AARON JACKSON & JOSH SHARP PRESENT THE SEWER BOYS

The two buzzing talents discuss the authentic queer nature of how a message-less film can subvert traditional themes and they share the origins of their friendship performing together in the comedy sketch group Upright Citizens Brigade.

Originally written as a two-man stage show, DICKS follows the story of two straight salesmen, Trevor and Craig, who discover they are identical twins and plot to reunite their parents, played in the film by NATHAN LANE and MEGAN MULLALLY. With director LARRY CHARLES, as well as supporting roles from MEGAN THEE STALLION, BOWEN YANG (as God), and two adopted trash goblins THE SEWER BOYS, the musical comedy pulls out all the stops; blurring the lines between their original theater production and taking big swings for the big screen

“It’s trying to invite you in and to participate with it,” Josh Sharp explains. “To be a part of that laugh and scream and clap and applaud, which is inherently very theatrical.”

Read on for our conversation with Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp. 

Dicks: The Musical is in theaters and available on streaming now. This conversation contains spoilers.

BUDS DIGEST: Hey there, thank you for your time. We loved this movie.

JOSH SHARP: Oh, my God. Thank you.

AARON JACKSON: Excited to be here.

JC: I wanna just say before we get into it, from a place of ignorance, when they first were setting this up, I knew you had a stoner bit but I didn't know it was explicitly queer… I was like, “I didn't know our little alt-queer world was playing so well with the stoners.”

AJ: “I really like these niche comedians.”

BD: We do cover quite a niche intersection.

JS: This film is firmly in that intersection, as you probably noted.

BD: Absolutely. It really feels like a stoner musical.

AJ:  It's kind of a stoner musical, for sure, for sure.

BD: I laughed, laughed, and laughed so much. When the Sewer Boys were introduced…

JS: It's like a symphony of emotions that's happening… We've gotten to go to many screenings, and we always knew that part was sort of a big moment, but people fucking lose their… they're screaming at the screen! It's like a very visceral response to that moment, as it turns out. We love that.

BD: Aaron, there’s a guttural sound that you make over and over again [during that scene]. It's got a hypnotic quality.

AJ: Yeah, we're gonna release that as a white noise sleep machine.

JS: People have been asking for that.

AJ: Very soothing hypnotic is often what it's called.

BD: So, our magazine’s for queers and stoners but it’s also about friendships. It's incredible that you both have come so far with this project that you've been working on for so long. Tell us about the origins of your friendship at Upright Citizens Brigade?

JS: We met at UCB and there just weren't many gay people there. So you'd find each other. We did improv and we're both like, “You’re funny.” So then we started hosting this variety show and very soon after we're like, “We should write a two-man musical, right?” So it was like early on in the genesis of our friendship and then it's been this sort of tent pole for most of it. It really was born out of just the two of us trying to make each other laugh.

AJ: Yeah. A shared sensibility in a very, very straight space at UCB. We really both felt very welcomed and included there and were very like part of the fabric of that community. But within any community, you find your little niches or cliques within that. And Josh and I were like, “Oh yeah, I really like this.”

BD: Was there a specific moment that you realized that you'd be good collaborative friends?

AJ: I am two years older than Josh and at UCB the generations are very short, like six months. So because I moved to the city and started UCB like two years earlier than Josh I was just like more established than when Josh showed up and he was like a part of this young gun crew.

And then our friend Langan Kingsley was like, “We three should do improv together.” There were all these late-night shows where there would be like three people in the audience and you could just do anything. So that's the first time we performed.

I really hadn't seen Josh do that much, just like here and there a little bit, until I was on stage with him and then I do remember the first scene. I was on the back line as it's called and was just like, “Oh, he's really funny. I really like him.”

JS: It is funny to think that was an era where you would literally meet a person through performing. Sometimes you hardly knew a person. They'd be like, “Do you want to do the show with me?” And you would have talked for ten minutes and got along at the bar and been like, “Yeah, sure.” So you really would get to know each other through your comedy, which is such a strange way.

AJ: And the style there was just like it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. So you go like “Oh, well, this is the worst set of my life. Who cares?” It was just very low stakes and no one really cared.  And Josh and I both came in and we're like, “What if we had all these really tight bits and songs and things” and that's when it was sparking other than just the improv connection.

BD: Cool to have that experience. Like you said, it's pretty uncommon to get to know someone that way.

JS: Yes. Then also through writing [Dicks], I think we developed a sort of shared voice. We figured out we had a lot of the same influences and perspectives. And it's just that thing—you hang out enough, you start to realize what makes each other laugh.

But then at the same time, people keep asking us about the two-man show. Like, “Were you thinking of it as a movie then?” Like, absolutely fucking not. I mean, this thing did develop a weird little scene and people liked it, but it felt like no one was watching. It felt like you were just sort of off on your own, making crazy shit, you know.

