logo
Steve Gerben Talks ‘Tires' Impact on Dad's Shop, John McKeever Explains That Whole 'McKeever' Thing

Steve Gerben Talks ‘Tires' Impact on Dad's Shop, John McKeever Explains That Whole 'McKeever' Thing

Yahoo2 days ago

Tires season two rolled out on Netflix today, Thursday, June 5. Riding shotgun in the Shane Gillis-vehicle are his friends and creative partners for a decade, co-star/writer Steve Gerben and writer/director John McKeever. (For the sake of the analogy, picture a 1970s Chevy Bel Air front bench seat.)
Well, really, it is McKeever (who professionally goes by just 'McKeever') steering the car with Gerben navigating — or vice versa. The 6'3' Gillis is stretched out in the backseat — that's where the celebrity goes — but he's not merely along for the ride. We'll stop forcing the metaphor immediately.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Netflix EMEA Content Boss Touts 'Adolescence,' Debunks a "Myth," Talks Ted Sarandos' Acting Debut
'Lost in Starlight' Director Han Ji-won on Blending Romance and Sci-Fi for Netflix's Breakthrough Korean Animated Feature
Joe Manganiello, Who Starred in 'Pee-wee's Big Holiday,' Chokes Up Remembering Late Friend Paul Reubens: "I Was His Biggest Fan"
Gillis is a co-creator of the series and number one on its call sheet. He's also the guy who paid out of pocket to build the Tires set.
Tires was originally shot as a 10-minute pilot for YouTube and sold as a series to Quibi. Unfortunately, Quibi lasted about as long as Gillis did at SNL. (OK, so Quibi made it six months; Gillis' Saturday Night Live stint lasted five whole days, though he's since hosted twice.)
Early on in the conception phase, the guys chose a body shop setting for the most pragmatic reason possible: because Steve's dad owns one. Gillis, a successful standup comic and the co-host of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, put an addition onto the Gerben family business, a tire shop in Westchester, Pennsylvania. It's where they still film today. (It's also where they pull storylines: Gerben's dad had some trouble with his suppliers over a plan to sell their tires at his cost, which comes to a head in Tires season two.)
So Netflix picked up Tires for the price of an oil change, basically. OK, now we're done.
I liked the first season, but I loved the second. Would you agree that season two is even better than season one?
JM: I think the nature of the first season was— I would almost argue it was a long cold open, and really, our whole goal with that first season was to nail down the tone and the style of the show. We really just honed in on one storyline, and mostly because we didn't have a ton of production, money, time, resources — stuff like that. So we really treated season two like a season one.
Season one was famously inexpensive to make…
JM: Outside of a found-footage documentary, I feel like this is about as cheap as it gets.
SG: As cheap as season one was to make, we'd be remiss not to say that Shane did spend all his own money to make it. This time around, it's Netflix's money.
At the time, did you guys view Shane's a bummer or a blessing?
JM: When he was auditioning for SNL, I talked to him after he auditioned, and I said, 'You're gonna get it, because they don't have anyone like you.' [Shane's] an archetype that hasn't been around for a really long time. If I'm Lorne Michaels, I would see [Shane] and say, 'God, I can do so much with him' — outside of just the fact that he's mega-talented.
I think of him as like Adam Sandler. And I've always thought of Steve as like Jason Bateman. These two guys are very, very good in their lanes. And if we can find a way to mash them together, that's incredible. But yeah, when, when Shane got SNL, I thought of it as like in Good Will Hunting, where Ben Affleck is like, 'I hope I knock on your door one day and you're not there.' It was that feeling where it's like, I don't want to see you go, but I'm happy you're moving on. And then when he got fired, we definitely were like, sweet, we get to do our stuff again.
SG: One of the first things Shane did when he got SNL was ask Lorne Michaels if he could still do Tires, which is an insane thing to ask.
OK, so what's up with the McKeever one name thing in the credits?
JM: I'm so glad you asked that, because I feel like people give me shit about it.
As they should.
JM: Yeah. It's not the, it's not really the Madonna angle of, like, 'Ooh, mysterious.' It's more that's just what people call me. And because, you know, John is such a common name. My really close friends call me John, but most people refer to me as McKeever. And the other thing that I kind of realized when we started making Tires and when I started doing more behind-the-camera stuff and just writing, I just thought, you know, I have like, a three-second window in every episode for people to remember who I am. And I just feel like I should probably get rid of half of the stuff they have to remember. So if I can get them to get rid of 'John,' which is probably the most forgettable name out there…and I think a lot of times when people read 'John,' they almost don't even read the second part.
