On this edition of THE INTERVUE, Peacock TV is gearing down to deliver a new comedy series on March 10th called “Bust Down”. Jak Knight, Langston Kerman, Sam Jay and Chris Redd as four casino employees living dead-end lives with dead-end jobs in middle America, and the massive mess they manage to make out of it.
I recently sat down with the four stars to talk about this funny series!
My first interview is with Sam Jay and Jak Knight!
So tell me what was the genesis of creating Bust Down?
Sam Jay (SJ): Whoo, ah, so long ago. I mean, this has really been a labor of love. It kind of started with a Chris Redd kind of bring us together. He had a bit of a situation like a overall production situation. And he was like, “Yo, y’all wanna make some money?” And we were like, “yeah.” He was like, “well, we could try to develop this thing.” They asked me if I want to write some let’s do some. Honestly, that was my first real check. I’ve got an entertainment. So thank you, Chris Redd. Yeah, and I think you know, from there, we just kept building it into it was so many iterations. So many pilots just kept working at it. And as we grew in our craft and grew in our careers, we just kept coming back to this thing that we loved and trying to improve upon it.
So how would you describe each of your characters?
Jak Knight (JK) Oh, I always I always call us like Power Rangers. I think that we kind of have all four sides of different types of those types of black people that work in warehouses or in the back. There’s always the same type of character. There’s always the Langston – complaining whiny character. There’s always the Chris who’s the dude who stands on the table in the club. And then there’s the weirdo Jak, and that was the whole we just wanted to make sure that there’s four different styles kind of going on distinct subject and episode
Which episode was your favorite to film or favorite to talk about after it was all done?
SJ: My favorite to film will probably be episode two. What seems very selfish because it’s kind of centered around me. It felt the most. I was having the most fun. You know what I mean? There’s that part why whisper to Langston “N***a, why are you whispering?” And like, that just felt like me. And I was like, “Oh, yeah, this feels like us.” We’re in a we’re jamming. So that’s really like, why it’s one of my favorites. My favorite to talk about is the church. The church was a blast. It was very number two for me. It was just a great funny day. We had a lot of fun that day.
JK: I would say my favorite film was probably the last episode. I don’t know if you got a chance to see it. The one to talk about totally agree with Sam church, like outside of the four of us. Gary Richardson went so crazy. Dom went so crazy. The kids the twins were so crazy. Everybody just came in and worked.
What do you hope audiences will get after the first season of Bust Down?
SJ: I just hope that people leave laughing and wanting to see us get into more stuff. You know, I just people just leave like these people are fools. You know what I’m saying? And they go and do. Truly
JK: Yeah, it doesn’t need to be any deeper than that. I always say like, you know where that show your big brother shows you like I bet you I never seen this. And it’s just silly, dumb craziness that you can just turn on when you’re drunk whenever you want.
Next I talk to Chris Redd and Langston Kerman!
Chris and Langston, how would you to describe your characters on this brand new series about see on March 10th?
Chris Redd (CR): I would describe Chris as a fuck boy with a gold hat and a heart of gold!
Langston Kerman (LK): I would describe Langston as maybe the most annoying human being who’s ever existed on this planet Earth but he means well. He’s a well-meaning person to some extent but boy, is he awful to be around and somehow still has friends. So, what a lucky guy?
Since “Bust Down” is only six episodes how did you choose the topics you guys wanted to cover in each episode because they were very heavy topics, which really opens and broadens the mind of the viewers?
CR: I think a lot of the creation and Langston can definitely speak to this too. A lot of the creation was coming from arguments that we’ve had about things or like a topic where we are bring something up in our group. We all come from different places about it or like two of us would think one thing. We just started writing down all those all those kinds of topics and attacking it from there. We also thought what could get us canceled? (all of us laugh)
LK: I think every single topic that ended up on the show was driven by a genuine argument we’ve had as a group and the four of us come from very different perspectives. We have very different wants out of most of the things that sort of like happen around us. So, that feeds the comedy. We hope that even if you want to hate some of the characters, you connect inside of the jokes and inside of the arguments that other characters are making. So, there’s something for everybody in every you know every choice we’re making.
You’re right. What was your favorite episode to experience?
CR: I had a blast doing it all. I know that sounds like a hack answer, but it’s very real. I really like the church episode a lot. It’s 105 was just like, it was on everybody. Just everybody’s base were on fire. The energy was great. It was like in the in the shoot where we had just been going for a few weeks. Everybody was back together and it was just like a great fun. And then we had the church folk. So, all we could see we could hear all the jokes working. Sometimes when you’re shooting you don’t really know it works unless your friends like “Oh, that works and that was whack.” When you have a roomful of church folks laughing after you cut, “You’re like, Okay, we’re doing some good shit here.”
LK: The church people reacting I think did something that no other episode could do. I would say that, that for me 104 still is the episode that really gets me excited just because it was an opportunity for it was the hardest episode for us to write. Because of that, it felt like the biggest victory when we finally like nailed it and got to shoot it. I think that break room scene especially is all of us firing on all cylinders at our finest.
CR: Yeah, that episode has some of the best cut stuff, too. I mean, really, we have the covering floor is really fun.
LK: Yeah, there’s an entire musical that got cut from that episode of Chris doing an ODE that I won’t give away but truly, we could not keep it and it made no sense, but it can’t be more beautiful and Chris nailed it in his performance.
Catch these four amazing comedians and creators in Bust Down – starting Thursday March 10th on Peacock
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