Ricky Stanicky — a comedy about three childhood friends who, for two decades, invent an imaginary character to blame their misbehaviour on — is now streaming on Prime Video. Directed by Peter Farrelly (who, along with his brother Bobby, has given cinema comedic gems like Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself and Irene and There’s Something About Mary, among others) directs Zac Efron, Jermaine Fowler and Andrew Santino as the three wayward pals who, when their respective partners become suspicious of their ‘friend’ named Ricky Stanicky, hire a has-been actor (played by John Cena) to pose as him. Recently, over a late-night video call, t2 chatted with Jermaine Fowler and Andrew Santino on the Ricky Stanicky experience.

Did you have as much fun making Ricky Stanicky as I did watching the film?

Jermaine Fowler: We filmed it in Australia. I had not been to Melbourne before, so that was a plus. Getting to spend so much time with Andrew (Santino), Zac (Efron) and John (Cena) made it even better. That enhanced a lot of the camaraderie you will see in the film.
Andrew Santino: It was a super fun shoot with talented people and it was pretty fluid. There were no hiccups... it was pretty smooth.

Most actors say that comedy is the toughest genre to ace. What was the experience of doing various shades of comedy in this film?

Andrew: What we had to be mindful of was staying with the story, no matter how funny a scene was. We had to make sure that the story came through and when we did that, the comedy became even better. Our director Peter (Farrelly) paid a lot of attention to that, which is a testament to how great his films have been over the decades.
Jermaine: Comedy is both tough and easy to do. Ricky Stanicky was an easy, funny film within the script itself and we didn’t have to do anything extra to make it funny.

Did you find your respective characters relatable in any way?

Jermaine: What we have to do as actors is find relatable things within the script and character and then manifest them. You can’t make it up. I do love my friends extremely, I have lied before but not to the extent that these guys in the film do.
Andrew: My character (JT) is jumpy and nervous and he overthinks the plot and the scheme. I am not like that. This guy overthinks everything.
Jermaine: Santino’s character is a dad and he has a kid on the way. He is just grasping at straws. His character is extremely hilarious.

Like your characters, did you make up imaginary friends while growing up?

Jermaine: I still have imaginary friends, I don’t have any real friends! I kind of based my entire life on what is going on up here (gestures to his head).
Andrew: I never had an imaginary friend as a kid. I watched Drop Dead Fred (a 1991 film about an imaginary friend) enough times. I had an ‘imaginary’ dad because my dad wasn’t around. So I pretended things like he was playing with me.
Jermaine: We pretended with him too. I knew him as a kid and we also played along with him, pretending his dad was there.