Twenty-five years after breaking onto the scene, the Broken Lizard team is back for another mustache ride with Super Troopers 3! With the film now available on Digital and arriving on Blu-ray November 3, we were recently granted the opportunity of a lifetime to sit down with Broken Lizard themselves — Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske — to break down their wildest comedy yet.
In our conversation, the group walks me through some of the film's funniest moments and shares incredible behind-the-scenes secrets about how the sequel came together compared to the original classic. We also cover hilarious character beats, their humble beginnings, what the immense fan support has meant to them, and quick updates on Beerfest 2 and other upcoming projects.
Plus, they reflect on over a quarter-century of working together to creat comedy, and how their friendship has never been stronger.
The synopsis for the third film reads, "Everyone’s favorite cops are back with the third installment of the cult comedy classic from the Broken Lizard crew: Super Troopers 3. When Farva’s wildly over-the-top Indian engagement to Thorny’s sister spirals into chaos, the Super Troopers must navigate Thorny’s schemes to break up the relationship, while trying to crack a pernicious new drug ring — all to save the day and maybe the wedding itself."
Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar and written by Broken Lizard, Super Troopers 3 reunites Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske. The film also stars Hannah Simone, Nat Faxon, Chace Crawford, Andrew Dismukes, Marisa Coughlan, Jon Rudnitsky, Lisa Gilroy, Sakina Jaffrey, Iqbal Theba, Lynda Carter and Brian Cox.
Super Troopers 3 is now available on Digital and arrives on Blu-ray November 3!
Watch our full interview below and/or keep scrolling to read the full transcription. Plus, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: Earlier on, you announced this project as Super Troopers: Winter Soldiers. How did you eventually shift to framing the story around an Indian wedding, which is its own kind of madcap event?
JAY: Well, we started with the idea of what would happen if the worst guy in your office was dating your sister. Then we elevated that to marrying your sister, and then we figured Farva's the worst guy in the office. Then we thought it'd be funny if it was Thorny's sister because he seems to dislike him the most. We kind of eventually ended up with this, we kind of logicked our way into an Indian wedding.
PAUL: The Winter Soldiers thing, we're prone to just throwing out meaningless bullshit, like at the end of Beerfest teasing Potfest. We'll just say things to people, and then the next thing you know, they're sort of assumed to be true, when often we're just going to be BSing. So, yeah, there was a while where it was like, "Oh man, it would look cool if we were running around in the snow. Winter Soldiers!" Then a couple weeks later, we're like, "Man, I bet it sucks to be shooting this in the snow and cold." So, nah. But once the genie's out of the bottle, you can't put the genie back in the bottle.
STEVE: I think the name of the Broken Lizard documentary should be Meaningless Bullshit: The Broken Lizard Story. That's our brand.
ROHAN: Jay, what’s the biggest difference between directing your Broken Lizard group—where you share 20–30 years of rapport—versus directing other actors? Is it easier or more challenging?
JAY: Look, we're all allied in trying to get this joke that we wrote together, so I don't have to explain to them where the accents are, where the lean is. With other actors, you have to sometimes make sure they're not just trying to score comedically in the moment versus in total, right? These guys know what we're going for, so it's a lot easier.
PAUL: I have to imagine also, when you're directing a TV show and you walk over to talk to the actors, in that case, the actors aren't being like, "Oh god, here he comes. What is this asshole going to say to us now?" Which is what, whether it's Jay or Kevin, anyone coming over to give us notes, we give them shit before they even open their mouths.
STEVE: Oh, yeah, like if Christopher Nolan walked up to me on the set of Super Troopers 3, I'd drop everything and say, "Yes, sir. No, sir. Whatever you say, boss." When Jay comes up, I'm like, "Give me a [frick]ing second. We're talking fantasy football here. You should know that by now." So...
ROHAN: Steve, you have a big 'Han Solo' moment frozen in corn syrup. What was it actually like filming that sequence, and how demanding was this shoot compared to the earlier films?
STEVE: That was actually—it's funny that you bring that up. For that one, the big deal was being in the vat of the syrup in the first place. There's a big tank that's been constructed, and they would have to lift me up, basically hoist me up and drop me in. The water wasn't cold or anything like that, but after each take, the question was, "Do you want to be hoisted out and brought back down?" But then I would start getting cold as I sat there, so I just opted to stay in the water tank for the entire three or four hours that we shot that thing. Which was fine. It was like sitting in a hot tub. While everybody's working around you, it got a little musty in there, and you have to pee every now and then, and so you do. But it's just like swimming in a pool, so I thought it was great. I loved it, and now I have the actual cast of the Han Solo thing being made into a coffee table. Which is going to be a great souvenir to have, probably the number one souvenir I'll have from all of the movies. And that's why I do this; I do it for the souvenirs.
