Co-stars able to mix work with fun in CHIPS remake

Shepard, Pena keep it loose in raunchy comedy

Sometimes, spellcheck pays off. At least it did for Dax Shepard, who was working on a script when he Googled the CHIPS TV show to make some corrections on a joke.

As it turned out, he was struck by the digital image of series stars Erik Estrada and Larry Wilcox.

“They were looking uncharacteristically cool and tough,” says Shepard in Toronto with his CHIPS movie co-star Michael Pena. “And I thought, ‘There’s a Lethal Weapon version of CHIPS in there.’”

Motivated by the nostalgia, Shepard ditched the script he was working on and wrote the screenplay for an R-rated comedy remake, and eventually sold the idea to a studio.

“We tricked them into letting us make it,” says Shepard who also directs, produces and stars in the film.

In the redo, the story still follows the adventures of two California Highway Patrol motorcycle officers, but with some major twists. Pena is officer “Ponch” Poncherello, an FBI agent working undercover hoping to bust some dirty cops. Shepard is his partner, Officer Baker, an aging former motorbike pro, at first unaware of his buddy’s intentions.

Action combines with lots of raunchy humour as the two motorcycle cops try to cope with each other and outmanoeuvre their corrupt colleagues. And yes, Estrada, who famously played Ponch in the series from 1977 to 1983, has a cameo.

More pivotal was the connection between Shepard and Pena, who hadn’t met until a pre-shoot get-together. Although Shepard acknowledges Pena already established his comedy chops with a co-starring role in the superhero flick Ant-Man.

“But I was more working backwards from the fact that somebody playing Ponch had to be a great dramatic actor to go from the campy ’70s TV show into this hard R thing,” Shepard says. “We got lucky, because we had chemistry from the start, and you can’t fake that.”

Pretending to ride a motorcycle wasn’t acceptable either, which was fine for Shepard. He’s an expert amateur biker who rides his own Ducati in one sequence. Pena was another matter.

“I asked for motorcycle lessons,” says Pena, who spent weeks refining the ability. “That’s one of the reasons it’s fun being an actor. You read the script and you find out what’s required.”

After a while he got into the ride thing, heading out on the freeways, “except I had a helmet on so nobody knew it was me.”

Mostly, the cast and crew tried to keep it light during the demanding 45-day shoot in and around L.A., including a cordoned off area on Interstate 210.

Besides the fancy motorcycles — a range of models that included Ducatis, Harley Davidsons and standard highway patrol police BMW R1200s — there were “tricked up” cars and trucks on the multiple sets.

“It was like summer camp for 12 year olds,” Shepard admits.

He also tried to keep the shoot impromptu during some sequences, which Pena appreciated.

“We’d rehearse, and have some conversations, and sometimes they’d make it into the script,” he says.

One re-written moment has Shepard’s Baker being carried almost naked by Pena’s Ponch when Ponch trips and falls into Baker’s crotch.

“It was a very late add on,” Shepard says. “I told him, ‘You’re not going to like it, but it will be funny when you face plant into my junk.”

Staying creatively flexible was important. Shepard even let his wife Kristen Bell play his “innately mean wife” in the film.

“My wife read the script, and told me, ‘Oh yeah, I’m playing her,” he says.

Luckily, Shepard’s ability to multitask, collaborate and improvise was ingrained in his comic DNA 15 years ago as a member of the L.A.-based revue troupe The Groundlings. Now he’s amalgamated his comedy talent with his love of riding into a potential money-making proposition that might require a sequel, if film fans want one.

“It’s my main hobby and I have many broken bones to prove it,” Shepard says of riding motorcycles. “My character is not far from my morning when I get up to get coffee, and creak and crack when I do.” So the truth is out there. “I only write these kinds of movies so I can do these things,” he says. Dax Shepard says he finally wrote a script that allowed him to show off his favourite hobby: riding motorcycles.