Trippin’ With Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery
The ‘Bad Trip’ duo talk chemistry, almost dying on set, and the magic of Tiffany Haddish
“First of all, are you safe? It looks like somebody kidnapped you.”
Lil Rel Howery has just beaten me to the punch. Not to be outdone, Eric Andre quickly follows up with, “Blink twice if you’re in a hostage situation.”
We’re about 20 seconds into our conversation and we’re already laughing. I’ve forgotten the questions I’d prepared, let alone their sequence. But the laid-back air and laughter also confirm a suspicion I’ve had since watching the duo’s new film: These two have genuine chemistry.
That chemistry is the driving force behind Bad Trip, which lands on Netflix on March 26. Helmed by The Eric Andre Show director Kitao Sakurai and produced jointly with the team behind 2013’s Bad Grandpa, the film takes Andre’s brand of hidden-camera hijinks into feature-length territory. Much like that earlier project, all the pranks frame a central narrative.
“When the Jackass guys put out Bad Grandpa, it was the first kind of narrative hidden-camera prank movie I saw like that,” Andre says. “So my producer partners at the show linked up with the Jackass producers, and we started writing this idea together. It took a while, but we…