ROHAN: Kevin, you essentially get to 'Hulk out' during the lobster allergy sequence. What was it like bringing that physical fight scene to life alongside the rest of the cast?
KEVIN: That was a blast because it was sort of like doing a real bachelor party where we were all in this room for two days shooting this thing. We knew it culminated with that fistfight, which was kind of an old-fashioned bar fight. I don't think we had done anything to that extent before, and so the stuntmen went off and choreographed something, filmed it themselves, put each of them into our parts, and then shot the fight with them as us. It was funny because I'm a big, fat white guy, and I think they had a little Asian guy playing Farva, doing the lines and all that stuff. It was a really fun exercise seeing completely different people in your parts. They created this thing kind of shot-by-shot, which was a very cool exercise, and then we went in and executed it. It was a lot of fun to beat up these guys on camera.
STEVE: They should put that pre-vis as a DVD or streaming extra. It's such a good pre-vis, and Asian Farva is the hero of the whole thing.
KEVIN: Yeah, doing my lines and stuff, it was fantastic.
PAUL: You've got to be careful though, because then audiences will be like, "Hey, I like these guys better. Maybe I want to see these guys in a movie."
KEVIN: Their action stunt stuff was probably better, but I wouldn't say their acting was better than ours.
PAUL: Well, we'll let the audience decide.
ROHAN: Eric, ou're all roughly the age Brian Cox was when the first movie came out. What was it like coming to terms with that while bringing on a new rookie like Andrew Dismukes, who grew up a fan of you guys?
ERIC: Yeah, it was eye-opening to realize we're Brian's age. But with maturity comes wisdom. We get wiser and older. It was fun to bring in a new generation. We talked about it for a while, and we wanted to do it organically and make it a way that the audience wouldn't sort of bump on it at all. I think we found a fun way to bring in a new guy with Andrew—I don't want to give too much away if anyone hasn't watched it yet. I thought we did a good job incorporating a new guy, and Andrew was really a perfect fit for it. On Saturday Night Live, he always kind of played the young guy, so we thought he was a natural rookie for us to be in the new Super Troopers.
ROHAN: When you're editing these films together, what does the initial assembly cut look like compared to the final theatrical version? How much is left on the cutting room floor?
JAY: It tends to be about 25 minutes longer. It's not that there's a whole bunch of different material. There are ends of scenes and little riffs, but there's also just air in between lines that we're constantly squeezing. Sometimes we'll be writing, arguing over whether this joke should be in the movie, and now we just shoot it and examine it. If it really is that good, it gets to stay.
ROHAN: When bringing new cast members into the fold—like Hannah, Nat, Iqbal, and Chace—how do you gauge who will mesh well with your dynamic?
JAY: You call around. With Hannah, I had worked with her about eight or nine times on New Girl, so I knew she would be able to work in our rhythm. I called Asif Ali, who's a funny actor on Delhi Boys, and he told me that Iqbal was fabulous, so you kind of check references.
ROHAN: Kevin, Paul, and Eric—you get heavily involved in the wedding festivities. What was the most surprising or eye-opening element of an Indian wedding that you learned during production?
KEVIN: I think the dance thing for me was totally. That's another thing that we've never really done before, a musical dance number. We brought in a friend of ours who's a choreographer, and we brought in some choreographers that specialize in Bollywood dance scenes in Boston. We spent days rehearsing it with some amazing, professional dancers. That was very eye-opening to me, what went into creating a thing like that. We wanted to try to make it feel like an authentic Bollywood moment. We watched a lot of dance numbers from Bollywood movies, selected different music, tried different music, and ultimately we came up with this dance number. I think that was one of the most fun elements to me about creating this Indian wedding, doing that dance number.
PAUL: I think for us as guys who were involved and who, as we were writing, were learning more and more about what an Indian wedding entails, we thought it was so funny. It ended up not being in the movie, but these sketches, these little bits that get done, the reluctant groom, we just thought that was so funny. We had originally written out that we were going to include a lot of stuff like that, but the wedding is also in the climax, in the third act of the movie. So the more we were writing it, the more we kept spiraling into trying to replicate these funny beats that happen at an Indian wedding, it just was killing the ability to wind the movie down to the climax. So there's lots of stuff we would have loved to have done exploring the conventions of an Indian wedding, but just didn't get to do.
STEVE: Well, and I think that's always the thing about writing and editing too. The early drafts of the script, Paul was saying, had these sketches and all this fun stuff, and then you start to realize that you have to cut that stuff away just for pacing and timing, page count and minutes, and all that stuff, which I think is one of the hard parts of making comedies that people don't realize. A lot of times you have to kill your babies, where you're removing all this stuff that just isn't totally, specifically on point with the plot. So, that's a hard thing.