My fear was like, it would be viewed as, like, 'Who the fuck does this guy think?'
That's definitely how I viewed it.
JM: I totally get it. But it was more like I have three seconds for people to remember who I am…
Steve, you just did …
SG: Shane wanted me to do Late Night and wouldn't do it without me. Hats off to Seth for taking that risk. But anyway, I was telling Shane, like, 'I'm very nervous.' And the way that this whole thing goes down, you know, it's very like, bing, bang, boom. You're in the green room, then hair and makeup, Seth's doing the monologue, they bring you out, 'They're like, stand here, Steve you're gonna sit there. Get together, take a picture.' And they go, '20 seconds.' And so then I'm just standing there…and I look at Shane and I go, 'I'm having some pretty bad fight-or-flight right now, man.' And he just looks back and he goes, 'fight.' I don't think I've ever heard something that cool, that badass.
JM: It was so cool to see Steve be Steve, and now the world gets to see that. It is a true one-of-one. I think the nice thing about Tires is it's a true Trojan Horse. Shane gets everybody in the door, and Steve falls out.
Shane plays 'Shane' and Kilah Fox plays 'Kilah' — most of the cast uses their real names — but Steve plays Will and Chris O'Connor plays Cal. When do you use real first names and when don't you?
SG: Very early on I told Shane, 'Do a different name, like Sean or something.' He's like, 'Just call me Shane.' I don't know why we kept 'Kilah'… but Shane was just like — he didn't want to be bothered.
JM: It was honestly a nightmare when we wrote the first season, because I would write some scripts, and I put 'Steve' because I couldn't get used to the 'Will' thing. Now it's very easy.
SG: Shane does not like that I'm Will because he does not like that I'm acting. I wanted to act. I wanted, as small as it is, to separate from me the person.
How's your dad's shop doing? Has the show been good for business?
SG: No, he's not doing, like, better. He's not doing any worse. The [Tires shop and real shop] have different names, and— shops are just, they're tough to run. It's just really hard to hire right now, he's just, like, chronically understaffed. You would think, next to this set [it would get a boost], but it hasn't changed for much. But he's fine.
Did you work at the shop?
SG: I was trying to work for him, I would work the counter, and I was awful. And so, for the past 16 years, I've been working for my brother. But yeah, I just wasn't cut out for for [the shop] business, honestly.
What does your brother do?
SG: He is a trademark attorney.
Are you a attorney? A paralegal?
SG: Paralegal. (Laughs) But now, Tony, I'm an actor!
The show, especially season two, covers a lot of topics that can be dicey to approach comedically. This season, Shane brings a gun to work — and that's just the first episode. Is it a purposeful choice to go hit on all of the subjects you're not supposed to joke about in polite company?
SG: I'm going to take that one because John would be too modest to answer this. It's John. He knows how to walk that line, and he will also— sometimes it's very hard in the moment when everybody's pitching, like, funny ideas or whatever, to be the bad guy and be like, 'That's too far.' And yet he makes those decisions. And it is John. That is a very specific thing where it's like, he— Shane can walk a line too, we've all seen that. But insofar as the writing process, John is just so good at that.
JM: Steve and I, we spend a lot of time on that. There's a few rules that we we follow and that we generally believe in. And one of them is like, 'Is this funny or is this mean?' If it feels mean, it's got to go. If it's to make a point, you know, if it's to make some lame political point — one way or the other — where you're trying to get people watching, not to laugh, but to go, 'Hmm, I agree with that.' Then that fucking sucks.
We've spent a lot of time talking about, like, what we can and can't say. And I think we can say anything. I think anything's on the table, but it's that whole thing of, 'Are we making sure that the right person is the butt of the joke here?' And we are ingratiating our characters to the audience enough for them to grant us forgiveness. When we do those jokes, if you have a bunch of characters that are jerk offs and they're sitting around like, 'I can't stand trans people,' it's like well, your show's gonna suck. If you set it up the right way, I think you can do anything.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series
22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History
A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

