This is THE movie to see!
New movie Popstar, one of Andy Samberg’s creations, has the potential to be a comedy classic. It is shot in documentary style and follows pop superstar Conner4Real (Samberg) around, so that audiences can see this music mogul’s true “genius.” This movie also makes commentary about the music industry and the people in it. Samberg’s character resembles Justin Bieber not in his actions, but also his overall demeanor. For those people who love stupid jokes and humor and who don’t mind watching a movie with little plot to it, PopStar is the perfect movie for you. I can tell you one thing, even though I saw the press screening, I am just as eager to watch it again when it comes out in theaters. It’s just that good. Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer came together last week to talk about their movie during a press conference. Read highlights below:
When asked about why they wanted to tackle the music industry and what they wanted to cover aside from what hasn’t already been talked about, they had to say this:
Andy: The thing that was at the forefront of what we felt like was fun to play around with was how social media, media, and the number of outlets exist has changed to landscape of the music industry and for what is expected of an artists or what they give up with their own personal life or how real that is. The sort of relationship that musicians in the pop world have with their fans now and how genuine that is or for the sake of career that is and how it affects their actual relationships in their personal lives.
When asked about if they were to make an actual documentary about an artist in the music industry, who would it be and why, they responded with:
Andy: We would never make an actual documentary, that is so long. If we were forced to make a documentary then I think the most fascinating person in the music industry is Kanye.
Akiva: Yeah, a real documentary about what his process is like and stuff.
Later they were asked the question about why did they want Conner4Real to emulate Justin Bieber and to talk about how that gives Justin a more empathetic view with how he deals with fame. Also they were asked to discuss what they think he would think about the movie when he sees it, and to that they said:
Andy: We definitely empathize with Justin. We are friends with him and have worked with him a few times and we think he is a good guy and we respect his music a lot. There are a couple of direct references, obviously, to his documentary because we felt that they were funny jumping off points for a crazier joke. And the title of the movie feels like the title of his movie which makes it seem like it’s a lot more about him then we intended, I think. But we hope he likes it and we feel like the character of Conner is an amalgam of everything that is going on in the world of pop music and rap music.
And when asked about the music put into the film and their process for creating the music they said:
Andy: It varies. We are a lot like real rappers, even though we’re fake rappers, where we are sent really awesome beats from various producers and we will lock ourselves in the studio and do a ton of beats. And often times the beat itself will spark an idea and we will write to it or we will just love the beat and star it and say that we will come back to this when we think of something for it. And other times we will have an idea of premise for a song and then we will search for the beat that matches it and then sometimes we will an idea for a song and we know it has to be a certain kind of beat and so we will ask a producer to craft a beat from scratch to match that idea.
Jorma: Everything Andy said is accurate.
The film hits theaters this Friday!