So it's fun that some of that DNA ends up in the movie and I think of it like it started as a movie. There are lots of things you would be like, “You can't do this in a movie” but because it comes from this era when we weren't thinking of it as a movie, you get to proof of concept some of these things that then wind up being the unique parts of the film.

BD: And how crazy it gets to be. When you’re not working, what kinds of stuff do you both get into together? What do your downtime hangouts look like?

AJ: We really do hang out all the time. We're work wives but we're also like friend wives. We love to go to concerts. We really do love New York nightlife. We also love just like a hang out at a gay bar that's chatty. You know, like one of those kind of nights, we both love movies if you can believe it. So we'll like, go to movies together.

JS: We even travel together, which is the thing that really tests the friendship. So, yeah, we spend a lot of time together when we're not working.

BD: That's great. Well, it comes through in the work that you have such great chemistry.

JS: It makes it more fun. It's a hell of a business. So it's nice to have a person you really enjoy by your side the whole time. You know.

AJ: This sounds more Machiavellian than it is. But, you know, there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen, in any artistic endeavor, but certainly in a film. And it's very nice to have someone you can truly be fully honest with. They're not playing you in any way. It's very nice to have that, companion, a very trusted companion.

We always say a lot of things are like a game of Survivor where everyone has their own agenda and you're all like saying things, but it's nice to have your person that, you know, is not trying to…

JS: Screw you out of the million!

BD: Speaking of all the different people that came on for this, wow, what a cast and team. What did they bring to the table?

JS: We should start with Larry [Charles, the director]. We got to meet with him and then got along gangbusters. He so fundamentally understood the DNA of this piece and was fiercely protective and wanted it to be very punk and was big on [the idea that] the film cannot doubt itself for one second or it all falls apart. You'd rather take big swings and miss some of them than ever hold back.

I think early on he was very good to both understand what we were going for and also push it in directions that I think we wouldn't have done if it was just the two of us.

Larry was the one that reminded us it really should feel like the stage show and it really is about this family of four and we really need to focus on them and we don't need 20 more characters.

AJ: It's a little chamber piece. It really is just this tight little story and he was very instrumental in taking some of the fat out and keeping it quite lean.

JS: He also taught us a really important thing in Hollywood, which is: with any movie, there are lots of things where people are like, “You can't do that.” And I don't just mean it's too outrageous, it's just too ambitious, or too impractical or too anything… I mean, like, “I don't think we can do that.” And his response always is “Why not?” And then often they don't have a compelling enough reason. Or the fact that you push back at all. And they're like, “Well, I guess we could do it if we did it this way…” And you're like, “Well then let's do it that way.” That we were scrappy and creative, I guess we could get it done. So it was like a really fun ethos to never let your gut go.

He is really punk even though he's, of course, a comedy legend and he sort of kept that ethos the whole time. Like when he was growing up in fucking Brighton Beach, he was 17 working for a porno magazine, like type setting. He's got a wild life and has always kept that very skeptical and nihilistic sort of viewpoint on everything. So, you know, we were young queers working with like an older straight man. It was like, oh, we share the same brain on a lot of stuff because you have that very like outsider, queer mindset, while not being a queer person, or just like questioning things and not accepting that the norms are the norms.

AJ: And as for the cast — Nathan, Megan, Megan Thee, and Bow — on a very basic level, they add legitimacy to it. They're all four just phenomenal, ferocious talents and they just make they just make everything better. It's like what you hope for. We love to make fun of actors. We are actors so it's allowed. But when you have a brilliant actor, it is like, “Oh wow, this is a credible art form, and look at what you can do and look at what you can create.”

JS: Yeah, they shaped the piece of course, and this sounds like such a pat thing you'd say for press, but it's literally true that they were all our first choices. Because for Nathan and Molly who have bigger roles, it was very much like, “OK we need people who are funny but like comedians-funny, not actor-funny.” Comedians come in and can take the joke and keep the joke, but there's like a new level where it's like, “Oh, you're inventing jokes that aren't even there.”

Then also they have to get this very specific stylized piece. Tons of people who are hysterical would be like “I don't get this, though.” Then on top of that, we were like, “Also I want you to be able to sing. I want people who can really fucking sing.” And so when we did that and whittled it down, there's only two humans left and it's Nathan Lane and Megan Mulally.

And then Megan Thee Stallion was a more a full pipe dream. They basically were like, “Who's someone you think would never say yes, but we've got a little time, so let's burn and ask.  They'll say no, but take a big swing” and Larry really drove it. But we love Megan Thee Stallion. And Larry was like, “I think we should ask Megan Thee Stallion.” We're like, why not fucking go for it? And then she said, yes. Crazy. 

