Director Eric Appel tells us about the ideas that were too strange to make the final cut.
(Lately, they even show you the real people in the credits.)
That’s not the case withWeird: The Al Yankovic Story.
Daniel Radcliffe in ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’.Everett Collection
“It’s flipped,” says director Eric Appel.
“It’s 98 percent fiction and two percent fact.”
Remarkably, the movie was almost weirder still.
Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna and Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al in ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’.The Roku Channel
“That was a little too far.
Maybe we’ll do a sequel.
We can use some of those crazier ideas.”
Eric Appel, director of ‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’.Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Weirdbegan life asa spoof trailer which Appel directed for the Funny Or Die websiteback in 2010.
“It was right after the Notorious B.I.G.
biopic had come out,” says Appel, aboutNotorious, the inspiration behind the short.
The Biggie movie felt like those events had just happened.
I’d never met him before.
Fast forward, biopic-style, nine years.
“The ball was in Al’s court,” he says.
I would have jumped at it.
It didn’t happen until 2019.
I got a random email from him one February morning.
Al was trying to figure out what he was going to do next.
People come up to me after the show, they ask me, ‘Is this movie real?
I want to see this!
‘Bohemian Rhapsodyhad come out.Rocket Manwas about to come out.
The next morning we were sitting in a coffee shop coming up with ideas."
“By the end of the phone call, he was asking Al what kind of accordion to buy.
Of course I’m going to do this!'”
So what is it like to direct Yankovic in a Yankovic biopic?
“Uh, weird, for lack of a better term,” says Appel.
“It was really fun directing him and Dan in the same scene together.
“It’s been incredibly well received,” he says.
Now that’s weird.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Storyis now available to watch on the Roku Channel.
Watch the film’s trailer below.
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