so much is you could throw in any references you wanted, because in theory, James hasn’t really seen anything else and Ted [Mark Hamill’s character], who’s making it, can just pull from all of the things that exist outside of their world and James would never know. So we had a really good time. I’ve got a really big video collection and we would pull videos and we would look at children’s We Sing musical tapes or something like that. Or we’d send YouTube links back and forth. And it was kind of a constant game of ‘What do I remember?’
Beyond the visual similarities to Teddy Ruxpin, were there any other major pop culture touchstones for the Brigsby show?
I sent a handful of references to Kevin when I first kind of pitched him the idea of working on it with me, and there was a show on Disney Channel I watched as a kid called Welcome to Pooh Corner which was a live-action Winnie the Pooh show, so that was one.
That sounds kind of creepy.
That’s the fun thing about all these things is they exist between creepy and fun/happy/childish. Nobody would’ve seen this, but because I collect videos, I’ll go to thrift stores and pick up stuff that looks weird or interesting. There’s one tape called Prayer Bear, who’s like an animatronic bear who helps a family to learn the right time to pray. And so stuff like that. There were numerous things that kinda came in to build that world.
How did you attract such an amazing cast? Did the script simply lure them in?
I’d like to think that was one of the main things that drew people, that they were just really into kind of the uniqueness of the script. I think also we were super fortunate in that there was a Saturday Night Live connection. And also like, The Lonely Island produced and Lord & Miller produced, so we definitely had people on board so that it looked like a decent package to people and then with that they were willing to read the script and when they did they were like ‘Oh this seems like a cool thing.’
Was there an overriding philosophy in terms of the humour here? Some of the funniest moments come out of some of the most solemn scenes.
I come from comedy obviously, but from the onset of the project I was kind of always like, ‘If we’re gonna do this story correctly and do this movie the way we think it’s best to be done, let’s play everything earnestly and as honestly as possible.’ And that meant that places where I would normally maybe ham it up, I wouldn’t. But I mean, naturally, I wanna get moments like that in there and I think they are helpful for the audience to kind of remind them, it’s almost a chance to breathe. But I don’t know that we talked too much about it other than the fact of like, ‘Let’s not reach too hard for the jokes’.
There are many big ideas in this film. Did anything in your original conception fade away as you wrote it?
I think in the initial conceptualisation, I thought we would spend more time in the mental hospital. In fact, there was a version of the movie in our heads that was more of a One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest where it’s like those are the people that help him make this movie. Just in the process of writing it, we found that this is mostly a movie about James making friends and kind of finding whatever it is the relationship he will have with his family.
What would you say you have the most Brigsby Bear-like obsession for in your own life?
If I were to think of TV shows, I would say Saved By The Bell. Do you know that show?
Oh yeah.
I don’t know what goes overseas.
I think that show is possibly America’s most successful cultural export ever.
Okay. When I was a kid, I would come home after school, and it would play four times a day, so I feel like there’s a whole generation of us that was just like ‘Well, this is what’s on’. It also kind of informed what we thought the high school experience would be and it totally was not that. Truthfully, I feel like I have so many little things I’m obsessed with. As a child, every couple of months I would be into something new and I would fully immerse myself in it. And most of those things I’m still probably into to some degree.
Brigsby Bear is screening multiple times throughout the NZIFF. More info here.
