Nearly 30 years after the album after which the movie is named, Green Day is using their own coming-of-age story to reach a new generation in Nimrods.
Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, who teamed up with co-writer/director Lee Kirk on the movie premiering Aug. 14, told Deadline that it was “fun to have a project” on the film with his son Jakob, who wrote songs for the movie’s fictional band Analog Dogs.
“It was really cool,” said Armstrong, who appears in the movie with his Green Day bandmates Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool. “I think the whole thing with having that generation gap, and how we can get the cast to sort of own it and do their thing and put their spin on it, it really sort of made it current.”
As Armstrong noted they didn’t want to sound like “a couple of uncs” making a movie for Gen Z inspired by the band’s Gen X adolescence, Kirk explained that they told the young cast to “take any dialogue and make it your own,” adding, “And that was so important to the story that it just didn’t feel like it was written by a guy in his 50s.”
In Nimrods, Tommy (Mason Thames) receives a call inviting him and his band Analog Dogs to open for Green Day on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles. Not realizing it’s his older brother Wayne (Keen Ruffalo) pulling an elaborate prank, Tommy steals Wayne’s car and sets off on a cross-country roadtrip from Kansas City with his bandmates Fred (Kylr Coffman) and Chad (Ryan Foust).
Kirk recalled, “When Billie Joe reached out, he said, ‘I don’t have a story, but I just thought it’d be fun to make a movie, and somehow, it ends with a Green Day concert on New Year’s Eve. So, it’s about the people going to the concert.’ So, we started talking like, who are those people, what could the story be, and eventually, we came up with this idea of these three kids who are traveling across the country to see Green Day on New Year’s Eve. And that’s when it got more interesting, that’s when we came up with the idea of the older brother pranking them.
“And then I realized, I needed story. It’s a road movie where you can just have one-off incidents happen,” he continued. “And I thought it’d be fun if I quiz these guys about their days of driving around in a van, and the crazy stuff that happened to them and sort of start to thread those into the story and sort of turn them into my own sort of idea, or let them evolve and change into how the plot needs it to, and it was fun.”
Featuring a soundtrack of some of Green Day’s most iconic hits, as well as songs by the fictional band Analog Dogs and star McKenna Grace, the movie is filled with cameos from the likes of Fred Armisen, Bobby Lee, Angela Kinsey, Sean Gunn and Kirk’s wife Jenna Fischer.
Read on about Billie Joe Armstrong and Lee Kirk’s experience teaming up to make the Green Day-inspired movie Nimrods, as well as the potential for an American Idiot movie musical adaptation.
DEADLINE: What was it like for you guys, 10 years since you worked together on Ordinary World, reuniting and making another movie together?
BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: I thought it was great. I mean, when I thought about doing a Green Day movie, Lee was the first person I called to see if he wanted to dive into a script, and make it about New Year’s Eve. So, we’re old working buds.
LEE KIRK: Yeah, it was cool. We’ve worked together before, obviously, and in the time since, I’ve gotten to know him and his family quite well, he knows my family, I know the sort of extended Green Day family. So, it felt like a good fit, to be working on this movie together, and I feel like we picked up where we left off, pretty much.
DEADLINE: Tell me about how the idea to include the band’s story in the script, with the throwback to touring in a van and all that.
KIRK: When Billie Joe reached out, he said, “I don’t have a story, but I just thought it’d be fun to make a movie, and somehow, it ends with a Green Day concert on New Year’s Eve. So, it’s about the people going to the concert.” So, we started talking like, who are those people, what could the story be, and eventually, we came up with this idea of these three kids who are traveling across the country to see Green Day on New Year’s Eve. And that’s when it got more interesting, that’s when we came up with the idea of the older brother pranking them. And then I realized, I needed story. It’s a road movie where you can just have one-off incidents happen. And I thought it’d be fun if I quiz these guys about their days of driving around in a van, and the crazy stuff that happened to them and sort of start to thread those into the story and sort of turn them into my own sort of idea, or let them evolve and change into how the plot needs it to, and it was fun. And then, that extended to little details of these guys’ lives that I took, little Easter eggs of them, and put them into the movie and let them kind of change. For example, you brought up the ice cream truck. They famously drove around in a bookmobile, and so that was how the ice cream truck idea came in, and there’s all kinds of fun stuff like that in there.
DEADLINE: Yeah, I caught a few of those kind of Easter eggs. Tell me what was it like working with Mason Thames and McKenna Grace. They’re both great actors, but I didn’t realize they were such talented musicians as well.
KIRK: I mean, those kids are fantastic. They can do anything, and they’re the nicest kids, creative kids, very eager. They were up for whatever we wanted to do. I was so lucky that McKenna wanted to do it and she wanted to put her song in the movie. I just felt like it gave it some authenticity to it, and Mason with his singing, he rehearsed, he worked on those songs, which were written by Billie Joe’s son, by the way. Yeah, Jakob wrote those songs for the Analog Dogs.
ARMSTRONG: Yeah, it was fun to have a project with Jakob, so it was really cool.
DEADLINE: I love that. I was curious about what it was like trying to write a story for Gen Z, but it’s awesome to know that you actually had someone Gen Z part of it as well.
ARMSTRONG: Yeah, I think the whole thing with having that generation gap, and how we can get the cast to sort of own it and do their thing and put their spin on it, it really sort of made it current.
KIRK: Yeah, one of the first things I said, working with the kids, one of the first things I said to them is, “Please take any dialogue and make it your own. Please, just turn it as youthful. If it doesn’t feel authentic, make it your own, make it authentic.” And that was so important to the story that it just didn’t feel like it was written by a guy in his 50s.
DEADLINE: No, it felt very timeless, just as a coming-of-age story in general. I loved it. Tell me about assembling this awesome ensemble with Jenna [Fischer] and Fred Armisen and Bobby Lee.
KIRK: So, when Billie Joe and I talked about the movie, we talked about a lot of the 80s movies that we grew up on, Goonies and Vacation and films like that. And something I love about those films is they just have these characters that pop up that are real fun and funny. And I wanted to have that in the story, on this road trip that these funny guys—so that’s where, Fred and Bobby Lee, thank God they wanted to do the movie, because they just add so much to it. They bring so much comedy to it. And then to have my wife Jenna in the movie, it was a thrill to have her in. I’ve worked with her before, but I felt like her performance, she just delivered this nice big heart at the center of the movie, and she did a great job.
DEADLINE: Yeah, I loved it at the end when she joined them at the punk junkyard festival and was like rocking out with them, that was cute. Billie Joe, I heard that you guys were trying to adapt the Broadway musical of American Idiot into a movie and I’m wondering if that’s still on the horizon.
ARMSTRONG: We talk about it sometimes here and there, I think it would be great to do it. It’s just a matter of—working with [co-writer] Michael Mayer was amazing, so hopefully someday. But right now, it’s just been all about Nimrods.
DEADLINE: I also am so appreciative of the way you guys have been calling out MAGA and ICE in your performances. What was the reaction like for you guys behind the scenes?
ARMSTRONG: I mean, I just sort of say what comes natural with my own values, really, and I think the current administration is completely opposite of the way I feel like everyday Americans are hurting, with corruption, with ICE, Gestapo in the streets, it’s just been America that I don’t recognize from 10, even six years ago. Not to get too political into it, but it’s heartbreaking to watch. It’s sad.
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