Brian Posehn stars in the new Christmas comedy Uncle Nick. A nasty indie-flick, Uncle Nick takes Christmas movies to new and darker places than you’ve ever experienced. You can read our Uncle Nick review right here. Posehn spoke with iDigi about playing drunk, exposing his body and how they went about bringing you the nastiest Christmas comedy in years.

Uncle Nick Interview With Brian Posehn

In Uncle Nick you whip out your dick, you get drunk, you puke anywhere. Was there any part of it that made you uncomfortable, or are you pretty unembarrassable?

"Petty typical Christmas. I think the latter is true. By the way, that’s not my real wiener. My real wiener is so massive that you wouldn’t have thought my character would have that big of a wiener. So we had to tuck it in, we used a fake one. And that fake one by the way—if you pause it—is really terrible. It looks like somebody stepped on it. If that was my real dick I'd be in a hospital trying to get a good dick. But as far as not being embarrassed, I mean, my friends have all seen my ass at some point, so that kind of thing wouldn't embarrass me. Other things would. Nudity is not one of them."

You’re usually the deadpan, monotone sort, but in Uncle Nick you get pretty dramatic. Was this difficult for you as an actor?

"Oh absolutely, but it was one that I really wanted to do. Without y'know that cliché thing of an actor saying they wanted to stretch... I did. I did want to show, again another cliché, that there are more levels to what I can do. And it's one of those scripts that I've been waiting for. It's nice to have a thing when you're in every scene. And not to downplay what I've done, I appreciate my 20 years of being a supporting character in a lot of stuff, but it was a lot of fun and it was something I was looking for. I feel like it’s kind of the perfect kind of place for me to do that."

Uncle Nick is a weird little movie. Not only does it involve a lot of Attack of the Show guys, but it also was executive produced by Errol Morris. What’s up with that? What’s the origin story of Uncle Nick?

"Errol Morris knew Chris Kasich, our director. Errol came on after we had already shot it and already had a couple of cuts of it. He might have even seen it after our first appearance at a Cleveland film festival. He came onboard to help us find a distributor and I think he really helped in doing that.

But going back before that… it came about that the Attack of the Show guys, Chris and Mike Demski, they actually knew my writing partner from Deadpool, Gerry Duggan. He had also worked with them on Attack of the Show and knew that this was a thing that they had been working for a while and had the idea of getting me to play Uncle Nick. They had me in mind the whole time. I didn't know Chris or Mike, so it took Gerry kind of getting me the script. And also it took me a while—I didn't read the script right away — and it took Gerry to be like 'Dude, pull your head out of your ass and actually read this thing.' Which I did, and as soon as I did I loved it. I don't know why I didn't read it for the first couple of weeks it was on my computer, but I just didn't. And it took Gerry being like 'Hey man, do this' and then I did and called him right away and said 'Call those guys and tell them I love it.' And then I met with Chris and we talked about me coming onboard not just as an actor, but as a producer and I wound up helping a lot in the casting. A lot of those people I've worked with before. That came easy."

What I really like about Uncle Nick is that it’s not romanticized at all. It’s genuinely sleazy. Was the attitude on set about comedy or getting as dark as possible?

"I think it was both. I mean, I like my comedy dark. We always wanted to be funny, but there's always that edge to it too. And that was in the script. I didn't add that much, other than physically. There were some lines that were mine, but the script was there and the darkness was in the script. The main hook is there. If you write it out as a logline, "a drunk sadsack goes to Christmas to try to bone his step-niece." But even my sad story has a darkness to it."

Are you a baseball fan? Or was the Midwest vibe and the baseball vibe of Uncle Nick kind of alien to you at first?

"I haven't cared about sports since a long time ago. But, I felt like playing someone who knows about sports is kind of close to who I am, because I am detail-oriented about other stuff. I think sports nerds are so close to horror movie nerds or comic book nerds, even if they'd never admit. To become a baseball fan, it's all about obsession and knowing all these tedious details. And that's the same thing as being a fan of Marvel for 30 years."

Uncle Nick drinks… a lot. You’re known as a weed guy, but what’s your relationship to alcohol?

"You know... it's the same thing as... it's a drug and it's a thing that people rely on. It's like me playing a different kind of nerd, just playing a different kind of fuck-up. I've played the weed guy in real life and on-screen. And I felt like it was close, but what I really didn't want to do is make him a cartoon-y drunk. I didn't want bubbles to be coming out of my mouth or have red cheeks or play it super cartoon-y. If anything I felt like I pulled back. But for me it was a stretch. Part of that was what was appealing about it: I haven't played that guy. I've been very, very drunk in real life, but it's been a while. I'm a scotch guy now, but I just don't drink to excess. It's hard to do when you're a dad… without making some mistakes."

If Uncle Nick takes off are you Chris and Mike working on anything else?

"Nothing in the pipe. But I'm a big fan of both those guys now. They put a lot of faith in me and I feel like it turned out pretty well. I hope we get to work together, I would do anything with those dudes. I want to work with Dark Sky again and have a great experience with them. I would love to do horror, which is more what they're known for, and I love that they took a chance on a small indie comedy. Pretty cool and it says a lot about that company."

Is there anything anyone else people should know about Uncle Nick?

"It's a small movie and you should give it a chance. There are a couple of other anti-Christmas comedies out this year and that's the way to go. If you see Love the Coopers it's basically the same movie. Diane Keaton going to Christmas to try to fuck her step-niece. It's the same story, so you might as well watch our version."