Interview: DICKS THE MUSICAL's Aaron Jackson & Joshua Sharp on Going From Stage to Screen

As Dicks the Musical's creators and stars Aaron Jackson and Joshua Sharp say, "most great movie musicals started as two man shows in the basement of a grocery store."

The musical, originally titled F-ing Identical Twins, has now become Dicks the Musical and is in theaters everywhere today.

Directed by Larry Charles, joining Jackson and Sharp in the film is Megan Mullally, Nathan Lane, Bowen Yang, and Megan Thee Stallion.

The film follows two self-obsessed businessmen (Jackson and Sharp), who discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric divorced parents.

BroadwayWorld sat down with Jackson and Sharp to discuss bringing the film from stage to screen, working with Mullally and Lane, and how they hope the movie "finds its tribe."

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Congratulations on all of the success. Um, I just want to start out by asking how you're sort of feeling right now with this like first limited release happening.

Aaron Jackson: I think we're relieved that it came out. We're very grateful. We hoped people would find it and we always suspected it would maybe find its people, but we didn't know if it would find them right away. It seems like people are responding to it and going out and we hope they continue to do so. But yeah, it's found its little freaks and geeks, it seems.

The movie kind of reminded me of a John Waters film or one of those cult movies. When you guys were creating it, were there any sort of inspirations that you looked to or were influenced by?

Aaron: John Waters, for sure. But then we wanted it to very much like be an original musical and not be like a pastiche or a parody of anything, even though it is The Parent Trap. But we always feel like there was a Little Shop of Horrors feeling to it. It has a Rocky Horror feeling to it and John Waters. We also really loved like the Trey [Parker] and Matt [Stone], Team America, South Park, Book of Mormon vibes. So those were kind of like touchstones. But we're never trying to fully emulate. We were just inspired by those, I would say.

Josh Sharp: And then Larry Charles, our director's fabulous, was also bringing a lot of like sort of grand old MGM movie musicals that were doing a different version of what this movie's doing. We made this on a very low budget in a quick amount of time. The sets are allowed to feel like sets, and you're supposed to be sort of in on it. He's like, "That's what they used to do. You'd paint a backdrop, and Gene Kelly would be there, and he'd just sell it in the performance. You knew you were on a set, you know?" So I think there's some of that in the DNA, too. That comes from Larry's side.

Going back, this project has obviously been in development for so many years starting with the UCB show. What was it like being able to sort of expand that into this full movie? What was your process like?

Josh: This is a normal developmental track, you know, most great movie musicals started as two man shows in the basement of a grocery store.

Aaron: Yeah, so just following that simple track that others laid before us. [Laughs] The show, when it was 30 minutes, had a lot of plot compression jokes and a lot of just like, "Isn't this silly? We're doing this whole movie in 30 minutes." So when we were expanding it, we really wanted to keep that energy and pace. But also, we didn't want to just be like, "Oh, well, let's just fully do The Parent Trap now that we have more time." So it was kind of like doing The Parent Trap, but also making sure there were still like lots of left turns and The Parent Trap is almost done in the movie, like at minute 45. Then we kind of have a new act three where you go into the sewer. It was keeping the the frantic, high energy, wild pace was very important to us while expanding it and giving the characters just like a little more room to breathe, but still kind of joke a line, rat-a-tat, machine gun pace.

You had such an amazing cast joining you. What was it like working with such like amazing musical theater comedy pros like Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane?

Josh: They were the best. They were our first choices because we wanted people who are like truly funny, like comedian level funny, and then also would get the specific, very stylized, gonzo, crazy version of comedy we're doing. And then we're like, "We also want them to really sing," not like the way you let sometimes a movie star passively sing.

So then when you like whittled it down, we were like, "Okay, I guess there's only two humans left." So they truly were like the dreams for these parts. They were legends and it was so fun to work with them.

Aaron: It was amazing to act with them and do the scenes with them. You know, we wrote it, we wrote the lyrics so on set and in rehearsals, we're getting pulled in a lot of different directions and we weren't only wearing the actor cap. You're rehearsing a scene with each other. Then they pull you over here to look at the set and they pull you over there to write a song. Since we each get our "Meet the Parent" scene, we each get a scene with one of the legends. So when the other one was doing theirs, we were just like "Soak it in. Enjoy this. You are working with a legend. This is so cool. Wear your actor hat and really like get to live in that."

Speaking of the music in the movie, some of the musical numbers are sung live. How did that impact your performance, especially with the comedy?

Josh: Well, I do think Larry and then our executive music producer, Marius de Vries, who's another legend, were big on that because so much of it is sold by performance, like the comedy. So he was like, "You do want to have as much of that as you can to like really feel like we're in the room doing it." Because the movie's supposed to feel sort of handheld and like you're sort of seeing it come together, he was always like, "If you crack on a note, we want that. We want to know you guys are really doing it."

Oh, we also shot the movie in 20 days. So, any time production would allow it, we would do it. And then there'd be times we just didn't have time because there was so many moving pieces or choreography. But, sort of any time we could. Particularly a lot of Aaron and I's songs that are just the two of us. We have two ballad-y, sort of power ballad ones, and those are easier to do live. There was a lot of it that was done live, and then sometimes you do pickups on a lip sync if you needed to.

I am also absolutely obsessed with Megan Thee Stallion in this movie. What was her reaction to the movie? What was she like on set?

Aaron: She's such a pro, she's divine to work with. She's so incredibly busy. I think we got her right after fashion week and then she was going straight to the Super Bowl after that. You know, she's a popstar.

Josh: I have a similar schedule!

Aaron: Yeah, I'm at the Super Bowl right now. I'm in the end zone. But she was asking a question about her character in a rehearsal once. In the movie, we work at Vroomba, which is not real, we sell the parts of the roombas. She was like, "So we sell the vacuums or we sell the parts?" We were like, "We sell the parts of the roombas. She goes, "Oh, so it's stupid." So I think she really embraced it. She likes stupid comedies and she embraced the style and she really got it like right away. We were so o excited to have her, but nervous. You just don't know what you're going to get with that kind of big pop star diva. Like, is she going to be a nightmare? But, she was such a dream to work with and really got the style and is really f-ing funny and a great actress and improviser.

Josh: And we have this song for her, and we're like, "For sure she'll change some of the lyrics. This is like crazy shit to make her say." And then she just did it. I still remember the first day her coming in and being like, "You know, people know I'm dirty, but y'all are dirty." She was just like so down to clown. It was like very fun to work with her. Yeah, I love, Aaron, that you mentioned that moment, that it sort of like clicked for her, that she was like, Oh, like, this is, this is stupid.

So the movie is going wide next weekend, October 20th. How are you guys feeling about it playing throughout the country and not just New York and California?

Josh: I mean, we know this movie's like crazy and specific, but I do think like it's a movie that hopefully finds its tribe. I think a lot of queer people and fans of musicals will find it, but also just tons of jokes and comedies don't get to be so joke-driven as much anymore So I think we also hope that there's comedy nerds that like it and it's got a big rewatch value. It's 86 minutes and it's lots of jokes and there's songs. This would happen when we were doing it as a stage show and even as it started to screen, a lot of people were like, "We love it. I'm coming back. I'm bringing friends." So I think it'll find its people.

Aaron: Neither of us grew up in one of the coastal cities. We're freaks and weirdos and we made this movie, so I think there's people out there that will definitely resonate. It's called Dicks the Musical, and I think that if you don't want to go, you don't have to. I think the people that want to go will find it and be thrilled.

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Watch the trailer for Dicks the Musical here:

Photos Courtesy of A24