With MacGruber blessing our timeline with eight new thirty-minute episodes on Peacock starting this Friday, I recently got to speak with Will Forte and Kristen Wiig about making the series. As a long time fan of MacGruber, I’m happy to say the new episodes are fantastic and loaded with scenes that will make you laugh out loud.
If you haven’t seen the trailer, the series picks up ten years after the events of the film, where MacGruber has been locked up in prison for the brutal killing of Dieter von Cunth (Val Kilmer). But when a mysterious villain from his past, Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth (Billy Zane), threatens the world, MacGruber must reassemble his old team, Vicki St. Elmo (Wiig) and Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe), in order to defeat the forces of evil. As you can easily guess, nothing goes according to plan and it’s fantastic to watch.
MacGruber also stars Sam Elliott (Perry), Laurence Fishburne (General Barrett Fasoose), Billy Zane (Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth), Joseph Lee Anderson (Major Harold Kernst), and Timothy V. Murphy (Constantine Bach). Jorma Taccone, John Solomon, and Forte serve as writers, executive producers, and showrunners of MacGruber. Solomon and Taccone direct all episodes. Lorne Michaels, John Goldwyn, Andrew Singer, and Erin David are also executive producers.
Shortly after seeing the series I got to speak with Will Forte and Kristen Wiig. They talked about the challenges of keeping a straight face when filming, how Peacock let them make a brutally violent series, their reaction learning Christopher Nolan was a big fan of MacGruber and would quote the film on the set of The Dark Knight Rises, the way Forte is fearless in the making of the show, and more.
Watch what Will Forte and Kristen Wiig had to say in the player above and below is exactly what we talked about.
Will Forte and Kristen Wiig
- How Peacock let them make a brutally violent, R-rated MacGruber series.
- If someone has never seen anything they’ve done, what should they watch first and why?
- What was their reaction when they found out Christopher Nolan was a big fan of MacGruber and would quote the film on the set of The Dark Knight Rises?
- How tough is it filming scenes like them deactivating an alarm and not ruining the take from laughing?
- What is it like filming the sex scenes and trying to keep a straight face?
- How Will Forte is fearless making the series.
