Over the years, biopics have tried to tell the stories of iconic public figures. But when you try to tell the story of a parody music artist, things can go off the rails pretty quickly.
“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” tells the story of the acclaimed singer, musician and songwriter “Weird Al” Yankovic. Billed as the “unexaggerated true story about the greatest musician of our time,” the film follows Yankovic, played by Daniel Radcliffe, and his conventional upbringing where playing the accordion was a sin, to when he rebelled and made his dream of changing the words to world-renowned songs come true. After becoming an instant success and sex symbol, Yankovic takes on an excessive lifestyle and pursues an infamous romance with an iconic pop star that nearly destroys him.
But wait, you might say — that doesn’t sound like Yankovic’s story at all! Yeah, that’s kind of the point.
The film was directed by Eric Appel and written by Appel and Yankovic himself, and the plan was to poke fun at the biopic genre and tell the most ridiculous story possible.
“That was really the jumping point for this idea was because all of these biopics play so fast and loose with the facts, and they’re usually about someone whose been dead for years,” said Appel. “My original idea was, what if we made a biopic about somebody who is still alive and made everything up?”
Once Yankovic signed onto the project, he was super excited to help create an outlandish story to tell on screen. Though there are nuggets of truth thrown in, such as the music played throughout and Yankovic’s connection to famous radio broadcaster Dr. Demento, but there are certainly tons of creative liberties that Yankovic and Appel took when writing the movie.
The actual story of Yankovic? It’s not as crazy as “Weird” would make you want to believe.
“He lives such a controversy-free life, it was fun. Doing the true Weird Al story doesn’t make for too interesting of a biopic,” Appel said with a laugh. “So let’s just make the craziest story we can.”
One thing that Appel notes about the film is that there are different points where the realization hits that the movie is a parody.
“One thing we were just so tickled by was the idea that everyone that watches it is going to have a different moment where they make that realization. There comes a certain point where halfway through the movie where even if you have no knowledge of Weird Al, things kind of go off the rails in such a way that this is clearly not real,” said Appel. “But we thought that it was so funny that everyone is going to kinda have a different moment where it clicks for them, and they say ‘Oh wait a second, I don’t think this is real,’ and it will make them question everything they’ve seen up to that point.”
Throughout the film, various celebrities from the comedy space pop up in cameo roles, including Jack Black as Wolfman Jack, Conan O’Brien as Andy Warhol, Quinta Brunson as Oprah Winfrey, Will Forte as Ben Scotti and even Yankovic himself as Tony Scotti. In leading roles, Rainn Wilson appears as Dr. Demento and Evan Rachel Wood appears as Madonna.
Appel noted that all of the cameos and side characters were people that Yankovic is friends with, and that they were super eager to work on this project.
“[Yankovic] is really good at keeping in touch with people and he has so many personal friends in the comedy world. When it came time to fill some of these comedy roles, it was just like looking at Al’s Rolodex and he showed me the list of people he sends holiday cards to every year,” said Appel. “He said, ‘Okay, who do you want to play who and I’ll just send them an email or a text,” and it was amazing how quick the responses were.”
Appel says that even if you don’t have a working knowledge of Yankovic’s life or music, viewers can still get a kick out of this movie.
“if you’re someone who likes biopics, if you’re someone who likes that type of storytelling, and I mean fiction or nonfiction, our movie kind of touches on everything. We drew inspiration from ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ just as much as Bohemian Rhapsody and The Doors,” said Appel. “I think if you’re a fan of comedy, and if you are familiar with the biopic genre and the tropes of the biopic genre, I think you’ll have a lot of fun watching this movie.”
“Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” will be available for streaming on Roku on Nov. 4. The Roku channel can be streamed for free on Roku devices, the Web, iOS and Android devices, Amazon Fire TV and select Samsung TVs, no subscription required.
