The writing-producing-performing comedy group Broken Lizard has been honing their unique brand of unapologetically irreverent comedy for over a decade. The idea for Beerfest was tapped in 2002 during the international promotional tour for their outrageous state trooper satire, the cult hit Super Troopers.
While in Australia, director Jay Chandrasekhar recalls, “At first we were booked at local shopping malls, and there were just a bunch of middle-aged women with their children, and they’d be saying, ‘Who the hell are those scrubbers?’ So we were taken to this beer festival in Queensland, figuring that would be more our crowd. But this was a mob of drunken guys, who really couldn’t give a dingo’s dollop who we were. So we went up on stage and said, ‘Hey, we’re with the movie Super Troopers, and we want to challenge the top five guys in this room to a chug-off.’”
Still confident from their drinking days at Colgate University, the Broken Lizard five boldly challenged the drinking prowess of a nation known for its rough-and-tumble lifestyle. Chandrasekhar reflects proudly, “We went to a fairly hardcore drinking school in upstate New York, and so we’d learned a thing or two about fast chugging.”
Not to be outdone by five relatively skinny actors from Tinsel Town, five roughneck Aussies stepped up to the challenge and rallied the mob of proud Australian beer connoisseurs behind them.
Chandrasekhar continues, “So we start the chug, and by the first two guys, we’re winning by a whole mug. The crowd was totally shocked at the prospect that a bunch of Hollywood actors might actually beat Australia’s best. But when the chug line got to one of our guys who’s not a fast chugger, we lost the lead. The Aussies got to their next guy, who finished easily. Meanwhile, our teammate, who shall remain nameless, was STILL working on his beer. By this time, we were too far behind to catch up.”
A pessimist might say that total humiliation in front of a drunken mob can leave scorching emotional scars. But for Broken Lizard, humiliation was a great motivator. Despite having had their confidence shaken and egos bruised, the group did what any red-blooded American comedy group would do. They wrote a screenplay about it.
The writing process can oftentimes be the most painstaking part of filmmaking. For Broken Lizard, the writing process was indeed very painful. With five creative minds in one room, a cynic might complain about there being too many Lizards in the kitchen. Kevin Heffernan offers the Tao of Broken Lizard: “When we write, there’s a lot of fist-fighting and wrestling. Whoever wins gets to own the joke.”
Erik Stolhanske affirms, “We knew that just the name alone—Beerfest—conjured up an image that we could create a lot of comedy around, so it was totally worth giving Heffernan a black eye.” Amidst the face-jabbing, upper-cutting and pile-driving, Steve Lemme also managed to crack open a textbook and learn a thing or two about the origins of competitive drinking. Lemme reveals, “We discovered that in olden days, some kings resolved disputes peacefully, without waging war. They would engage in drinking contests, and whoever won would win the land. That’s a beautiful thing, so we wanted this movie to be about world peace—more beer, less war!”
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