ROHAN: Without getting into spoilers, the movie does something I've never seen before with Ganesha. Where did the idea to incorporate the elephant and the connection to Ganesha come from near the end of the film?
KEVIN: I think it started because we just thought it would be funny to see Farva enter this film on an elephant, which is the way we had originally scripted it. Ultimately, we went to the dance thing in front, but we originally scripted it because we thought it would be hysterical for Farva to lumber in on an elephant at this Indian wedding, and then we worked it into the drug plot without giving anything away.
STEVE: Those are the rewarding things about writing, too. Paul came up with this great connection to Ganesh, and you hear the idea and everything clicks into place. You're like, "Yes, that's exactly the way it should go. That's the solution that we've been looking for weeks on this thing."
PAUL: It only happened because we were kind of stuck in this conundrum of how to have a revelation at the wedding. I live on Ganesha Avenue, and we have multiple Ganesh statues on my mantel inside the house. I was literally—we were trying to figure out this elephant thing, and I literally was walking around my house pacing, and I looked up and I saw six miniature Ganesh statues. I was like, "That's the [frick]ing way to do it, yeah."
ROHAN: Looking back at the start of your careers, what gave you the confidence to keep pushing forward as a group and build all this lasting success?
JAY: Whenever we showed something to crowds, we were getting really quite explosive laughs, so you could feel that we were connecting with a certain audience out there. Each time we'd put a new thing out there, we were getting laughs, and we thought, "You know, let's keep going." Now we're at 9 or 10 movies, so the laughter has kept coming.
PAUL: Coming out of college, there were more of us, and people fell away. It was almost like once it got down to the five of us, I think we felt, and the audience felt, like we hit something. Even if the sketches were rough, even if everything was very amateurish, I think we landed on like, okay, the five of us just have a very natural, relatable chemistry that plays out when we perform. I think that's where we were like, yeah, this is still going to be a really hard uphill battle, but I think we're onto something with our own dynamic.
ROHAN: Your fans played a huge role in getting these sequels made. What kind of responsibility or connection do you feel toward that community when crafting a new film?
STEVE: The Super Troopers 2 thing was really incredible. You always hear that cliché, "It's all about the fans," but we'll meet people now, still, who are like, "Hey, I contributed to your campaign." You have a real sense of connection and camaraderie with them because...
KEVIN: And gratitude.
STEVE: And gratitude. They really did get that movie made, and there's no way around it. It's an incredibly galvanizing experience with this huge body of people who you would otherwise be totally anonymous to, but now you have a way of connecting with them. I've found that to be a really rewarding thing. We just did a Silver Scream Con out in Worcester, Massachusetts, and you're meeting thousands of people who are your fans and who you are now connected with because of this thing. That's a rewarding thing that I certainly never considered when we started the crowdfunding campaign, how much that would mean to me. I sometimes get emotional talking to these people. I'm like, "You made a difference. It's because of you." It's cool.
ROHAN: Besides a potential Super Troopers 4, are there any other past projects like Beerfest or Club Dread you’d love to revisit—or are you focused on new ideas?
JAY: I think we'd like to make Beerfest 2. It's a little complicated now that weed's legal, but Paramount just bought the rights to it, so we'll see what their appetite is over there.
PAUL: We've had a hard time getting our heads around what makes sense as Potfest, but I will say we all miss those characters for sure. I would love to see those characters more. I'd love to see the Germans more, so even if it's just a straight-down-the-middle Beerfest 2, I think there's an appetite for it and we would have fun doing that.
KEVIN: There have been a lot of people that ask for a Club Dread sequel, but almost everyone's dead, so it's a little challenging.
JAY: Prequel maybe? A prequel would be very kind of dull, I think—just no killing, just people having fun at a vacation spot.
PAUL: The dramatic tension of knowing these people are going to die maybe is the thrill of that movie. And, you know, we always have new ideas, too. We're always riffing.
STEVE: And we have scripts. We actually have some scripts written out that could potentially be filmed right now.
ROHAN: Awesome, well I can't wait to see it. Thank you guys so much for your time. I hope I didn't fanboy out too much, but I really appreciate it.
JAY / PAUL / STEVE / KEVIN / ERIC: We love it! Great talking to you. Thank you!
Everyone’s favorite cops are back with the third installment of the cult comedy classic from the Broken Lizard crew: Super Troopers 3. When Farva’s wildly over-the-top Indian engagement to Thorny’s sister spirals into chaos, the Super Troopers must navigate Thorny’s schemes to break up the relationship, while trying to crack a pernicious new drug ring — all to save the day and maybe the wedding itself.