LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, the creators and stars of Dicks: The Musical, in theaters Friday, said they originally wanted to call the film [Expletive] Identical Twins. That is the name of their stage show on which the film is based.
"I think we thought we could put a bunch of asterisks in it and be fine," Sharp told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "The name changed rather late in the game."
Sharp said theaters would not show a movie with the F-word in the title, even if they replaced some letters. Jackson said the Motion Picture Association also may have forbidden an R-rated movie to use profanity in the title.
[Expletive] Identical Twins began as an act with sketch comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade. Sharp and Jackson performed the half-hour musical in 2015 in New York.
"People keep calling it an off-Broadway show, but it was not that," Jackson said. "It was a comedy show in a basement for zero dollars."
Sharp even suggested they lost money performing the show.
In a satire of The Parent Trap, Sharp plays Craig and Jackson plays Trevor, two long-lost twins who meet when they become competing salesmen for the same company. Sharp and Jackson are not related, nor are they identical.
Both Sharp and Jackson are gay, but wrote the roles as straight men who sleep with lots of women while bragging about their finances.
"We've been calling it 'straight men drag,'" Jackson said.
The first joke in the movie is a title card that touts the bravery of gay actors portraying straight characters.
"It tees up what kind of movie it is," Sharp said. "It's so often that a straight actor playing gay is called brave that we're like, 'We have to do it the other way as a joke.'"
Jackson and Sharp sing their profanity-laden songs and act over-the-top in dialogue scenes. too. Sharp compared the performances to cartoons and a legendary Russian acting teacher.
"The acting is a little more Hanna-Barbera than Stanislavski," Sharp said. "You're trying to push everything out as big as you can."
The film portrays Craig and Trevor as the ultimate conservative capitalist stereotypes. They casually deride single-parent families, brag about the size of their penises and steal tips from baristas.
Jackson said those extreme jokes only work because they took the musical and choreography seriously.
"We think a lot of the jokes work because the music is better than it should be," Jackson said. "It's a big fat musical."
Sharp said the quality of the music and dancing, as well as casting respected actors like Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally, validated the absurd comedy. Sharp also said that their goal was to fit as many jokes as possible into the film.
Jackson, Sharp and director Larry Charles brainstormed background jokes, like newspaper headlines and a series of fake posters that parody famous musicals. They said A24's legal department ultimately had the final word on which jokes passed.
"The three of us would always spend these days together coming up with 100 jokes, then picking our 10 favorites and seeing which five a lawyer said could make the cut," Sharp said.
As the parents Craig and Trevor seek to reunite, Dicks cast Lane as the boys' father, Harris, and Mullally as their mother, Evelyn. On stage, Jackson and Sharp played all four roles.
"Frankly, years ago on stage, I was doing it as a bad Nathan Lane impression," Sharp said. "So to get Nathan Lane to do it was a dream."
Jackson said Chernin Entertainment executive Kori Adelson saw [Expletive] Identical Twins on stage and asked them to write a screenplay. Chernin set the film up at A24 with director Larry Charles.
Dicks adds additional characters from the stage play. Bowen Yang plays God, who serves as the narrator.
Megan Thee Stallion plays Craig and Trevor's boss. Sharp and Jackson wrote an original rap with music supervisor Marius De Vries for Megan to perform.
"That was very out-of-body," Jackson said. "I didn't expect to be doing this."
The film runs 86 minutes. That's 55 more minutes of dirty jokes than the stage show had.
"It was fun to be able to flesh that out and really give our sick minds a larger playground," Jackson said.
Dicks: The Musical expands its release Oct. 20.
