LOS ANGELES, Nov. 1 (UPI) — Actors Shameik Moore and D’Arcy Carden said they performed in their comedy, The Gutter, as if they were in a cartoon. It will be in theaters and digital video on demand Friday,
Carden plays Skunk, a former bowling champion who coaches Walt (Moore) in tournaments.
“Some of the funniest moments for me really come from cartoons,” Moore, 29, told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. “That’s how I think about Walt on the inside.”
For example, Walt completes several full, 360-degree wind-ups with his right arm before bowling the ball down the lane. Walt and Skunk bark like dogs in one scene, and Skunk pretends to launch a Hadoken energy bolt from Street Fighter.
“It is like a cartoon come to life,” said Carden, 44. “When he would literally become a robot or dance down the bowling lane, the cast and the crew had to bite their tongues to keep from laughing and ruining the take.”
Walt and Skunk have 60 days to earn enough money to save the bowling alley owned by Mozell (Jackée Harry). That simple premise also reminded the actors of comedies of the ’80s and ’90s, in which heroes had to save an orphanage (The Blues Brothers) or grandmother’s house (Happy Gilmore) from foreclosure.
“It really did feel like the comedies of all of our youths,” Carden said, clarifying that “basically anything before the 2000s” counts.
Moore said even the good comedies at present are overshadowed by dark dramas and that he hopes The Gutter is refreshing compared to facing troubles in the real world.
“It’s a good time to be taken out of it and put in this kind of wackiness for an hour and a half,” Moore said.
That wackiness includes Walt’s preference for bowling shirtless. Moore supported this decision.
“Hey, everybody should live shirtless, right?” Moore asked rhetorically.
Walt also insists on receiving his winnings as oversized novelty checks. Walt and Skunk pose with the giant checks in victory photos.
“It was kind of awkward to hold,” Carden said. “Every time we held them, it was with many people.”
Carden said she and Moore improvised the barking, and directors Yassir and Isaiah Lester encouraged them to keep going.
“Rarely did they say, ‘Don’t do that,” Carden said. “The weirder the better, the more far out the better.”
The actors also went wild during a training montage in which they made up exercises to train Walt for the championship. The montage takes place in a gym
“We had that location for like 30 minutes,” Carden said. “Any idea we would have, we would just do it. It was really run and gun.”
Moore remembered some of their training routines that did not end up in the finished film. “We were drinking,” Moore said of one outtake.
Moore and Carden got their start in the industry through comedy. Carden trained at Upright Citizen Brigade and landed the role of afterlife tech support assistant Janet on The Good Place.
Moore was on Nick Cannon’s sketch comedy show Incredible Crew. He took the lead in the 2015 film, Dope, which Open Road bought for $7 million at the Sundance Film Festival.
Moore said making The Gutter reminded him of Dope. In Dope, he played Malcolm, a high schooler who was blackmailed by a Harvard alumnus to sell drugs in return for admission.
While Malcolm was figuring out how to get through high school and survive the predicament he was in, Walt had firmly established his personality. Moore suggested Walt’s outrageous behavior is a defense mechanism.
They say some people laugh so they don’t cry.” Moore said. “I feel like that’s where it comes from.”