The New OceanGate Documentary Dives Into the Depths of the Titan Submersible Tragedy
The New OceanGate Documentary Dives Into the Depths of the Titan Submersible Tragedy

Yahoo

time9 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

The New OceanGate Documentary Dives Into the Depths of the Titan Submersible Tragedy

Two years ago, OceanGate's Titan submersible imploded in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland. Now, amid ongoing investigations by the U.S. Coast Guard, Netflix has a new documentary that proposes—citing sound evidence and on-camera interviews with sources that were formerly close to OceanGate—just what went wrong on the ill-fated journey to the site of another prolific sea disaster, RMS Titanic. Much of it has to do with OceanGate's eccentric late CEO, Stockton Rush, one of the five victims of the 2023 incident. On June 11, Netflix released the documentary Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster, which documents the circumstances behind the June 2023 incident that spawned countless memes and endless speculation. While the movie dives deep (ahem) into the specifics of the Titan's implosion, including pointing out the submersible's carbon fiber construction that was vulnerable to deep-sea water pressure, the movie points a finger at Rush, who is described by subjects in the movie as "arrogant" with a major "temper." "I worked for somebody that is probably borderline clinical psychopath. Definitely a narcissist," said Tony Nissen, a former engineering director at OceanGate in the movie. "How do you manage a person like that who owns the company?" In the movie, Stockton Rush is described as having a "privileged background" originating from generational wealth; his family tree includes two signers of the Declaration of Independence. Subjects in the film recall Rush hoping to fashion himself as a billionaire explorer like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, with his eyes set on Earth's oceans instead of Mars. "Big swinging dicks" was a term Rush liked to say out loud and often, and being a "big swinging dick" himself was an explicit goal. (Rush was not a billionaire, but he had money to burn nonetheless.) Joseph Assi, a videographer hired by Rush to capture OceanGate's expeditions, says that one of Rush's personal philosophies was that "accessibility is ownership." As Assi says in the documentary: "If there's a small island in the middle of the ocean, and you're the only one you can access it, it doesn't matter who owns it, you have ownership over it because you have the accessibility to get to it. And he truly believed in that." Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster makes a belabored point that OceanGate's failings leading to the implosion stemmed from Rush's leadership. His short temper and arrogance permeated in all his efforts to build a business around deep-sea commercial tourism. This included trying to skip critical testing conducted by third parties—which is standard practice in the industry—and cutting costs where possible, such as in the aforementioned use of carbon fiber materials which cannot sustain oceanic pressure. Rush also verbally stated he could and would "buy a congressman," which alarmed many OceanGate employees. Rob McCallum, a consultant, recalls in the documentary: "Stockton said that he decided that he saw no need for classification, for third-party oversight. I stood up and said, 'I'm sorry I can't be part of this conversation, nor can I be associated with OceanGate or this vehicle in any way.' And I left. He had every contact in the submersible industry telling him not to do this. But once you start down the path of doing it entirely yourself, and you realize you've taken the wrong turn right back at the beginning... You have to admit you were wrong. That's a big pill to swallow." Rush is also described as having a callous attitude towards employees, refusing to take accountability for his failures. For example: In 2016, Rush and OceanGate hosted an expedition to the SS Andrea Doria. The trip nearly ended in disaster after Rush brought their sub into a dangerous spot; David Lochridge, OceanGate's Director of Marine Ops and a more experienced pilot, took over controls and got everyone aboard safely to the surface. Though Rush thanked Lochridge, the CEO turned cold towards him, later excluding him from important communications. Rush eventually fired Lochridge, in a tense meeting heard in the movie via audio recording. Later, Rush suggested promoting another OceanGate employee, Bonnie Carl, to take over Lochridge as the next lead pilot. But Carl was an accountant who headed the HR department, and had no experience as a submersible pilot. Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster is a cut above typical straight-from-the-headlines Netflix documentaries, as a level-headed if straightforward deep dive (again, ahem) about a disaster that dominated the news cycle two summers ago. But while the ins and outs of a deadly trip into the sea have morbid appeal, it's the movie's interrogation of one man's toxic hubris that makes Titan a worthy watch. You Might Also Like Kid Cudi Is All Right 16 Best Shoe Organizers For Storing and Displaying Your Kicks

New Doc Explores How Julia Sweeney's ‘SNL' Favorite Pat Became a Complex Nonbinary Icon
New Doc Explores How Julia Sweeney's ‘SNL' Favorite Pat Became a Complex Nonbinary Icon

Yahoo

time32 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

New Doc Explores How Julia Sweeney's ‘SNL' Favorite Pat Became a Complex Nonbinary Icon

