John Cena, Eric André, Chris Meloni, Ego Nwodim and Sherry Cola lean into the absurd in Little Brother, the new Netflix comedy from director Matt Spicer arriving June 26.
Written by Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel and produced by Ruben Fleischer alongside David Bernad’s Middle Child Pictures, Little Brother centers on Rudd (Cena), a famous real estate agent whose carefully curated world is upended when his eccentric estranged little brother Marcus (André) unexpectedly reappears on his doorstep.
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What follows is a collision of two opposite lives — Rudd’s polished, performance-ready public image and Marcus’s chaotic, unfiltered presence — that forces both men to confront the versions of themselves they’ve been hiding. The film leans into the discomfort of a reunion neither brother has prepared for, mining the gap between who Rudd has become and who Marcus still remembers.
Michelle Monaghan plays Rudd’s wife, with Meloni as Josh, a longtime friend whose loyalty gets tested as Marcus’s presence destabilizes the household, Nwodim as Lenore and Cola as Mia. Caleb Hearon, Ben Ahlers, Bryce Gheisar and Pilot Bunch round out the ensemble, each pulled into the spiral of Marcus’s reentry into Rudd’s curated life.
The premise leans broad on paper, but the script uses the brotherhood dynamic to dig into ideas of reinvention, accountability and the families we outrun. Spicer — whose Ingrid Goes West sharpened his eye for characters performing curated versions of themselves — finds the same tension here, this time playing it out between two brothers whose definitions of “made it” couldn’t be further apart. Paul and Mogel’s script, paired with Fleischer’s instinct for grounded comedic chaos as a producer, gives the film a structure that lets both leads operate at full register without one swallowing the other.
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That balance is part of what makes the casting click. Cena’s straight-man precision and André’s improvisational unpredictability create a comedic engine that runs hot in both directions — and the supporting ensemble gives the film a deeper bench than the premise initially suggests, with Meloni, Nwodim and Cola each bringing distinct comedic textures to the world around the brothers.
During the film’s New York press day at The Whitby Hotel, The Knockturnal’s Jai Singh Nanda sat down with the cast to talk about the script, the characters and the dynamic between the two leads. The Cena and André conversation took the shape of the film itself — freewheeling, absurd, and built on a chemistry that never quite stays inside the lines of a traditional press interview.
Little Brother starts streaming on Netflix on June 26.