Speaking of buds, Bowen is like one of our dearest old friends who saw the UCB show back in the day. And it's truly like that was who we always wanted for that part one because he'd be perfect for it. But also it was really sweet to us to have a connection to like the old stage show and our sort of like roots here and, you know, stuff like that.

JS: Bowen was one of those people that we found and was like, “Oh, there's a whole queer comedy community.” Julio Torres is another big one. Joel-Kim Booster and Matt Rogers and Sam Taggart. There's Cole Escola. We all started discovering each other and building this queer community together that we still cherish to this day.

BD: A group that continues to be iconic in real-time, for sure. It’s a lot of talent in one movie. In terms of Megan Mullally and Nathan Lane, there were times when I was wowed by their vocal performances alone. 

JS: I mean, a lot of people don't know, Mullally can sing. Nathan has a lot more Broadway credits.

AJ: I read some review or something about the movie and they were kind of debating whether we were making fun of musicals or not. And, like, I was a musical theater major. I did musicals always. Of course, they're fun to make fun of, but we wanted to write like it's an actual musical that just happens to be absurdist and funny. I think part of the absurdism and funniness and the humor comes from that it is a musical but we're not like, making fun. I'd say if we're making fun of anything, it's just like Hollywood and serious movies. We really wanted singers. I mean, I grew up listening to the Grease soundtrack that Megan was in and the How to Succeed in Business soundtrack that she was in and I got to see her in Young Frankenstein. So I have always known this woman is such a talented singer and I'm so glad now that other people are realizing. 

JS: We also just keep reflecting on how much Karl [Saint Lucy], who wrote the music, and Marius de Vries, who's like this legendary producer who did La la Land and Moulin Rouge, who produced it, elevated the music so much. Because this movie is really fucking stupid and absurd and crazy and silly and queer. So I think the music is so much better than it should be. And I think a lot of the comedy musicals sort of sell out the music. Having great music to ground some of this craziness, to me, is a big part of why the film works

BD: Yeah, it's the quality of it. There’s so much love and so much quality in it that it’s a grand tribute. And that’s a real feat with material like this.

AJ: Thank you. And the movie is extremely meta, but I'd say the meta stuff is more about movies or like Josh and Aaron. It's like the meta of we're gay playing these straight guys. We always call it like straight man drag and the way a drag queen is not necessarily trying to be a feminine character with accuracy. We are not trying to accurately depict straight men. So it's very meta but we were very adamant about never really selling out the songs, selling out like that meta policy.

JS: I was gonna say even the meta thing, just to give credit to Larry, was something I think he brought to it. The meta is rooted in an idea and not just… like sometimes people do meta things just sort of sell something out for a laugh, but Larry is very big because I think he wanted it to feel like the stage show. It should feel handheld and it should feel scrappy and it should feel like you're in the room while we're making the movie with us. Both being a movie and also coming from a place of not trying to be like a documentary of how does a movie get made. But more of just keeping the immediacy and energy of performance alive. 

And so it meant that sometimes you have to acknowledge the artifice of the movie we're making and that his big thing was that's actually more honest. It's like if we try to lie and pretend that you're not you, that's dishonest. But for this type of comedy, you have to sort of like let the audience know we know what we are doing, you know. 

And furthermore, some of that is out of necessity. Like we had $10 and a sandwich to make this movie. So some of that is just using the constraints as a creative, sort of tool.

But the other thing that he brought to it that I think we were not thinking of at all really was all these old, grand Gene Kelly, MGM, classic movie musicals would do—where they would put up a painted backdrop and Gene Kelly would just sell the performance and you weren't supposed to be like, “Oh, he's literally there.” It's just like, “I know it's a sound stage, but I'm so invested in the performer. We could sort of do our weird scrappy John Waters version of that in the movie musical space. I don't think either of us would have pitched that when we were making the movie and Larry was really bringing that in.

And so I think even that meta shit, which sometimes you see in comedies because they're just sort of like “wink wink, here's an easy laugh.” It's mostly rooted in him being like, “No, no, it comes from the place of handheld and wanting you to feel tactile and immediate” and that's cool.

BD: I'm glad you mentioned that because I really noticed the stage-type sets and the archival footage. You acknowledge it initially and then you're able to just live within the story and the grandeur of it and let it be crazy, which is what happens in theater as well. 

JS: And it's about translating that. So it still works as a movie and doesn't just feel like you filmed a stage show, which I think Larry did so well. Because, like Aaron was saying, it's only ever making fun of Hollywood. It's because we have to make sure this is still a fucking movie while also sort of treating it with that energy. 

Which is why when we've been going to screenings lately, I've rarely seen an audience have so much fun watching a movie. I think because it’s trying to invite you in and to participate with it— to be a part of that laugh and scream and clap and applaud, which is inherently very theatrical.