‘This experience was wonderful’

Brigsby Bear’s Kyle Mooney and David McCary keep it in the quirky neighbourhood

Brigsby Bear is a quirky comedy from off-kilter minds of Saturday Night Live’s Kyle Mooney and David McCary.

McCary directs Mooney, who co-wrote the script. In the film, Mooney portrays boyman James Pope, who was kidnapped as a baby and has grown up with the Brigsby Bear fabricated children’s show produced by his abductors. When James is finally freed, he has to cope with adjusting to his real parents and a society that’s baffling to him.

For a reference to the film’s tone, look back at Mooney and McCary’s offerings as the Internet sketch troupe Good Neighbour. The comedy bits earned them jobs on SNL – Mooney as a performer and writer and McCary as a segment director.

Their first movie tends to be more ambitious, though, as it moves from farce to satire and back again, with assistance from some notable co-stars, including Matt Walsh, Greg Kinnear, Claire Danes and Mark Hamill.

Taking a break from promotional Bigsby Bear duties in New York, Mooney offers his thoughts:

“The initial seed of the idea was about a kid who’s obsessed with a TV show that’s made just for him,” says Mooney. “The whole component of the kidnap- ping came after the fact and the movie evolved into more about the world he has to explore afterward.”

“A lot of the credit for that should go to Dave, the director,” Mooney says. “Most of the actors involved were into the story too and they wanted to do it justice, so that helped.”

“We thought there was inherent comedy there, so we tried to play everything as earnestly and as honestly as possible, and we figured the laughs would just happen,” he says.

“We liked the idea of somebody you wouldn’t think of in that role,” Mooney says. “We also needed somebody able to do the voice of the bear and we saw Mark on YouTube at a press junket break into the Joker voice from the Batman animated series, and we said, ‘That’s the guy.’ ”

“All of those movies are things that we love, so if that’s what audiences think or associate with, that’s great,” Mooney says.

“We formed almost identical sensibilities,” Mooney says. “The things that make him laugh make me laugh.”

“Because we’ve been making internet videos for a decade, and we are on SNL together, we’re used to each other,” Mooney says. “There were moments of aggravation during filming when he was feeling I wasn’t doing something right, but we always know that being annoyed with each other will pass.”

“He’s a screenwriter, so I went to him with the idea,” says Mooney.

“We still to this day reference kids we went to middle school and high school with and their idiosyncrasies that tickled us,” Mooney says. “I could probably name my entire fifth grade class.”

“This experience was wonderful and I think it will happen again,” he says.

“I certainly want to act in movies, but for the time being, there is always stuff do at SNL and create new things there,” Mooney says.