McHale’s thrills & chills
‘Community’ star tells of different kind of role in ‘Becky’
Joel McHale is trading in laughs for stomach-churning thrills.
The funnyman, best known for starring in “Community” and his longtime gig hosting “The Soup,” takes on a different kind of role as a well-meaning but reasonably misguided father trying to heal his fractured family in the new action thriller “Becky.”
“As you know, I’m dead after the first 40 pages, so I didn’t have to do as much heavy lifting,” McHale, 48, joked to the Daily News. “In terms of death scenes, he gets off easiest.”
As Jeff [a very different Jeff from his “Community” role], McHale’s family lakehouse is invaded by a group of escaped prisoners, led by neo-Nazi Dominick (Kevin James). Jeff ’s teenage daughter Becky (Lulu Wilson) scrambles to save the day by way of murder and mutilation that makes Quentin
Tarantino films look tame.
“The casting of Kevin James was very different,” McHale acknowledged. “I kind of thought, ‘Well, this is an albatross, somewhat of a unicorn.’ ”
And though he definitely bought James’ performance as a murderous extremist, the “Great Indoors” alum shared a couple of his on-set quips, including, “Oh my gosh, the
King of Queens is gonna f——-g stab me right now.”
A true lover of all things acting, McHale hopes “to try a lot of different things.” Soon, he’ll end up in another dimension: the Season 2 premiere of Jordan Peele’s “The Twilight Zone.”
“I’ll tell you this, watch out for octopus. … They’re much stronger than you think,” he offered as a cryptic warning about his episode, “8,” dropping Thursday.
Whether McHale will return for new hijinks at Greendale Community College anytime soon for an eventual “Community” film remains up in the air.
Though the cast reunited over Zoom last month to take part in a table read and a Q&A session to benefit coronavirus relief, a film is far less simple to orchestrate.
“There’s a lot of obstacles in the way,” McHale told The News in his typical rapid-fire way.
“First of all, a major pandemic. And second is who’s paying for it. Third, [creator] Dan [Harmon] has 80 episodes of ‘Rick and Morty’ to do and … that requires an insane amount of work. So then to write an entire movie, then — again, someone’s gotta pay for it. … And then coordinating everybody. Getting everybody together, where would we shoot it and when can we shoot again?”
All that said, the “Happily” star is more confident about the potential film now than ever before.
“Everyone said they would do it. So I think maybe it’ll happen,” he said. “It’s more real than it’s ever been. I really thought for a long time it was never gonna happen, but stranger things … hopefully it’ll happen.”
“Becky” is now available on digital, on demand, and at select drive-in theaters.