Julia Sweeney's popular Saturday Night Live character Pat gets their plaudits (and some criticism) as a gender non-conforming pioneer in a new clip from the upcoming documentary, We Are Pat, premiering exclusively on Rolling Stone. Sweeney played Pat throughout her run on SNL in the early Nineties and even got to star in a spin-off film, It's Pat. The inscrutability of Pat's androgyny was pushed to comedic extremes, effectively offering prominent, yet thorny representation for gender non-conforming people on television long before the term 'nonbinary' was being widely used. More from Rolling Stone USC's SoCal VoCals Are Pitch Perfect in 'Just Sing' Documentary Trailer See 'SNL' Spoof Mike Myers' Infamous Kanye West Moment in Elevator Sketch 'SNL': Watch Bad Bunny Perform 'NUEVAYoL,' 'PERFuMITO NUEVO' We Are Pat director Ro Haber tells Rolling Stone in an email they 'wanted to make a film about transness that had humor at the heart of it,' and kept coming back to their complicated feelings about Pat. 'Why am I laughing at something that's meant to laugh at me? Why do I love Pat? Is Pat a nonbinary icon or a transphobic trope of yesteryear?' Haber continues. 'In exploring these questions, it was really important that the film embraced a spirit of curiosity and conversation rather than cancel culture and judgment.' The new clip opens with Karam Ann, a professor of TV studies, noting the prescience of Pat and how the relatively new discussion around nonbinary identity and the use of they/them pronouns has 'reanimated Pat from the grave.' Actor and filmmaker River Gallo, who is nonbinary, adds, 'What's interesting to me about being nonbinary, and the definition of nonbinariness, is it's saying you're not these two things. It's not really definable but only by what it isn't. It's interesting thinking of Pat in those ways.' We Are Pat will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday, June 8. It's set to feature interviews with an array of queer and trans comedians and writers, including Molly Kearney, Esther Fallick, Abby McEnany, Pink Foxx, and Roz Hernandez. Sweeney also partook in the film, as did her SNL co-star Kevin Nealon. Haber says one of the most profound things they learned while making the film was from Sweeney, who created Pat while grappling with her 'own gendered pressure as a woman trying to make it in the Ninetes boys club of comedy and SNL.' 'Pat grew out of familial and societal expectations of femininity that were placed on Julia during that time, and Pat was something of an escape for her,' Haber says. 'In the film, she says, 'It was actually a joy to be Pat because I got to have a break from having to be a girl too.' That sense of reacting to a gender expectation placed on you felt really relatable to the comics in the film and me.' { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 1, }, pmcCnx: { singleAutoPlay: 'auto' } } }, playerId: "d762a038-c1a2-4e6c-969e-b2f1c9ec6f8a", mediaId: "4665abb0-57e9-4e09-a93a-fa846cda00cb", }).render("connatix_player_4665abb0-57e9-4e09-a93a-fa846cda00cb_2"); }); Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best 70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century

Harris Yulin, Emmy-Nominated Actor of ‘Scarface' and ‘Ozark,' Dies at 88
Harris Yulin, Emmy-Nominated Actor of ‘Scarface' and ‘Ozark,' Dies at 88

Yahoo

time40 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Harris Yulin, Emmy-Nominated Actor of ‘Scarface' and ‘Ozark,' Dies at 88

Harris Yulin, a prolific Emmy-nominated actor whose career spanned more than five decades across film, television, and stage, died Tuesday of cardiac arrest in New York City. He was 88. The character actor's many films include 'Scarface,' 'Clear and Present Danger, and 'Training Day.' He also played Buddy Dieker on the Netflix series 'Ozark' from 2017 to 2018. He guested on 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' and 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and was Emmy nominated in 1996 for a guest role on 'Frasier.' He made his film debut in 1970 in the black comedy 'End of the Road,' but landed his first featured role in Brian De Palma's 1983 'Scarface' as Mel Bernstein, a dirty narcotics cop. The actor was always memorable even in small parts, such as the New York judge in 'Ghostbusters II' who agrees to reverse murder charges for a pair of rampaging ghosts. Yulin was a well-respected theater actor, making New York debut in 1963 in 'Next Time I'll Sing to You' and first appeared on Broadway in the 1980s production of 'Watch on the Rhine.' He also starred in Broadway productions of 'The Diary of Anne Frank,' 'The Price,' and 'Hedda Gabler.' The actor was set to begin production on the MGM+ series 'American Classic,' opposite Kevin Kline and Laura Linney. Series co-creator Michael Hoffman told The Hollywood Reporter, 'Harris Yulin was very simply one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered.' Yulin was married to actress Gwen Welles Nashville from 1975 until her death in 1993 at age 42. He is survived by his second wife, actress Kristen Lowman, and his son-in-law Ted, nephew Martin and godchildren Marco and Lara. The post Harris Yulin, Emmy-Nominated Actor of 'Scarface' and 'Ozark,' Dies at 88 appeared first on TheWrap.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store