‘Weird Al’ Yankovic talks about the fake movie trailer and (semi) fake biopic that’s led to a real Emmy campaign [WATCH]

Ray Richmond
Updated ·5 min read

“Twenty-seven percent of the movie is actually true,” confirmed “Weird Al” Yankovic when discussing his Roku Channel biopic satire “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” during a television academy-sponsored FYC screening and panel on Sunday at The London West Hollywood hotel. “The idea was to have the first third or so of the movie leave people thinking, ‘Hmm, maybe it’s true.’ But then from there, it goes totally off the rails.” Watch the Q&A with Yankovic and his co-writer and director Eric Appel (moderated by TV critic and blogger Amy Nicholson) above.

Indeed, Yankovic – the musical satirist who has a supporting role in the movie himself as real-life record executive Tony Scotti – explained during his panel with Appel that the “big meta concept that Eric had” for the film was to do a parody movie about the guy who does song parodies. “We totally wanted this to feel dramatic like a real biopic. But then by the second half, you see I’m singlehandedly battling a Colombian drug cartel. But some of the things in the film are true. My parents really did decide to give me accordion lessons from (a meeting with) a traveling salesman. But my dad didn’t beat the crap out of him while he was in our home.”

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Also, unlike in the film, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was not really Weird Al’s number one fan.

SEEWeird Al Yankovic (‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’ writer) on making a biopic for a ‘post-fact age’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

The movie is jam-packed with both substantial supporting performances and blink-and-you-miss-it cameos from an impressive list of A-list names, from Evan Rachel Wood portraying a sex kitten Madonna to Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento, Quinta Brunson as Oprah Winfrey, Lin-Manuel Miranda as a doctor, Patton Oswald as a heckler, Michael McKean as a sleazy MC, Will Forte as Ben Scotti, Conan O’Brien as Andy Warhol and Jack Black as Wolfman Jack.

Heading up the whole enterprise is a very committed Daniel Radcliffe playing the grown-up Weird Al during his heyday of the 1980s. He took the role seriously, rather than the fulfillment of a joke, both Yankovic and Appel confirmed – though he was shirtless and showing off his abs and pecs for a decent portion of it. “Daniel was singing really hard on the set, singing along (to a soundtrack), and we did mic him,” Appel said. “It was his commitment to both comedy and drama that allowed us to pull off both because it was a very specific tone we were going for.”

SEE‘Weird: The Al Yankovic Story’: How serious are Daniel Radcliffe’s Emmy chances?

Indeed, Radcliffe’s performance has elevated him to third place among movie/limited lead actors in Gold Derby’s combined odds at 13/2, trailing only Evan Peters for “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” and Taron Egerton for “Black Bird.” Meanwhile, the movie itself has been the frontrunner in the GD made-for-TV movie rankings since shortly after it premiered on Roku last November. Meanwhile, both the film and Radcliffe won Critics Choice Awards early this year. It also won a PGA Award and received WGA, DGA and BAFTA nominations.

“We really wanted this to feel like an awards movie,” confirmed Appel, “but at the same time it’s ridiculous that we’ve won awards. We set out to kind of make fun of the awards movies, and here we are. But we really wanted this to feel like this big beautiful sweeping epic Oscar ,movie. It was like, ‘Can we make people cry?’.” After the panel, Yankovic himself confirmed that he’s “obsessed with Gold Derby. I check it every day.” So there’s also that.

SEEEmmy odds: Can Daniel Radcliffe (‘Weird’) break the curse against TV movies?

It’s hard to believe – or maybe not so hard – that the whole idea of producing a Weird Al biopic began as a joke. It started out as a mock dramatic three-minute Funny or Die trailer made in 2010 by Appel that supposedly promoted a forthcoming movie starring Aaron Paul of “Breaking Bad” fame as the adult Yankovic and Mary Steenburgen and Gary Cole as his parents. It played during costume changes at Yankovic concerts over the next several years.

“Then one day in 2019, I get a random email from Al saying that he’d been thinking about it and maybe it was time to do the movie for real, and what did I think about our writing this film together?” Appel said. “That’s kind of where it started.”

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